Last year, I was in New York City and I heard the names being read, first on the TV in my hotel room. Later I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan, and they were still reading. So many names. It was so quiet in that corner of the city, that section where the towers once stood tall.
In 2001, I was a page designer at a newspaper in Rock Hill, South Carolina – and work was the best place for me that day. The worst tragedy of my lifetime was to appear on the pages of my newspaper, and I became a small part of history in my corner of the world as I told the story the best way I knew how – with layouts and headlines and photos. I can never explain to someone who hasn’t held this job the amount of feeling we have for the people in our stories on the pages we design. And this story was like no other.
Today I sit at home, thinking about September 11 and thinking about New York City – which I visited for the first time in 2002. I never got to see the towers. I have only seen the emptiness.