A hot afternoon in New York

A hot afternoon in New York

In the searing heat of an August afternoon in 2003, I popped into a Barnes and Noble bookstore near Broadway in Manhattan. I was at the end of my initial two-day visit to NY before meeting with Will and his wife to swap locations and go to Avalon, New Jersey.

The plan was to meet Will at the World Trade Centre (WTC) on Thursday, 14th August, after he’d finished work, at about 6 o’clock. We both worked for the same global financial company. I was located in London, and Will was based in our new corporate building in the WTC, which had been extensively repaired and revamped after the 9/11 attack.

This was my first visit to NY, and although I had wandered around extensively since arriving two days ago, I still felt very much like a tourist. The only area I thought I knew was Times Square, as this was where my hotel was, but otherwise, I tended to go exploring and see where I ended up. 

I’d spent a pleasant day in Manhattan and had finished all I wanted to see and do. Due to the day's increasing heat, I kept popping into various shops to enjoy their Air Conditioning. At about 3.30, I went into a bookstore. Even though I only had an hour or two left in NY, I decided to get a street map to learn the layout of NY a little better. I remember trying to plan my journey to WTC and deciding if I’d catch the subway near Broadway after retrieving my suitcase from my hotel - when suddenly the shop was plunged into darkness. Still clutching the street map whilst standing in the pitch dark, I waited for the lights to come on.

Eventually, a small ‘night light’ spluttered into life, and I heard the shop uniformed guy shouting, “Out, everyone out!”. I assumed the lights had fused and couldn’t believe that a shop like B&N couldn’t sort out a fuse. My opinion of the bookstore failing to run a generator or fix the fuse was one of derision. When the customers, all moaning under our breath, moved to the exit, I wondered how many were stealing books and was laughing to myself about the poor management until I stepped out into the bright, hot sun - and tried to comprehend what was the hell was going on. 

Exiting the shop, I emerged into a NY that had transformed entirely from the city of 20 minutes ago when I first entered the bookstore. Alarms from buildings were screaming. The staff who presumably worked on the lower floors were outside their skyscrapers, lighting up cigarettes and greedily sucking in the nicotine. Like me, they were waiting for the alarms to stop and everything to return to normal. A short while later, the warnings did stop, but nothing returned to ‘normal’. 

The first thing that hit me was the sheer multitudes out on the streets. I’d never seen so many people.  People were still pouring out of businesses in skyscrapers. Those who had managed to squeeze themselves onto the sidewalks represented only a fraction of those still descending the escape stairs within those dizzyingly high buildings.

The first major problem was attempting to cross the street. My hotel and suitcase were on the other side of the road to the B&N store. Without traffic lights to guide and filter, cars just kept coming and coming. The pedestrians on the sidewalks were spilling into the roads, but none of the cars slowed down. Thinking this was a temporary situation, the vehicles would not give way to anyone. No pedestrians were dumb enough to try and cross the road. Eventually, I could hear a loud voice shouting, “All be prepared to cross on the count of 3 - slowly and deliberately - we keep walking”. I was impressed that we could hear our facilitator. All the pedestrians were silent, no phones were ringing, and no one was chatting on phones or to each other - it was frankly creepy. Downtown NY’s soundtrack that Thursday afternoon consisted only of the cars' engines. The pedestrians’ faces looked grim. I began to feel fearful. This was something alarming.

“1 - 2 - 3”, shouted the anonymous pedestrian.  I took a deep breath and joined the hundreds crossing together, looking like participants of an avenging army. Cars stopped, and no one hooted or opened windows and yelled at us. The vehicles patiently waited, eventually slowly sliding forward and continuing their journey.

I still had a few side streets to navigate - choc-o-block with cars, taxis, buses and delivery vans. Again I could hear "1 - 2 - 3 walk", and off we’d go again, hearts in mouths, cars revving as a way of saying ‘hurry up’. No taxis were taking customers, and all ‘Hire’ signs were dimmed. Occasionally, from the sidewalks, I’d hear a shout of “Taxi” followed by “Jeez” as the taxis ignored them. 

My body strained to spring into action whenever I heard the “1 - 2 - 3” command, wondered when the lights would come back on. How many of these thousands of people would soon be taking the subway? Should I take the subway to Will’s office? 

“It would surely be better to take the subway now rather than wait for the lights to be restored’, I reasoned. 

