Magic 98 Remembers 9/11

Except for people who hadn’t been born yet, everyone remembers what happened on September 11, 2001. Here are some memories from the Magic Crew.

Lanette Hansen: It’s not a day I talk about, really. I was living in NYC on 9/11. I was at work on Staten Island and we had a radio on. We really didn’t think anything of it when the first plane hit, because it had happened before. Even when the announcers started mentioning that they thought the Towers were going to go down, we shook our heads. These things had their own zip code, for Pete’s sake…they weren’t going anywhere. And then they did. I lived in a corner apartment way up there, looking right at the Towers. My living room lit up every night because the lights were so bright as they tried to find survivors. The fire department near my place was one of the first on the scene. Twelve guys went, three came home. The church across the street had a funeral in it every day for weeks. I’ll never forget the sound of constant helicopters and planes low in the sky, and the heartbreaking posters of missing loved ones everywhere you turned. New Yorkers, for the first time in my experience, looked lost. Twenty years feels like yesterday.

Kathryn Vaughn: I was in the Cambridge library and the librarian had the news coverage of it on one of the TVs. I really thought it was one of those movies where they are always blowing buildings up. When I realized it was real, I felt as if the bottom fell out of the floor. I was dazed and so shocked that I went right to Lake Ripley to first pray for everyone involved (I have family there), and then to open my mind as far as I could to the beauty of the blue sky and calm water. I knew that so many other people would be freaked out and horrified, so I wanted to be at least one soul who could be holding on to the thought of a beautiful day. When I got home, I sat before my painting desk and transferred all the rushing feelings on to the paper. It took most of the day to complete it. I kept “Holding on to the thought of a beautiful day”  for its title. I didn’t want to look at it, but my best friend at the time, also an artist, loved it, and she still has it.

Jim Bartlett: I was working in corporate cubicle world at the time, and I got to work before the rest of the people in my department, as usual. A colleague came in and said, “A plane hit the World Trade Center,” and turned on the TV in her cubicle. I thought it must be a private plane, but it sure didn’t look like one. We managed to stay at work all day, but not much got done. The 9/11 story that sticks with me is not my own, it’s my in-laws’. They were in Scotland, and a day or two after the attacks were in a shop where the proprietor was so worried about them, their families back in the States, and Americans in general. Only when they were leaving the store did the woman mention that her son worked in the World Trade Center, and she hadn’t heard from him yet.

Stacey K: I worked in Joliet, Illinois, on a morning radio show doing news. I came in from the convenience store across the street, and my radio partner said, “Come here, you gotta see this!” We went to the only TV in the building of four radio stations. We saw the first tower billowing with smoke. Didn’t know why it was on fire. As we watched, we saw the second plane go into the other tower as it happened. I went to report on the air, and I went back and forth as we played music and commercials. We saw the towers fall as it happened and started to freak out, kind of. When we got word about the plane that hit the Pentagon, we said, “That’s it. We’re being attacked! We’re going to straight news.” I’m from New Jersey and knew people who worked in the city. Started making calls but got no answers. Finally got call backs around 10PM that night! At least the people I knew were OK!

If you would like to participate in a 9/11 remembrance ceremony, our friends at News 3 Now have a list. See it here.