The 9/11 Decade: Readers Tell Where They Were

OSSINING, N.Y. – To mark the 10th year since the 9/11/01 terrorist attacks, TheDailyOssining.com is compiling readers' answers to questions about Sept. 11. Here are some responses to our question: Where were you on 9/11?

Art Jay, a retired Ossining music school teacher, said on Facebook that he was working at Brookside School when he heard about the 9/11 attacks.

"As a member of the Disaster Committee, I kept checking with staff to see how they were doing, to make sure they were holding it together," Jay recalled. "We had a number of kids whose folks worked there and we made sure that no student was allowed to go home without being sure that an adult was there to monitor their TV watching. I held it together for two days before I broke down."

A year later, Jay saw the movie "The Gangs of New York" in a theater in France, and he teared up when he saw the Twin Towers in the movie.

"The French folks there could not have felt what I felt," he said.

Reader Carina Purple was also in school, working in a third grade classroom, and she couldn't watch TV.

"Parents came to pick up their children, but no one told us what was going on. The towers had cell phone towers on them, so there was no way to contact my father, who was working in the city," Purple said on Facebook.

"There was such a fear that there was something else coming," Purple added. "Military planes were in the sky and all the kids sat around knowing that it wasn't okay to run outside and play that day. But we also couldn't watch television because all the channels were showing emergency news reports."

Reader David Petluck recalled that it was a beautiful Tuesday morning when the 9/11 attacks happened.

"I was at my job at The Jewish Museum," he wrote on Facebook. "We all thought that perhaps a small plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. When the first tower fell I cried. I was living on 181st Street in Manhattan at the time. I had a long walk home that day."

Do you have memories you'd like to share about where you were on 9/11? Leave a comment below or join us on Facebook, or email tlee@mainstreetconnect.us.

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