09/11/2026
25 years ago, I was living in Spanish Harlem—102nd between Third and Lexington—fresh out of high school and getting ready to head downtown to work at Ballet Academy East on the Upper East Side to start the school year when the world changed.
I still remember my roommate calling from downtown, hysterical, telling me what she was seeing and telling me not to leave the apartment. I remember watching Katie Couric and Matt Lauer on the Today Show on my little TV with antennas until service disappeared. Then the phones went. Even my landline.
My family was desperately trying to reach me, eventually getting a message through my local precinct #23 that I was okay.
I remember the fear and the complete uncertainty of that day. But I also remember New Yorkers taking care of one another.
That week some of gathered whatever we could at Gristedes market on 96th street so we could make sandwiches and pack up granola bars, water, supplies—and brought them to the police and fire stations in my neighborhood. In the middle of unimaginable sadness, there was this extraordinary sense of community. Nobody wanted to sit alone in an apartment. We wanted to be together, to help somehow, even when none of us really knew what came next.
I went on to spend 20 years living in New York City, but I will never forget that morning or the way the city came together afterward.
25 years later, it still feels impossible that so much time has passed.
Remembering those we lost, the families whose lives changed forever, the first responders who ran toward the unimaginable, and all those who continue to suffer from the aftermath.
September 11, 2001. Never forgotten. 🇺🇸
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Courtney B Kern
