9/11: The Falling Man, Remembered

Andrew Donaldson

Born and raised in West Virginia, Andrew has since lived and traveled around the world several times over. Though frequently writing about politics out of a sense of duty and love of country, most of the time he would prefer discussions on history, culture, occasionally nerding on aviation, and his amateur foodie tendencies. He can usually be found misspelling/misusing words on Twitter @four4thefire and his food writing website Yonder and Home. Andrew is the host of Heard Tell podcast. Subscribe to Andrew's Heard Tell SubStack for free here:

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6 Responses

  1. North says:

    I was in university in Nova Scotia when the news of the attacks came in. As far away as I was it was merely disquieting rather than devastating. There were even stranded passengers housed at my campus. I just remember how disquieting it was. I could tell, even then, that an era was passing. I was 21 years old and had visited my husband to be a couple of times in the States. I remember how easy it was to fly before 9/11 and how utterly miserable it was to fly afterwards.
    I remember seeing an editorial cartoon with Clinton on the left as a jovial sun reigning over a happy landscape in the end of history glow of the fall of the Soviet Union and George W. as a bleak moon over the dark landscape in the shadows of 9/11. It struck me as appropriate.
    It was the turning of an era, though, for sure. The end of an age of comparatively low intervention level (at least in terms of boots on the ground) for the US in world affairs. We didn’t know it at the time but it was probably the turning point where Reagan era conservativism began to spiral down to the decayed Trumpism it has rotted into today. A lot changed on 9/11.Report

  2. Saul Degraw says:

    I was in the gym at college and it was on the news but there was no volume on the TV so I thought that it was just a very bad fire because all I saw was the smoke and fire of upper floors. When I left the gym I ran into a friend and she said that they flew planes into the WTC.Report

  3. Jaybird says:

    We wrote a bunch of essays on the 10 year anniversary. Anything I say today will be a rehash of what I said then. Here’s a link to the archive page that covers September 9th to September 12th, 2011.Report

  4. LeeEsq says:

    9/11 literally occurred a day before my 21st birthday. I was getting ready to go to class at my college in DC, when a Russian exchange student came and told me that two planes crashed into the World Trade Center. I then remember spending the rest of the day in a panic and trying to call my dad because he worked in the city. It took hours to get through. Luckily, he got turned around on the bridge and was sent back home. I remember my emotional state being basically high jingo and blood thirsty for revenge against whoever did this. Two days later some punk decided to do a bomb scare at my university, so everybody was kicked off campus while people looked for a non-existing bomb.Report

  5. CJColucci says:

    On the morning of 9/11, I was stuck underground for two hours on the No. 1 subway line just north of the14th street station. I didn’t think much about it because on 9/10 I had been stuck in the same place for an hour. When I finally did emerge, just before 11:00, the crowd did not look the way an 11:00 a.m. crowd on Union Square would.

    I starting walking down Broadway to get to my office, about a mile south, across the street from the WTC. I didn’t know what the smoke I saw was all about, but the bars and restaurants were a lot more crowded than they would normally be that time of day. Then I heard a parking garage attendant say to no one in particular “they’re gone, man. They’re gone.”

    Realizing that something was up, I stopped, looked into the window of a bar, and saw people gathered around the television. I went in and saw what the whole world had seen by then. I also learned that I would not be allowed to proceed to my office, so I turned north, looking for working subway lines that would take me somewhere near home. I couldn’t find anything running south of 34th street, and the line that would take me nearest to home wasn’t running. Eventually, I found a line that let me off in upper Manhattan. I crossed the Spuyten Duyvel and walked another mile or so to my house. By then, my wife, who worked in the Bronx, was home, and there were panicky messages on my answering machine.Report

  6. Ozzzy! says:

    It’s a phenomenal picture, and one that shouldn’t be hidden.Report