Yes; I was in college.
What do you mean by "witnessed firsthand?" As in, was in NY at the time, or just remember seeing it happen on TV? I'm from NY, but I was away at college at the time, so I was watching it on TV but had lots of friends/relatives back in the city and so I was trying to keep updated on what was going on with them.
Anyone else college aged or older when it happened? Gosh this thread is making me feel old....
Yes, I was 35.
I had just celebrated my birthday Sunday; my Dad and I went to an old car show in Livonia, MI. Monday evening I taught a class at a local community college. It was a 4 hour class and I was exhausted afterward.
Tuesday morning I got up around 3 AM, looked East out my window (I was living in Oakland County, MI at the time), and saw, from the bottom up, Saturn, the Moon (a bit less than half), and Jupiter. That morning on my way to work, the Britney Spears song "Hit Me Baby One More Time" was playing on the radio.
At 8:25 that morning, I went downstairs to the cafeteria and got an oatmeal raisin cookie, and brought it upstairs. A little while later, a coworker, D., tapped on my cubicle and informed me that planes had hit the World Trade Center. I remained focused on my work, however, as news came in that various offices were closed, the Ambassador Bridge (connecting Detroit and Windsor) was closed (which affected a lot of our employees), and I started to get the sense that something big happened.
At 3 PM I got into my car and, rather than go home, I headed for the Red Cross to give blood. It was only then that I learned it was hijacked passenger planes that had hit the buildings. That's right, I thought it was enemy places until then. The idea of using hijacked passenger planes as weapons had, of course, not occurred to me or anyone I knew.
On my way to the Red Cross, my car began to overheat, and I had to pull over. I waited a while for help (it was the water pump). I recall seeing a 1970s model car in the parking lot where I was waiting, on Woodward Avenue in Bloomfield Hills. I remember thinking how our world was being changed forever, while everyone just went about their business.
The next several days, of course, it was all anyone talked about.
As you can see, I remember it like it was yesterday.
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