I was debating whether to write this today. Today’s post is going to be a little different than our usual news story. (I’ve got a great business story for you tomorrow, and an exclusive interview with the investigator of a financial fraud case probably the following day)
It’s the 25th anniversary of the attacks on American soil.
We’re in a very different world in many different ways. My life is very different. I hadn’t written my first journalism piece yet. At the time of the attacks, I ran a small booth in the Wausau Center mall.
But one thing that’s occurred to me is this: Every single place I went to on Sept. 11, 2001 no longer exists.
The apartment I woke up in, surprised to see some of our couch-crashers glued to the news, is gone. I worked the closing shift at my mall store, so I spent the morning with some, let’s say, interesting characters glued to the screen in disbelief.
I’ve recently heard some Zoomers express disbelief that we watched the events live. Many of us indeed watched the second plane crash into the towers, since by then it was all any of the networks were showing. People of my generation watched the Challenger shuttle explode in real time too, in my case on those TVs hauled around on metal carts in my elementary classroom. (A school teacher was one of the astronauts, so many schools used it as a reason to watch it.)
I walked in a bewildered state to the mall that day to start my shift. Within an hour, the mall was shut down for the day. (Years before it was permanently shuttered and demolished.) It might seem silly today, but I recall a woman on a bench outside the mall in the Third Street pedestrian plaza saying she thought our mall would be next. I thought it highly unlikely at the time but we all did wonder what was next.
A number of us mall workers made our way to Scott Street Steak and Pub, since we wouldn’t be working. We commiserated, trying to make sense of it and, while no one mentioned it, needing a bit of shared humanity.
Scott Street Steak and Pub is gone, a parking lot in its place.
One of our friend group from one of the mall’s jewelry stores in the evening took us to a steak dinner at Hereford and Hops, the only time I had a prepared steak instead of using it’s grill-it-yourself feature it was known for.
Of all the places, it’s the only building still there, but Hereford and Hops closed nearly two decades ago and Great Dane Brewing Co., which took over the spot, also closed more recently.
I’m not sure what happened to the gas station we passed on the way home, with lines of cars filled with people desperate to fill up before the inevitable gas price surge (which happened to a degree but not nearly to the point people thought).
I’ve heard my grandparents talk about knowing exactly where they were when JFK was assassinated. I think we all knew this was going to be one of those moments in our lives on Sept. 11, 2001.
But it hadn’t occurred to me at the time how all those places of my young adulthood would simply have vanished. There is an account on X that is reliving 2001 as if it’s happening in real time (people start these for a variety of time periods). But it occurred to me I couldn’t retrace my steps that day if I wanted to. That apartment building along the north end of Grand Avenue is a parking lot. In the mall’s place is an apartment building and some ready-to-develop pads. The pedestrian walkway is a street now. Scott Street Steak and Pub is a parking lot. And Hereford and Hops is an empty building.
The buildings are gone, but the memories of that day remain.
Today I am leaving the comments open. Feel free to share your memories of Sept. 11, 2001.
Thanks for writing this today. I was driving to my office downtown that morning after the first plane had just hit and the car radio newscaster still thought it might be an accident. By the time I parked in the McClellan St ramp (also gone now), and walked across the skywalk to my office, the tv news had figured out it was no accident. The second plane had hit while I was walking in. We spent the day huddled around a 13” screen on the TV/VCR combo in the conference room watching in pure horror. Half of us were crying for people we didn’t know. No work got done. The rest of that day and the few days that followed were a blur of disbelief, heartbreaking scenes and endless news broadcasts. I was 31 at the time. The memory is vivid but at the same time it seems like a different lifetime. People who didn’t live it will learn about it, but they will never really understand. In the months that followed, America was united. United We Stand merchandise filled the stores and we bought it. Companies sold items where proceeds went to the 9/11 fund. I remember buying two special beanie babies at Janke’s. A police dog and a fire dog with names like Courage and Rescue. The rest of the year was a mixture of sadness, anger, pride and unity we haven’t seen since.
I remember working at Creative Communication & Design on 911 when Dave Coulthurst stepped away from his computer and announced, “the Pentagon has been hit.” The mood quickly changed around the office as we realized that the events unfolding in real time were not accidental but very intentional. Creative is also gone from that Stewart Avenue building.