Bringing it into Focus By Jim Rosenfield

photo:Greg Altman '95

More Information Bringing It Into Focus: WNBC-TV

ike so many Americans, I first learned of the attack as I finished getting ready for work the morning of September 11. I saw our regular local news cut-in during the Today show turn into an extended special report filled with horrifying eyewitness accounts of the initial strike on the north tower of the World Trade Center.

My two sons, ages seven and ten, were already at school. My wife, a freelance producer for NBC News here in New York, was in the shower. When I saw the ball of flames erupt from the south tower, I must have yelled out, "Oh my God," because my wife asked what had happened. I told her the second tower had been hit--and with that I rushed out of our apartment in midtown Manhattan and headed for Rockefeller Center, home to WNBC and NBC News.

Traffic was already snarled. Thick black smoke was rising into the air in lower Manhattan. I abandoned the taxi in favor of walking. It would be faster. I kept trying to call in to the newsroom. Cell phones didn't work. As I turned onto Fifth Avenue, I could see the scarred twin towers with their upper stories shrouded by the smoke.

When I arrived at 30 Rock, there was something different about the famous gathering spot--the plaza usually reserved for lunch breaks or taking in that larger-than-life Christmas tree. On this beautiful late summer morning, people were being kept outside, apparently for safety reasons.

I arrived in the newsroom to find a microcosm of the shock, fear, and uncertainty that gripped all New Yorkers. Colleagues were crying, hugging each other, praying. For a brief time, we were unable to reach several of our co-workers who had been sent to the scene, but we soon learned everyone was accounted for.

Just before the north tower gave way, I hit the air, joining the morning co-anchors. My job in the early hours: giving our viewers information about evacuations, logistics, cancellations, and closings--information that changed by the minute. On videotape, we saw our mayor walking quickly away from the scene, urging people to "head north," but for several hours, we had no further official word from city leaders just what to advise our viewers in Manhattan.

In the midst of our coverage, our building was evacuated, at which point we all gathered in the newsroom, where we were told we could stay or, if we felt the need, we could go. Virtually no one left. In the meantime, our colleagues from other departments, such as sales, promotions, and programming, crammed into the newsroom to help us through the crisis. Tough executives were in tears taking calls from eyewitnesses telling harrowing tales of what was going on at the scene.

As I tried to keep focused on the task at hand, I also worried about my family. Had my wife, Dana, made it downtown before or after the twin towers collapsed? And what would my sons' school do with students on New York City's West Side? I was fairly sure Dana had headed downtown as the second tower imploded. But I was unable to reach her on her cell phone. I finally learned from her bosses in the New York bureau of NBC News that she was okay and was coordinating live coverage from a satellite truck manned by NBC News correspondents Ashleigh Banfield, David Bloom, and Anne Thompson near Ground Zero.

As for the children, my wife and I had quickly crafted a plan before she left the apartment to have a classmate's mom pick them up and take them to her home near school. We knew they were safe, but I wondered aloud on the air, what would we tell them? How would we explain what has happened to our city and our country? It would be after midnight before I would have to struggle to find the right words of comfort. That's when I finally got off the air and went to pick them up. It was all over, I told them. I couldn't possibly tell them I feared the nightmare had only just begun.

By the next day, midtown Manhattan was awash in red, white, and blue. Businesses were closed; retail windows were transformed into eloquent messages of hope, sadness, and concern. New York had been shaken out of its arrogance; strangers were talking with one another, friends were checking in on friends, calls came in from relatives and friends around the country.

Later in the week, after work one night, I ventured down to Ground Zero to meet up with my wife. From a nearby rooftop, where television cameras were pointing toward the huge mountain of debris awash in floodlights, we could see a sobering image: a New York Fire Department fire truck freshly uncovered in the midst of the twisted wreckage. It was so dwarfed by the debris around it that it looked like a child's toy.

At that moment, I thought of the 1993 bombing that I came to New York to cover as a Chicago reporter. It was New York firefighters who had so impressed me the night of that earlier terrorist bombing. My cameraman and I had discovered an open door and sneaked into the building. We made our way to a stairwell to the sub-basement. As we started down the stairs, a firefighter was coming up from the basement. Rather than escort us out of the building, he said to us, "Want to see something incredible? Follow me." He took us into the bombed-out basement from that earlier "Ground Zero." An office area opened up onto a huge crater, which had been the parking garage beneath the twin towers. After we had gotten our "exclusive" footage, I thanked the firefighters who had helped us out. I remember being so impressed with those brave men then. I wonder how many of those firefighters whom I met that night are gone now.

As I left work at the end of the first week of coverage, I passed by Saint Patrick's Cathedral. New Yorkers were standing motionless on the sidewalk outside. Somber music from the choir could be heard on the street. It was the memorial service for the hundreds of fallen firefighters lost in the attack. I felt compelled to stop and listen. I couldn't move. No one could. For once in New York City, no one wanted to.

For once, we had no place more important to go.

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