Monday, the day before the terror begins, I line up with hundreds of other tourists to visit the Empire State Building. The view at the top is phenomenal. Skies are clear enough to see Brooklyn, New Jersey, Harlem, the Bronx; I admire the World Trade Center towers, and look forward to salsa dancing in the restaurant on top with friends a few nights hence. I eat a ‘Paul Schaefer’ sandwich made by Rupert G. on the steps at Rockefeller Center. That night I go to see a young bluegrass band play at an alternative hole-in-the-wall bar in Brooklyn. There is reason for the buzz. These native Nuyawkers can pick and holler as well as any band south of the Mason-Dixon. I drink and watch the local twentysomethings wiggle out new urban folk dances to traditional American music, a daring acoustic alternative to corporate pop that we are force-fed. An amazing night of American Roots music – I feel unusually proud of being an American, and drunk enough to need door-to-door taxi service back into Manhattan.
Tuesday morning stricken with a hangover but happy, I am awaken by a shrieking civil defense siren. Turn on the radio to hear Howard Stern explaining what he is seeing on TV, suicide airliners have slammed into buildings just 25 blocks down the street from my hotel. I stand in front of the CNN naked for 10 minutes horrified. And Washington too. And there are more planes unaccounted for. What the hell was going on? Who do I know down there? Where’s a towel? I’m freezing.