We were all victims on 9/11. Our stories must be preserved

Healing takes time. For the families of the 147 people from Bergen County who died in the collapse of the Twin Towers on Sept. 11, 2001, the focus will always be on them. On this 25th anniversary, the names of victims from Bergen and beyond will be read again as bells ring and people grieve. That said, there's hardly a person who was alive on that day of infamy who doesn't remember where they were and how their own lives were affected. There should be room for those memories to be preserved, too. Some will seem trivial compared to the magnitude of loss suffered by the families of those who died in the attack. Yet, for the sake of those who weren't yet born on 9/11, the full picture of people going about their business that day should be preserved. Most of us were neither victims nor heroes on 9/11. Some of us remember being forced to return from the airport because our flights were suddenly canceled; or having an annual checkup interrupted mid-paper gown because a doctor was suddenly summoned to pick up their kids at school; or our long-distance phone calls failing to go through because lines were jammed. In my case, I was on the 45th floor of an office building on Broadway north of Times Square at Hachette Filipacchi Magazines, where I worked as an editor. (John Kennedy Jr. had worked on the 43rd floor until his death two years earlier.) From a cramped office with a southerly window, the staff had a direct view of smoke billowing from the Towers. We moved to another office facing east to gather in front of a TV. One staffer questioned whether the buildings could withstand the fire. Another said they were built to last. Moments later one fell, then the other. My personal inconvenience began when I lost my HDTV. I had installed an amplified antenna pointing from my living room window on East 20th Street toward the transmission mast atop the North Tower. Having line-of-sight reception in a city of canyons was not insignificant since my livelihood depended on writing about this new thing called High-Definition Television. It was the only way to get 'NYPD Blue' from WABC-TV in HD and to appreciate the pockmarks on Detective Sipowicz's face. Equally important were the 5.1 channels of digital audio, which meant that when the actor, Dennis Franz, exited in a huff, you'd hear the door slamming from a speaker coming from the same direction. Is it too soon to mention such minutia? Was I even aware of the six broadcast engineers managing the transmitter who died in the collapse? My pre-war apartment building was next to New York City's Police Academy. With the destruction of the Twin Towers, the city lost its Office of Emergency Management (OEM) in the adjoining 7 World Trade Center building. Headquarters were moved to the Police Academy. For security reasons, my street was closed off at both ends. For the next three weeks, people who lived on the block were delayed getting home because they had to show ID. The army patrolled the streets, something New Yorkers hadn't seen since World War II, as my father, a Navy veteran, pointed out. He couldn't get home to New Jersey that night, so I put him up. Op-ed continues after gallery My proximity to the makeshift OEM was surreal. I'd watch on cable TV as Mayor Rudolph Guiliani held a press conference, then moments later observe from my bedroom window as he clambered with aides into a black SUV and speed away. My ninth-floor window also overlooked the back service entrance of Cabrini Hospital. During the days following 9/11, I saw a progression of gurneys transporting body bags to waiting hearses. Then, there was the sickening air that lingered downtown. A newspaper likened the metallic-sweet smell to burning cans of Coca-Cola, and the description stuck. The odor lasted for days and was particularly noxious when the wind swept up from the harbor and over the smoldering ruins. My story doesn't carry the gravitas of those who were impacted by the events first-hand. A young woman I once tried to date died at her desk. The brother of another victim sent me a recording of his increasingly frantic calls to 911. My neighbor, Robert Zajkowski, was a volunteer firefighter in the Catskills, where I owned a cabin. Upon seeing the fire on TV, he jumped into his jeep and drove 100 miles to join the relief effort. He never breathed easily again and eventually took his own life. I was merely a witness to the horrific events that took place. I saved no lives. I suffered no dire consequences. And still, it was a day I will never forget — a day none of us will ever forget. Twenty-five-year anniversaries should be reserved for joyful events like birthdays and weddings, not mass killings. Still, I wonder if there will ever be a time when we can have a say on what Sept. 11, 2001, was like for the rest of us. Michael Antonoff, a former reporter for The Record and technology columnist for USA Today, was living and working in Manhattan on 9/11. He now lives in Forest Hills, N.Y.