Never forget . Ten years later.

I started September 11th 2001 unlike most in that I was watching the towers before sunrise. An amazing beacon across the harbor, I recall staring at Lady Liberty and the nearby Twins. It was about 4 am and I was headed home from Red Hook, Brooklyn after enjoying a Monday night out. Working for the NYPD, that Monday and Tuesday was my "weekend" -- they were part of my squad 1 rotating days off.

Glancing passively at the skyline, I enjoyed feeling as one with my great hometown. It chills me to think today how that clouded thought was my first "Never Forget" moment. Though still enamored with my hometown, the missing link in the skyline still hurts me to this day. The abysmal failure of redeveloping the site keeps the wound fresh, even though no architectural replacement will ever seem suitable.

I remember hearing stories from Grad school, how during the Crown Heights riots some ten years earlier the police were mobilized in riot gear and left on duty for days at a time. I took a shower and headed out the door wondering where the next few days would lead me. And as most of the world sat glued to their televisions, and most New Yorkers tried to get home to their families, I was getting suited up, and anticipating how to safely navigate my way to what would soon be called 'Ground Zero'.

Being one of the first of the evening shift to arrive, I was immediately deployed not to Manhattan, but to Bensonhurst for a street evacuation. At the busy shopping district on Bay Parkway and 86th Street, in the midst of the greatest crises in modern times, some genius decided to place a suspicious package, complete with a duct taped aluminum foil box and exposed wires, on the front car of an elevated subway train. Evacuating the busy stores, rerouting traffic, bus routes and diverting others from the perimeter of this bomb scene takes an enormous amount of personnel. Sadly I was sent there instead of to Manhattan where my later-arriving colleagues were deployed. I will also never forget the snowflake sized white ashes peppering my uniform as I argued with Chinese fruit vendors to close up shop on an otherwise clear and beautiful day.

Soon after clearing the fake bomb I was sent to secure another subway hub until well after midnight. After a 16 hour day, hearing reports of tens of thousands possible trapped victims, and a confirmed report of another nearby building collapse, I was tired and angry. I felt powerless in what my assigned duty was. So I went home, slept a few hours and immediately raced to Ground Zero to help out on my own time before my next scheduled shift in Coney Island. Angry and exhausted, I maintained this for a few days before I was finally assigned to the bucket brigade. By his time, I think the job understood that asking for volunteers was preferable to sending scores of police officers to stand witness to the atrocities being unearthed. Some people just can't handle that kind of exposure...I guess none of us can without some traumatic results. But It finally made me feel useful. After all, I was one of the few that had access to the area, and In the back of my mind I was still hoping to find the remains of my friends who perished.