I felt comforted that I had finally made a sensible decision that would allow me to get off these overcrowded, suffocating, claustrophobic sidewalks full of solid, well-fed pedestrians. 

I found my hotel and fought my way in, amazed that the lobby was unlit. The entrance bore zero resemblance to the quiet, orderly place I had left a few hours before. The heat hit me as I stepped into the gloomy darkness. It was full of people, standing shoulder to shoulder, all demanding help. The difference in sound level from the main streets' peacefulness to the hotel lobby's rowdiness was phenomenal. The hotel staff were anxiously trying to deal with all the frantic questions: 

"How long is this going to last?” ‘Are airports functioning?” Can you get me a taxi?” 

All the phones were silent.

Looking around, I saw an enormous Hotel Porter. Surely he could help me.

'Excuse me, I left my suitcase at reception, and I need to collect it’.

‘What colour’?

‘Black’.

‘Well, good luck, miss’, he said, opening the door of a dark cupboard piled high with suitcases of all sizes thrown everywhere. Most bags were, unfortunately, black.

‘My god’, I said, peering into the darkness.

‘Not our fault - everyone went nuts when the lights went out’. He looked at me and, hearing my English accent, took pity on me.

‘OK, what size?’ he said, producing a torch.

‘Medium’

He passed the torch over the higgledy-piggledy pyramid and miraculously found my medium-sized, tatty, black suitcase. 

‘How long will the blackout last?’ I asked.

‘God knows.’

‘Will the subway be running?’

‘What do you think, lady?’ his voice loaded with sarcasm.

The answer was clearly ‘No’, but I genuinely couldn’t think why the subway wouldn’t run. I heard someone not far from me saying: ‘I feel so sorry for all those trapped on the metro trains under our feet. Can you imagine how hot it must be?

I shuddered. I began to understand the reality of the nightmare that was NY. Thank god I had been in a ground-level air-conditioned bookshop when the lights went out.

In all the chaos, I tried to picture the map of NY in my head and visualise my onward journey and how I would get there. Perhaps buses were running, or taxis might be picking up fares again (forgetting that there were no traffic lights or traffic police). I was surprised at how difficult it was to grasp reality. My mind was still caught up in a fairy tale land of NY normality. 

’Yea, lash out and pay for a taxi.’, I thought. ‘I can’t possibly walk to the WTC dragging a full suitcase and carrying my hand luggage’. 

Fighting my way out of the hotel, clutching my suitcase handle, I turned right and - oh my god - the people. The utter chaos of shuffling feet in the quiet streets still shocked me. How on earth had I even considered a taxi? If a cab were driving through Manhattan that August afternoon, did I think all these frightened pedestrians would happily step back, watch me daintily step into the back of a cab and allow me to be transported to the WTC? I would surely be lynched or worse. My brain was not functioning properly that hot afternoon.

It wasn’t just me who couldn’t work out how to function in a city that had reached a standstill. As I left the hotel, I heard the crowds in the lobby demanding cars to take them to the airport and couldn’t believe it when told there were no cars, no buses, no taxis and no phones. As I tried to push past subway entrances, crowds were trying to beat their way into the subways, finding it incomprehensible that the subway was in complete darkness, boiling, and no trains running as most were stuck in pitch-black tunnels still full of commuters.

I dragged my suitcase alongside me, competing for space with thousands of others. The temperature was about 92F, and the sun was beating down. Each person possibly had about 24 inches maximum to call their own, but me dragging a suitcase and carrying hand luggage meant I needed another 24 inches. I was surprised that no one yanked the bag out of my hand and threw it into the street. Miraculously we just walked silently and determinedly, each with our own goal. There was no witnessed rioting, looting, mugging or threatening behaviour. Trudging on, I became convinced that we were in the middle of a terrorist attack, and the silence was unnerving.

I had never been so tightly constricted, and it was amazing how dirty we all became in such a short time. I started the day with a new white T-shirt. By the time I had been stumbling along the sidewalk for about fifteen minutes, it was dingy grey; within thirty minutes, it was almost black. Sweat was pouring down my back, and my mucky feet rapidly began to suffer. Office workers’ crisp white shirts started to resemble dirty rags on their backs.

In the silence of struggling to keep perfect pace with my fellows on the sidewalks, I thought about the situation. It was only two years since the Twin Towers attack, and this was still fresh in our memories. It felt as if we were prisoners of war and being made to march, but if so, who were our captors? I looked at the faces of my fellow walkers - no one was smiling. It was clear that fear was our invisible travel companion.

