I failed to realize that yesterday was the 20th anniversary of the first bombing of the World Trade Center. I remember that day well. I was in my tenth year of employment at the Commodity Exchange, which was located on the eighth floor of 4 World Trade Center at the time. I’d just returned from lunch and was assigned to cover a market called Eurotop, which had closed for the day. It was some sort of index that didn’t trade much. Someone had to stick around in case a complaint arose. If I remember correctly, its session coincided with overseas markets, so it opened in the wee hours and closed by noon. The regular crew had left. I parked my butt on the top step of the pit and opened a newspaper. When the explosion occurred it sounded as if someone had ignited a cherry bomb in the corner of the trading floor, which was about the size of a football field, where Coffee, Sugar and Coca were located. “Whoa!” came the collective cry, which was light, untroubled, cavalier even. I don’t know if anyone suspected it was a terrorist attack. There wasn’t any panic. I rose and looked in the direction from which the blast seemed to have come, then quickly returned to the paper. Soon a few people began leaving. Conditions on the floor slowly deteriorated. I believe we closed a bit earlier than usual. I returned to my regular post in Gold Futures. While I was entering a post market correction, the computer screen faded to black and the lights went out. We could still see, as there were windows surrounding most if not all of the trading floor, and the daylight found its way past the booths that only partially obscured it. No one panicked. It wasn’t until we began our descent to the street that there was a problem. Since the elevators were out, we had to use the stairs, and it was pitch black. We felt our way along the walls and handrails. The first hint at the seriousness of the event was the sight of a colleague seated with her back to the wall, apparently in shock, at the ground floor. She eventually recovered and had an even more traumatic time during 9/11, but she returned from that too and continues to work at the Exchange, one of last employees standing after electronic trading reduced the staff by about 80%. Anyway, as soon as I stepped outside I was stunned by the sight of the many people who had soot around their mouths after descending many smoky floors of the Twin Towers. I felt completely powerless and didn’t know what to do. Fortunately, the transit system had not been shut down and we were able to get home without even the slightest delay. Two of my colleagues, Fat Joe and Artie, who worked the Eurotop shift, had been in the underground parking lot, behind another car at the tool booth, at the time of the blast. Initially, Joe thought the driver of that vehicle had rolled a grenade at them, irked at having been honked to hurry along. Artie’s leg was injured. Lifelong friends, Joe would not leave him behind. He dragged Artie outside through the pitch blackness. The cold air alerted them to the right direction. There was a picture of them in the New York Times the next day. They were out of work for several months. Years later tiny shards of glass were still coming out of their scalps. They were lucky, unlike the poor souls who perished in that first attack.
The floating book shop was derailed by inclement weather. It was a perfect opportunity to cash in recyclables at Stop n Shop, as the room is usually empty on days such as this. The ever industrious Asian immigrants have abandoned that method for something more lucrative. They line up at the corner of Avenue Y & E. 15th, waiting for a truck that pays six cents for plastic bottles and seven for cans, instead of the nickel the machines surrender. The plastic bags they carry their bounty in are sometimes taller than they are. Recently, I encountered one during my morning walk, which begins in darkness. She was rooting through recyclables left at the curb, a flashlight similar to a miner's affixed to her hat! I chuckled aloud. They are a hardy lot, as are the Russian immigrants I pass on Tuesdays as I cross the pedestrian bridge that spans lower Sheepshead Bay and connects to the Manhattan Beach section. These guys are bundled head to toe to ward off the cold as they jig for mackerel. A jig is a series of colorful hooks moved up and down near the surface of the water. For some reason the fish are attracted to it. It’s not unusual to snag several at once. My friends and I used to do it back in the day.
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