I was a government employee in 2001, working as a legal
secretary for the Postal Service. We handled labor and employment cases:
sexual harassment, discrimination, wrongful termination, those kinds of things.
Our office was on the 7th floor of a building on Main St. in San Francisco. The building itself has an interesting history: during World War II, it was used as a waystation for the bodies of
soldiers killed overseas. One stop on their journey home to their next of kin. During
the Korean War, tanks were built in this building. (The freight elevators were
unusually large, I always wondered why.) My custodian friend, Lance, showed me
the bricked-up tunnel in the basement that ran (still runs) under Main Street
to the building across the way, which, last I heard, houses a software company.
I was once told that this building is one of the most solidly-constructed
buildings in the city; it would literally take a week to collapse in the event
of an earthquake. It also served as the dead letter station for all mail west
of the Mississippi. If you were ever told your letter got lost in the mail, it
probably ended up here.
Besides the Postal Service, there were other government
agencies there: the Postal Inspectors' office was two floors down, the Postal
Police, the IRS and the DEA all had offices on Main St. Given that all these
agencies were in the building, security was pretty lax. People could just walk
in off the street. We kept saying we needed tighter security, key cards and
gates at least, but kept being told there wasn't enough money. It wasn't a
priority.
In 2001, I lived in the Sunset District of San Francisco. In
those days, free street parking was plentiful if you knew where to look, so I
drove to work every morning. My shift started at 7:30, so I never had a
problem. The morning of September 11 started out pretty normal. I got up
early, got in my car and drove downtown. I never watch TV in the mornings,
because I am a TV addict and if I ever turned it on, I would never leave the
house. So, I didn't see any news reports. Driving in my car, I had a cassette
tape in the tape deck, so I didn't hear any news reports. (It was my 1997
Saturn coupe, the car I just got rid of last year.)
I found a parking space and proceed to walk up Main St. to
the entrance. Now, in all the time I had worked in this building, I had never
once been stopped or made to show ID. That lax security, remember? No sooner
did my foot cross the line between public sidewalk and private lot, than I was
surrounded by people carrying guns and demanding to know who I was. There were
uniforms and black jackets with white-lettered anagrams on the back; pistols and
automatic rifles. It looked like someone had just told anyone with a gun to get
downstairs ASAP. I had no idea what was going on. While I was digging through
my bag looking for my ID, my friend from the Postal Inspectors' office saw me
and waved me through.
I ran inside and got into the elevator. I rode up to the 7th
floor with two men I didn't know. They were talking about something they'd seen on
TV. They had watched the World Trade Center fall down. I thought they were
talking about a movie or a TV show. The World Trade Center can't fall down.
Not really.
I reached my floor and got out. Normally at this time of the
morning, the office was quiet as a tomb. It was one reason I liked coming in
that early: I could get work done before people started bothering me. Not this
morning. Phones were ringing, people were running from office to office. Now I
knew something had definitely happened. I walked into the nearest attorney's
office, a guy named Andy. I asked him what was going on. He told me that
someone had flown a plane into the World Trade Center. Then I asked possibly
the stupidest question anyone ever asked: "With people on it?" Yes, he answered, with
people on it.
I walked slowly to my desk. I turned on my computer and
immediately tried to get to my favorite news sites, CNN and MSNBC. I couldn't
get through. (Of course not.) Finally, I remembered my dad listened to talk
radio all day in his office while he worked. He must know what's going on. I
called him up and asked him, "Dad, am I the only one in the world who doesn't
know what's going on?" He said, "Probably." And then he proceeded to tell me.
I don't really remember my immediate reaction. Probably
disbelief like everyone else. I do remember being frustrated that I couldn't
get any other information. We had just moved into that office space and the TV
in the conference room hadn't been hooked up to cable yet. You could only get
grainy local channels. For the next half hour, all we got was piecemeal
information from questionable sources: there was another plane heading towards
San Francisco, then towards LA. The Golden Gate Bridge was a target, the
Transamerica Pyramid was a target, Disneyland was a target. We got word that
Willie Brown had closed all city government offices and was sending everybody
home as a precaution. We wondered if we were going to go home. We were the
feds, we could be a target too, right? (Although, in all honesty, I don't think
anyone who blew up an office full of government lawyers would be called a
terrorist. They'd probably get a parade.)
Then, around eight o'clock, the Postmaster General issued an
order that all non-essential personnel were to leave immediately and go home.
Non-essential, that was me! I wasn't going to get any work done, anyway. I was
home by 8:30. I walked through the door, turned on the TV and literally sat on
the floor in my work clothes. I spent the rest of the day there, eating my cold
lunch and watching the endlessly repeated loops of the Trade Center falling down
and the Pentagon burning. I killed two phone batteries talking to my family.
My mom wanted to know if I thought I should be where I was, given that I lived
near SF State. I told her I didn't think they would bomb a state university. I
felt they had made their point. Mom told me she couldn't reach my brother. He
was still a Marine then, and living in North Carolina. I figured he was busy.
I remember feeling angry, sad and horrified all at the same
time. I remember thinking we needed to hunt whoever did this down and kill them
all. I was that angry. This was a first for
me. Nothing like this had ever happened to me. I felt this was going to be as
big for me as the Kennedy assassination was for my parents. (I recently spoke
to my parents about that day, and they both spent it doing exactly what I was
doing: glued to first to the radio and then the TV. They watched Oswald's murder
live.)
When I returned to work, I noticed some changes. We suddenly
had a security gate and key card access. I guess somebody found the money or
decided that security was a priority. We also got something else we hadn't
asked for: a bright, shiny, new flag pole with an American flag right in front
of the building. I guess that was suddenly a priority, too.
Life slowly got back to normal. I eventually left the Postal
Service and moved on to other things. But I still see that building from time
to time. The Law Department is still there, although I don't think I would
know anyone now. The parking lot has since been partly consumed by a public
lot, but there are still plenty of mail trucks parked there. Some of those
other government agencies are probably still there, too. I don't know. But the
flag pole is still there. I walk by and remember exactly when someone decided it needed to be
there:
September 12, 2001
In addition to his film work, he has composed numerous
concertos and orchestral works, as well as serving as the principal conductor
for the Boston Pops from 1980-1993. He stages annual concerts at the Hollywood
Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and has been a guest conductor of the
New York Philharmonic and the National Symphony Orchestra, among others. (Um,
the San Francisco Symphony sometimes has guest conductors, just sayin’.)
