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Pols remember 9/11: Borough President Helen Marshall

Where were you when you heard that planes had struck the World Trade Center?
It was Primary Day, and so I was driving to a polling station at a local school. On first hearing the news, I thought, as so many did, that this was an accident – but how could it happen on such a clear day? When the school principal told me that a second plane had struck the World Trade Center, I knew what was happening. Anxious parents began arriving to pick up their children, and I assisted the principal in keeping order as children and parents reunited.

What was your initial reaction to the attack?
I thought it was an accident. When I realized that it was an attack, it felt like a knife had gone into my heart, and I was afraid.

Ten years later, what are your thoughts and feelings about how far we have come since then?
It left us with many sad chores still stuck in my memory. The recovery effort, the loss for so many families and the funerals. I remember attending the funeral of a firefighter, Vernon Cherry, and seeing a floral arrangement in the form of an American Flag. I was reminded of him recently when I visited a firehouse 10 years later, following Hurricane Irene.