A quarter-century after Sept. 11: On a dark day, humanity shone
Trending
MORGANTOWN - The entry in ink next to James Michael Gartenberg's name carried a world of hurt in 25 poignant words.
"Went to clean his office and say goodbye to his co-workers on 9.11.01 and never made it out. May he rest in peace."
Twenty-five words.
Twenty-five years.
West Virginia has been an academic destination for generations of New Jersey moms and dads who send their kids here for a degree.
Back in 2002, on the first anniversary of the Tuesday that terror called on America, the university hung a banner down from Stewart Hall, in respect and observance.
It was simple, unadorned. Names in black type, set against a white background.
Names of the more than 3,000 lost - in the twin towers, in those airplane seats and at the Pentagon.
Passengers, heading home.
First responders, rushing to the scene.
Sudden players, in a suddenly dark and terrible scenario.
Given Morgantown's turnpike pedigree with the Garden State, of course there were going to be names on that banner known to those students.
More than a few names had notes next to them.
Obvious family friends.
Neighbors.
People you automatically invited for Christmas and Thanksgiving. People who didn't need invitations.
Gartenberg, 35, a father of a toddler and with a baby on the way, worked on the 86th floor in Tower 1.
His commercial real estate firm was transferring him to its office in Midtown. Things were good.
Plus, it was the beginning of college football season, and he was a proud Michigan grad.
Go, Blue.
LOVE LANGUAGE
Personalities, jokes, quirks, trademark sayings ... all of those were why the Jersey students passing through felt compelled to scribble out time-bridges on that banner.
Haikus of heart, they were.
Some were aching in their eloquence.
Some were penned just so, in grammar school cursive, and some were automatically loopy, in yearbook-scrawl.
Others were sadly silly - lovingly so - because, well, they had to be, in that moment.
All, honoring that someone who always brought the light and who wasn't going to be here any more.
Everybody knew everybody on Sept. 11.
Even if we didn't.
Tom Witt can tell you.
'MY GOD - GRETHE'
He and his wife Grethe Myles were in the city for a conference and a kind of mini-vacation.
The now-retired WVU economist had traveled to lower Manhattan with Grethe and a family friend who knew the city for a meeting of the National Association of Business and Economics, which was held in the Marriott Hotel.
It was an appropriate address, as the Marriott was nestled between the twin towers of the World Trade Center.
The plan was to get the sessions in, then go enjoy a nice meal and some cultural divisions that only New York could offer.
Two airplanes with full tanks of fuel, suicide hijackers and two targets that were ... well, just right there ... changed those plans.
The dull thud and tinkling chandelier that morning during the Morgan Stanley presentation told it.
Witt began to worry for Grethe.
She was still in their room on the 10th floor at the Marriott. Something seemed wrong, and if it was, she may not have known - since she was dependent on hearing aids.
Myles was awake and had just showered. Her hearing aids weren't in, but she saw pieces of falling debris go past her window, the grim byproduct of the first plane hitting the first tower.
She dressed in a whir, forgetting the devices that helped fix her bearings in the world.
Ten floors down, and under a ceiling with a chandelier that was now swaying, Witt and the other attendees hustled for the exits.
He found himself blinking on the sidewalk of what would become Ground Zero while his wife, without the benefit of one of her fundamental senses, was ushered by a gesturing guard to a plaza by the hotel which led to an underground mall a few blocks over.
He was actually able to call WVU and was in mid-conversation when the whine of the second jumbo jet cut through the din of sirens and panicked buzz that was crackling, like the static of white noise, through his veins.
The economist instinctively shrunk back from the fireball explosion the second plane slamming into the second tower caused.
"My God, Grethe," he choked, before abruptly ending the call.
BROOKLYN EMBRACE
Myles, meanwhile, made it across the Brooklyn Bridge into Chinatown with a group of people who decided they'd watch out for one another.
Her husband found shelter in a brownstone on the other side of the famed bridge by other New Yorkers who vowed the same.
After several angst-filled hours of separation, they were reunited, embracing forever, in a city forever changed.
He's tried to tamp the horror of seeing doomed people jumping from the doomed towers, he said, but doesn’t want to forget the relief he felt when he saw Grethe. Especially now.
She died two months ago.
And there were dwellers (always) of a place that was supposed to be cold and impersonal, who were anything but, he said.
'CAN YOU IMAGINE?'
He got another reminder of that in late December of that year, by way of a package with a Manhattan address which arrived at his house in Morgantown.
Inside was his shattered Palm Pilot (the technology of the day) plus his Marriott room key, his hotel bill, work-related documents and other items.
His own personal archaeology of Sept. 11, 2001.
"I thought you might want to hold onto these," New York City Patrolman Bill Conti said in his handwritten note.
Witt marveled at the humanity.
"Can you imagine somebody actually finding something after all that, and then thinking to put it in the mail?"
On a day that had no rules, Witt said, people were still governed by courage and compassion.
A Ground Zero of heart, he said.
"We were a community. All of us truly became Americans that day.”