I actually drove by the WTC 4 minutes before the first plane struck. I was on the West Side Highway when the first one hit.

I remember every second of that week a vividly as if it just happened.

I must say that, sadly, a great many New Yorkers seem to have forgotten that week. This is truly puzzling, for NYC was in essence closed down for 10 days, and 911 impacted daily routine in Manhattan for at least a year.

It is a mark of our decadence that most of of the WTC site is still a hole on the ground.

911 is a spiritual wound that NYC still has not recovered from — a sort of “phantom limb”, yet many I know in the city will face this.