Downtown Doodler: Remembering 9/11

Everyone knows where they were when they heard the news about the planes crashing into the World Trade Center Towers. I was still in high school. I remember sitting in history class on September 11, 2001, learning about foreign lands and wars that occurred years before I was alive, wishing history would be over. Little did I know that a new history was just beginning. Just after 9:00 am I walked to my architecture class and I heard rumblings of a plane hitting a building in New York City. It sounded so absurd at the time. Who would do such a thing? My architecture teacher turned on the news, we watched in awe as the towers fell. What happened now? I barely knew the time before I had to take off my shoes before going on a plane and packing my bags with tiny shampoo bottles and colored alert levels. War wouldn’t be something I saw reenacted in a Tom Hanks miniseries anymore. It would involve my friends, my classmates and my neighbors.

I made this piece in honor of the 10th anniversary and it lists all of those we lost on 9/11. This column is dedicated to Alayne Gentul and all the other victims of the horrific events of September 11th as well as their families who continue to miss them.  It is also dedicated to Gary Lajiness and the other brave members of the FDNY and NYPD who put their lives on the line on September 11th and days and weeks after to help rescue and rebuild the city of New York and the nation.

If you want to see a larger version of this click here.

Huge thank you to Al Delaney for helping me work out the kinks in my design, and always being my rock.