We kept walking until another intersection approached. We’d pile up at the curb on each corner, making breathing increasingly difficult. Cars sped past. All taxis and buses had disappeared. 

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The only thing I could get plenty of was water, warm water. At the kiosks, pedestrians would throw themselves at a booth and demand cold water. The kiosk guy would say, ‘no ice, only warm water’.  

‘Nah, can’t drink warm water’.  

I’d be behind shouting anxiously, ‘Give me a bottle’. 

Buying a water bottle was the only time I spoke to another human being during the whole journey to the WTC. 

I had a mobile phone. It didn’t work! Had I failed to plug it in last night? Had my sim card run out of credit? I began to curse myself. How the hell was I going to get in touch with Will? Did he realise that the centre of NY was without electricity? Did he know taxis were a figment of imagination? - and that the subway had come to a grinding halt? Did he think I could find my way to the WTC? We were supposed to meet at six, could I get there in time?

It turned out that most people’s phones didn’t work. The lack of communication increased our conviction that we were victims of another terrorist attack but mysteriously had avoided being killed. To be in a highly sophisticated city that had lost all its communication systems, had no public transport, and had so little on offer to buy except warm water and rapidly melting ice cream was challenging to comprehend. I could feel, however, a strong, silent wave of camaraderie from my fellow walkers. It was a hard, hot, and dirty walk. 

As we approached yet another intersection, the heaving masses braced themselves hoping for the “1 - 2 - 3” shout. Two boys, I guess no older than 16, turned up on their bikes. They dismounted, walked purposefully into the middle of the road, and began directing the traffic. One kid stopped the oncoming traffic with one hand and beckoned the stationary traffic with the other.

Meanwhile, the other kid directed the pedestrians, and then they swapped roles and kept traffic and pedestrians moving. 

Amazingly, the cars did precisely as they were told, and we, the pedestrians, did exactly as instructed. No one disobeyed the young boys. I have no idea how long the kids took control of the traffic, but they executed a perfect job until the police finally turned up and took over. Another two boys were at the next intersection and executing another remarkable feat. 

As a tourist, I assumed these were police cadets or some organisation that trained school kids to do this. Later, when I discussed this with my NY friends, they were amazed that the boys had leapt into action so effectively and had zero idea who they were. 

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I finally got to Greenwich Village, my first visit, dragging my soiled suitcase, my face black and sweaty, my t-shirt almost unrecognisable from the new item I had pulled over my head that morning. I failed to experience any feeling of tourist joy; instead my head was ever downward facing and persuading my feet to pound ever onwards. 

Would I find Will? Had he gone home without me? I stopped at public phones and tried ringing the huge corporate company where Will and I were employed. I could get the phone to ring, but it went straight to an answering machine. I’d never known a substantial corporate company using an answering device during the working day. I still failed to comprehend that there was ‘no working day’ - NY was closed. 

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It seriously felt like the ‘Bomb’ had been dropped. The number of people never diminished. I couldn’t say if I walked with the same people - I never looked, and I don’t think they looked at me. I have no memory of ever stopping. I started at about 4 o’clock, and think I finally arrived at about seven thirty as the blazing hot sun was finally dipping. Dragging my suitcase made my arm feel like lead, and my carry-on luggage slung across my chest made my back muscles hurt like hell. I must have stopped for the toilet but have no memory of where I could have gone - all shops, bars and cafes were closed.  

The vast number of pedestrians and long waits at road intersections increased substantially how long our journey took. The walk should have taken about an hour - instead, it took nearer to four hours.

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I approached Liberty Street and looked for my corporate building. The WTC, still a partial building site two years after the 9/11 attack, looked entirely different from any illustration I had seen. Exhausted, I walked into the Atrium of our enormous building. As the Atrium began to fill with thousands of people who’d walked with me, tears rose as an inner surge of triumph over adversity flowed through my worn-out body.

I almost immediately heard Will calling my name. 

As Will whisked me off for coffee and a cold drink, I looked out the window and saw the Hudson and, further afield, New Jersey.

‘How are we getting across the Hudson?’ I asked.

‘Don’t you worry, we’ll catch a ferry”, Will said reassuringly. 

He told me later what he wanted to say was, ‘I have no idea’.

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It took nearly 30 hours for full service to be restored. The blackout was caused by a software bug in the energy suppliers' control room's alarm systems.