I was sitting in my office on East 59th Street, talking on the telephone with my friend L-. She wanted to know if I had a flash for the 35mm camera I own. I told her that I didn't. She was just beginning to explain why she was asking this when our call got disconnected. Simultaneously the lights went out throughout the office and people were leaving their desks, wandering the halls and saying "What the..?"
I don't know why but I suddenly had the urge to get out of the building and fast. Another woman in my office was particularly panicked and ran down the nine flights with me. When we got outside people were milling the streets trying to gather information. Most people, including myself could not get a signal on their cell phones. Bits of information was coming through, power was out in Queens and Newark and the Subways were out. I ran back up the nine flights to get my running shoes because there was no way I would be able to walk back to Brooklyn in my dress shoes. As I walked downtown on Park Avenue I gathered more news from people carrying transistor radios. There were power outages in Toronto, Detroit, and Chicago. I managed to call my brother in Nashville to see if the power was off down there but I could only get his voice mail, I left a message.
I cut under the Hemsley Building right by Grand Central Station. People were hanging out in dark bars, sitting on curbs watching the people walk by. Every few blocks people would gather around car radios to listen to the latest news reports. “There is no evidence that this was related to terrorism.” I asked myself “If it was related to terrorism would they be telling us?”
I continued to walk downtown via Madison Avenue, which was probably not the best choice as it appeared to be an express bus route. Hundreds of people were standing on line hoping to get on a bus creating congestion on the sidewalks. Each bus was filled to capacity and I could see weary commuters pinned against the glass as the buses inched away. I cut through a park near the flatiron district. People were lying in the grass waiting for loved ones, eating dinner and taking naps.
In the village I noticed a group of people standing around a car radio listening to Mayor Bloomberg so I stopped to get the latest report. His remark “the subways are out and people are going to be inconvenienced” brought on a few snickers. I turned around and came face to face with someone who I had not seen in four years. We hugged and exchanged numbers. I continued on.
It occurred to me at this point that I should get home before dark. The street lights would not be working and it may get a little dangerous. So I picked up my pace.
Storefronts were all locking up most likely to prevent looting. I was very thirsty by this time. Vendors were standing on the street selling water for two dollars a bottle. I bought one and continued down Broadway, through the campus of NYU asking people along the way if they knew the way to the Brooklyn Bridge. I looked at the clock on my cell phone, I had been walking for almost two hours.
There was some confusion at the foot of the bridge as to which way to go. I don’t know my way around down there very well so it was hard to be sure. The pedestrian bridge was a bottle neck so a lot of people chose to walk on the Manhattan bound road. Some were leaping over the fence from the pedestrian walk to avoid the crowd. About a third of the way down, people started to turn around. People were saying that the police were not allowing pedestrians to cross that way and were telling people to go all the way back to the entrance of the pedestrian walk and start over. This time people were trying to scale the fence to go back to the pedestrian walk, myself being one of them and cursing up a storm I might add. (I mean you don’t tell thousands of people to turn around like that) But it was just a miscommunication and we continued to walk on the highway.
By the time I got to the middle of the bridge I thought I was going to pass out. Not because I was tired but because I couldn’t walk straight. The ground felt unstable, I felt like I was drunk and feared I was having a heat stroke. I had to step to the side and stop for a moment because I really thought I was going to faint. Only then did I realize that the bridge, perhaps because of the extra weight from the thousands of people who were trying to cross, was swaying back and forth. I kept walking.
Toward the end of the bridge (on the Brooklyn side) people were climbing up to walk along a catwalk over a twenty foot drop to the ground below and over to the Brooklyn bound side of the highway. I asked some people why they were doing this and they explained that it was the shorter route to Flatbush Avenue. I hesitated but took their word for it (I was to find out later that this was not the case) because I wanted to get home before dark. The catwalk was fairly steady, I had to walk on a two-inch beam for about two feet. I was able to hold on to the rail in front of me but I was paralyzed in fear for just a moment. I realized that if I lost my footing I would topple twenty feet below and could be badly injured. Nevertheless I gripped the rail, took a few breaths and kept moving. I got out on the Brooklyn bound highway right before it splits onto highway 278. I had to perch at the edge and wait for the cars to pass, many irate drivers were yelling “You are SO FUCKING STUPID” perhaps they were right.
Once I got off the bridge I was utterly exhausted. I still had at least another five miles to walk but I didn’t want to stop to rest for fear that I wouldn't be able to continue. I walked down Flatbush Avenue, took a right on Fourth Ave and headed towards Park Slope.
There was a different atmosphere in Brooklyn, I suppose because people were already home instead of trying to get home. Many were sitting on their front stoops, listening to transistor radios and talking to their neighbors. I had a strong craving for orange juice but none of the stores were open. One bar, Southpaw on Fifth Avenue was open and not too crowded. They did not have orange juice but instead served me cranberry juice with ICE. I almost kissed the bartender.
I felt a little better being in a neighborhood I knew well but I looked like a wreck. My shirt, hair and pants were soaked with sweat, I had black smudges on my hands and neck from the Brooklyn Bridge and my joints were screaming. It was very dark out by this time, very dark. There was no moonlight and the stars were covered with haze but I was releived to be in familiar territory. One man was standing on his front stoop with his daughter offering ice and water to those who had walked home. I had just finished my cranberry juice so I didn’t need the ice but they insisted. I asked if there had been any news. The father told me that the power should be back on by midnight.
As I continued to walk through Park Slope, I was able to get calls on my cell phone. My brother called and told me he had been trying to call for hours. L-called furious that I had chosen to walk home instead of staying in the city. I had debated this as well but I had no way of knowing how long the power was going to be out or for how long I would be stranded. Also, because I wanted to get in before dark I needed to make a decision.
It took me a little over four hours to get home. My landlady and her daughter were sitting on the front stoop to escape the oppressing heat. It seemed as though everyone was outside to escape the heat. When I went inside, my apartment was pitch black, I had to feel my way around for candles and because I could not find my matches in the dark I had to light the candles on my gas stove. I tried to get some news from the radio on my disc man but couldn’t get reception. I was able to log on the internet through my dial up connection on my ibook but I didn’t see anything new.
I was surprised at how smoothly things went in spite of the incident on the Brooklyn Bridge. People were helpful, some were directing traffic in cumbersome intersections, others were giving out water. As I walked through Brooklyn, I didn’t see chaos or distress, rather people gathered outside making the best of things, talking to their neighbors. In the most congested areas of the walk, people were very polite and forgiving if you mistakenly bumped into them. This is more than I can say for my daily commute.
I pealed off my sweat drenched clothes in the candlelight and stepped into the shower. I don't remember ever wanting a shower so badly. I started to type my thoughts into my ibook before the batteries ran dead but exhaustion took over and I went to sleep in the pitch dark. When I woke at 7 am I reached over to my bedside lamp and twisted the switch with trepidation.
The light bulb snapped with brightness.
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