View from Manhattan’s Lower East Side, before and three days after Sept. 11, 2001.
9/11/01 – Sarah, 8, looking from her apartment towards the billowing smoke of the World Trade Center:
“It’s gone. They’re just gone.”
2001–02
(Photos and art are from general time period of quotes.)
Week of 9/17/01 – Camille, 4:
“There was a big fire when the plane hit the building.”
10/1/01 – Jenna, 4:
“I think a lot of planes are gonna crash down, are gonna crash into the buildings so it could crack down.”
10/17/01 – Matthew, 4, playing in blocks and talking to himself:
“The roof will fall and buildings will fall. They didn’t know what to do. Look, you remember all the fire? Fire, liquid, bullet, and it fly on it, zoom it, and the roof fall out. And everybody got some liquid and then, then the workers fall down and they’re gone forever.”
11/6/01 – Sarah, 8, made this drawing of her own apartment between the Twin Towers and the Empire State Building. Earlier she had cried and yelled:
“Why is the World Trade Center the only thing adults can talk about!”
11/01 – Lou, 4, and Ian, 5, playing with blocks.
12/14/01 - Conversation in classroom block area between Matthew, 5, and Allen, 4:
Matthew: “Lucas and Daddy saw the Twin Towers fall down. Me and Mama didn’t. When we saw the Twin Towers it was all droopy.”
Matthew: “This is the giant plane, the plane crashed down into the Twin Towers. The plane have bomb inside it and robbers.”
Matthew: “I know about the Twin Towers. This airplane is so fast it must crash into the Twin Towers.”
Allen: “I saw the airplane crash into the Twin Towers. They didn’t know what they were doing.”
1/9/02 – Adina, 5, describing Sept. 11, 2001:
“There was a flash and that was the fire and we ran to our house and it was really bad. It was horrible. It was a disaster and it was really bad. The building crashed over into the ground almost to my building, almost to our school, and I saw this happen.”