Stuck in New York

The night before had been an incredible celebration.

It was Monday evening, September 10, 2001, and I was sitting in the second row at Madison Square Garden. Just getting good tickets for this concert had been a huge challenge. So many fans wanted to be there, and of course everyone wanted to be as close to the stage as possible. Somehow managing to get a second-row ticket felt like a major victory.

The atmosphere inside the arena was incredible. Fans had come to New York from all over the world. We sang along and enjoyed every single moment. Michael performed with his brothers, singing songs including The Way You Make Me Feel, Black or White, Beat It, Billie Jean and You Rock My World.

But it was more than just a concert. It felt like an event you simply had to be part of. Michael was celebrating thirty years as a solo artist, and for us as fans, it was almost like the entire Michael Jackson world had come together in one place. Fans from Europe, America and many other countries had travelled all the way to New York especially for this.

After the concert, the energy stayed with us for hours. We stood outside the hotel, talking to other fans, taking pictures and reliving the evening over and over again. Everyone was excited.

It was one of those nights you think you will remember for the rest of your life.

And I would.

Just not for the reason any of us could possibly have imagined at the time.

Because less than twelve hours later, the world had changed.

The same city. The same streets. The same people.

But nothing was the same anymore.

Tuesday, September 11 began for us like any morning after an amazing night. We had seen Michael the night before, stayed up late talking about everything that had happened, and were still completely caught up in the excitement.

My own hotel was quite a bit farther away. Since it was already late, I decided to go with a few friends to their hotel instead. It was close to Times Square and also closer to The Palace Hotel, where Michael was staying. It was a spontaneous decision. We would sleep there and figure out the next morning what to do.

We were woken up around nine o'clock.

“An airplane has flown into the Twin Towers!”

I don't think I will ever forget those words.

At first, they barely registered.

An airplane? Into the Twin Towers?

That couldn't be right.

We assumed it had been an accident. Maybe a small plane. Something tragic, but an accident nonetheless.

I turned on the television.

And then I saw the smoke.

We watched the images without really understanding what we were seeing. Until, live on television, we saw the second plane heading straight towards the Twin Towers.

A moment of silence.

Nobody said a word.

Then it hit us.

This wasn't an accident.

This was an attack.

And from that moment on, my mind went into overdrive.

What were we supposed to do? Should we leave? How would we even get out of New York? Thankfully, I had my international driver's license with me, I thought. Maybe we could rent a car. Drive to Canada. Just get out of the city.

I looked out of the window.

Nothing seemed to be happening.

I expected chaos. People running through the streets. Sirens. Panic.

But there was almost nothing.

At least, not that we could see. From our hotel room we couldn't see the skyline. All we could see was the street below, and down there, life seemed to be going on as normal.

That somehow made it even stranger.

We continued watching the television in disbelief. Meanwhile, I got dressed and tried to think through every possible scenario. We needed a plan.

But what kind of plan?

The first thing I needed to do was let everyone back home know that I was safe.

That turned out to be easier said than done.

We tried calling from the hotel room, but it soon became clear that the phone lines were overloaded. Some connections may even have been down. We took turns trying again.

It was still the early days of mobile phones, but I didn't have one yet. So there was no quick way for me to contact anyone myself. We had to rely on the hotel phone and keep trying until we finally got through.

Eventually, we did.

The relief was enormous.

We gave them our phone numbers so they could call our parents in the Netherlands and let them know we were safe. But even after that, I kept trying to call the Netherlands myself. I wanted to hear my family. I wanted to know that they knew I was okay.

At the same time, the same question kept running through my head:

What do we do next?

We were supposed to fly home the following day.

But flying was probably no longer an option.

And then another question came to mind.

Where was Michael?

Was he still at The Palace Hotel? Or had he already left after hearing the news?

We were still watching the television. The images kept repeating. The smoke. The people in the streets.

And then, live on television, I saw the first tower collapse.

Eventually, we decided to go to Michael's hotel anyway.

I wanted to know that my other friends were okay. We weren't all staying at the same hotel, after all. And at that moment, it simply made sense to go somewhere where we could find other fans we knew.

When we arrived at The Palace, there were already several fans gathered outside.

It was a strange sight.

Only a few hours earlier, this place had been full of fans talking excitedly about the concert. Now the same people were standing together, but nobody knew what was going to happen next.

We soon heard that Michael had already left.

But he had made his tour bus available to fans who no longer had anywhere to stay.

I honestly hadn't even thought about that.

A hotel.

Where would we sleep if our reservation ran out? Would we be able to find anywhere to stay at all? And how long was this going to last?

We were supposed to fly home the next day.

But by now, we all knew that there probably wouldn't be any flights.

So at the hotel, we started keeping a list of names. Everyone there wrote down their name and phone number. That way, we knew who was still in New York and could keep each other informed. If someone managed to leave, the others would know they were safe.

It was strange how quickly you started dealing with practical things in a situation like this.

Who is here?

Who is missing?

Who has a hotel?

Who can make phone calls?

Who can leave?

Among the Dutch fans, one person was missing.

And that made us especially worried.

Because the day before, he had told us he was going to the Twin Towers.

We didn't know where he was.

And we didn't know whether he was still alive.

I tried not to think about that.

Okay, hotel...

I decided to go back to my own hotel. There were nine of us staying there, and I wanted to make sure everyone was okay.

When I arrived, the owner was sitting behind the reception desk. He was visibly relieved to see me. I hadn't stayed at the hotel the night before, and apparently he had been wondering where I was.

