All artwork, writing and photography Karen E. Stober © August 2002

On Saturday, September 8, 2001, I attended a concert by Yes at Radio City Music Hall, in Manhatten. I took the bus home, back to New Jersey. One sees the NYC skyline from the NJ side of the Hudson from a bus very, very well. Usually I don't bother to look at the NYC skyline at all. Never changes, never will. But, something made me look for the Twin Towers. I just HAD TO SEE THEM. I was briefly disturbed when I could not find them, they were gone, no they can't be gone, buildings just don't go away like that. Of course, I was staring right at them. I realized all but the top floors, where the observation deck and Windows Of The World Restaurant were, would be dark, since they are business offices and everybody was home for the weekend. Relieved, I took a long look and the bus went on. This would be the last time I would see Manhatten’s “Two Finger Salute”, standing. September 11, 2001 was a glorious late Summer day. The sky was a clear robins egg blue. No clouds. Not that I really cared, since I was stuck in a gray, windowless cube in an office. Dad called about 930AM and told me the news. I tried to get into a couple of news websites and had great difficulty. The Twin Towers were burning. I was unaware that CNN was on in the company cafeteria. “Bin Laden” was on the lips of people around me. The buildings came down, taking one employee of the company I was with at the time, IBM/AT&T. We were released from work at 10:30. Police were at the company driveways, checking all. They were there the entire month of September. No visitors were allowed in that month, even van pool drivers. They had to do all pick ups on the street. I immediately went home, changed and got my camera. I had a roll of 1000 speed from a vacation with a few shots left. Drove right over to Washington Rock State Park in Green Brook, NJ. The view of the Manhatten skyline is great there. What a mob scene. It was approximately 11AM. You could see something was very, very wrong on the skyline of Manhatten. My first impression, “They're gone....”. There was nothing but smoke where the Towers were less than an hour earlier. I live under the main approach route for arrivals into Newark Airport; and the air was deathly quiet and still. The FAA had shut down all air traffic in the US. I could see the Air Traffic Control Tower of the airport in the distance. It was from here the orders to take off came for United Flight 93 which had just moments before crashed in PA. A friend of mine lives nearby that crash scene and all he describe of it was “Horrific...”. On September 14, 2005, I recieved an email from Sam Hine. He wrote: I notice your interest in the heroes of Flight 93. Please consider adding a link to Bruderhof Peace Barn - A Flight 93 memorial on this page. The Bruderhof Peace Barn is a project of the 5th-8th grade students of the Spring Valley School in Farmington, Pa. These students have converted an old barn into a memorial for the heroes of Flight 93. In addition they have handcrafted the memorial benches for each passenger and crew member at the nearby Flight 93 crash site in Shanksville. The new Peace Barn website has a beautiful online Flight 93 Memorial with pictures and biographies of all the passengers and crew. Thanks, Sam Hine Some people at the Park had freaked out when they saw the Towers come down. Almost all of us had cameras and were helping each other get good shots by moving tree branches or taking a shot for someone else. The sun shown brilliantly and birds sang, while about thirty miles away Manhatten burned and 3000 died. It was a very strange juxtaposition. The cops gave up trying to make any order of the traffic and people. And, then, my photo became part of The September 11 Photo Project.

Here are some September 11 links you may find interesting. A walk thru of the WTC neighborhood two weeks after the attack. Here is a humor, satire, caricature and political cartoon page related to September 11: This one pokes fun at Bin Laden.

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