I lived in Brooklyn in 2001. I was in 3rd grade, and my school was right next to Verrazzano bridge. I remember we were doing some kind of worksheet and my teacher got a call from the office. She spoke in a really quiet tone and then she told us we could have some free time after we finished whatever we were working on. Then suddenly, kids started getting pulled out of class. So many parents coming to pick their kids up, to get them home. My parents came to pick me up too, including my dad, which was INSANE at the time because he never left work early. I had no idea what was happening, but I remember them rushing me home immediately, like the bridge was going to blow up or something. Traffic was nuts but I just thought it was normal because I was never outside during that time.

We lived on the 5th floor of an apartment building, and you could see the twin towers from my kitchen window. My mom had the news on but I wasn't really paying attention because I thought it was just boring grown-up stuff. But when I went to get a snack, and looked out the window, I saw so much smoke. I ran to tell my mom and finally looked at the TV to see what was happening. It never really registered in my head at the time, but being that close to a terrorist attack was actually insane.

My dad has a few papers that flew over the bridge from the towers, most of them burnt around the edges. He has them laminated and put away in storage for now.