Alex Skolnick: relives 9 11.. like me... Everyone figured it must be a small private plane...



As I trudged up the streets of Manhattan away from the two spheres of smoke, black serpents in the sky, I saw scores of fellow New Yorkers filing out of buildings like one of those school fire drills from my youth. But this was no drill, this was real. We were all grown up now.

It was a fluke that I’d even been downtown. Jury Duty: 8:30am, Tuesday, September 11, 2001.

On the tenth floor of the Lower Manhattan courthouse, while watching an orientation film for prospective jurors, we’d heard a distant explosion. The rumble lasted a little too long.

A few among us had been disinterestedly ignoring the film. Like naughty schoolkids, they’d been listening to their portable radios with headphones, hoping not to get caught. These disobedient fellow jurors suddenly became ministers of information, whispering to those seated next to them that New York’s morning radio shows were being interrupted by breaking news. Soon, quiet murmurs had spread throughout the courtroom: a plane had crashed into World Trade Center.

Everyone figured it must be a small private plane... more

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