It was incredibly sweet, of course, but there was really only one thing I wanted to do: get upstairs to my friends as quickly as possible.

When I walked in, everyone was glued to the television.

Then I noticed something.

The person who normally tried to film absolutely everything wasn't there.

I didn't even have to ask where he was.

I got the answer immediately.

He had run to the Twin Towers to film.

Okay...

There was that question again:

What do we do now?

First, we needed to make sure we had somewhere to sleep.

We had two rooms, and I thought it would be wise to keep them for the time being and book some extra nights. I went back downstairs and talked to the owner.

The hotel was actually fully booked. But he didn't expect the new guests to arrive. So he agreed to let us stay.

We didn't have to book for a whole week or anything like that. We could simply pay day by day because, honestly, none of us had any idea how long we were going to be stuck there.

At least that gave us a little peace of mind.

And strangely enough, I also had the feeling that we were probably in one of the safest places in the world at that moment. All eyes were on New York. After what had just happened, I couldn't imagine anyone attempting anything else here.

At the same time, we kept hearing about bomb threats all over the city. As far as we knew, however, they all turned out to be false alarms.

Then I thought about our flight.

We were supposed to fly home the following day. But all flights were grounded, and nobody knew when air traffic would resume.

I decided to call the travel agency to ask what we were supposed to do.

The advice I got was almost unbelievably simple:

“Just go to the airport.”

That wasn't much help.

I explained that if we went to the airport now, we'd probably spend hours stuck in traffic. And even if we made it there, we still had no idea whether we would be able to fly.

And on top of that, we would no longer have a hotel.

No. I wasn't going to do that.

My idea seemed much more logical: first change our flight, and only go to the airport once we knew for certain that flights were actually leaving again.

Because at that moment, nobody had any idea when that would be.

For the time being, the entire aviation system had come to a standstill.

And we were stuck in New York.

The days that followed are a bit of a blur.

I know we were stuck in New York for five days. Fans continued to gather at Michael's hotel, almost as if The Palace had become a meeting point for everyone who had nowhere else to go. People were constantly trying to find information, make phone calls and figure out how to get home.

I eventually managed to change my flight.

At Michael's hotel, there were public phone booths where fans were constantly trying to get through to the airlines. Whenever someone managed to get an airline representative on the phone, other fans would immediately form a line behind them. Suddenly I heard a fan call Air France and I jumped up to stand in line behind her. Eventually, I had a flight home.

Until then, I had somehow been caught up in everything that was happening. But once I had a flight, I started to realize that I would actually have to leave.

In those five days, I ended up seeing more of New York than I had in the days before the attacks.

The place that affected me most was Union Square.

I went there and ended up sitting for hours.

There were candles everywhere.

Hundreds of them. Maybe thousands.

They had been lit for the people who were missing, for those who had died, and for the families who were still waiting for news. Names and messages were written on pieces of paper. Flowers had been left everywhere. Photographs were pinned up. I remember a toy firetruck with a note on it and a map asking people to leave pin of where you were from. People stood silently, reading them, looking at the faces of strangers and trying to understand the enormity of what had happened.

I remember watching women walking around the square, quietly relighting candles whenever one of them went out.

It was such a simple thing.

A candle would flicker and disappear, and someone would immediately bend down and light it again.

I found something incredibly moving about that. It felt almost symbolic. So much had been destroyed, so many lives had been taken, and yet people kept lighting the candles again.

Nobody told them to do it.

They just did.

A gospel choir was singing throughout the day. Their voices filled the square with these beautiful, powerful songs.

And then, whenever a fire truck or police car drove past, the square would erupt in applause.

People would stand up.

They would clap and cheer.

I remember thinking about how strange it was. Only days earlier, I had been in Madison Square Garden surrounded by thousands of people cheering for Michael. Now I was standing among thousands of people again, but this time we were cheering for firefighters and police officers who were driving through a city that had just suffered something unimaginable.

There was grief everywhere, but there was also an incredible sense of togetherness.

People didn't know each other, but they stood beside each other.

And for hours, I simply sat there and watched.

I just wanted to remember it.

Eventually, I had to leave.

I had a flight to catch.

I ended up flying home alone, via Paris, which I found quite frightening.

We were required to arrive at the airport four hours before departure, and security had been tightened to an extraordinary level. My hand luggage was checked at least four times. I had to walk through a line of sniffer dogs, and we were told to keep our bags with us at all times.

It made me a little paranoid too. Suddenly, you found yourself watching every bag and every person around you.

Eventually, I reached the gate.

And then I saw something I will never forget.

The gate had a huge panoramic window overlooking Manhattan.

For five days, I had been living in the middle of what had happened. I had watched the images on television, heard the stories, walked through the streets and sat among thousands of candles at Union Square.

But somehow, it wasn't until that moment that I truly saw it.

The New York skyline stretched out before me.

And above it hung a column of smoke.

The same image I had seen countless times on television was suddenly right there in front of me.

Real.

Silent.

Unmistakable.

Then I tried to call my parents one last time before boarding.

But all the phones had been switched off.

So I just stood there, looking out over Manhattan.

I had come to New York for a celebration.

I left with a memory that would stay with me for the rest of my life.

And even now, when I think back to September 11, 2001, I don't only remember the planes, the towers or the smoke.

I remember the candles.

The women relighting them.

The voices of the gospel choir.

The applause for every fire truck and police car.

And the feeling that, in the middle of something unimaginably terrible, people were still trying to bring a little light into the darkness.

Siona