A Day Like Any Other

September 10, 2001 in America

Dianne Signer woke up with a lot on her mind.

It was a Monday. The rush to get ready, a cup of coffee, and then out the door for the long commute: walking semi-residential city blocks in the early morning hours only to wait—in rain, snow, or sun—for a city bus to come along and drop her off into the crushing, cramped anonymity of a Subway station. Then the walk to the office with its dirty carpet floors, LED lighting, and a coffee machine that kind of works some of the time. All of this followed by a long series of meetings that likely didn’t matter and then for Signer, working as an administrative assistant for Fred Alger Management, the soul-crushing humdrum of busywork.

But this week was different. And that Monday morning, she may well have been hiding a wry smile brought on by a mix of nerves, anticipation, and perhaps even hope as the Subway barreled along out of Queens and into Manhattan. In a few days, on Saturday, aboard the Nautical Bell in Freeport Harbor, she would marry her fiancé, Paul. The two of them had just moved back to Middle Village in Queens, where she grew up, to be closer to her mother, now just three blocks away. The rationale was mostly practical: she was three months pregnant. Signer, 32, had her entire life ahead of her. It was September 10, 2001. A day like any other.

Victoria Alvarez Brito woke up still buzzing from vacation in Cancún, Mexico. She and her husband, Mario, had made a tradition of taking their two sons, Jaime and Raúl, on a trip every year before the school year started. They had already checked off the Dominican Republic and Disneyworld. Next year, they hoped, would be the Netherlands. That Monday morning as Victoria went to work—making the long commute from Elmhurst, Queens into the offices of Marsh & McLennan at the World Trade Center—Mario went to get the photos from their Mexico trip developed. The four Britos planned to put the photos—photos that were meant to evoke happiness and laughter—in the family album later that week.

Ivhan Luis Carpio Baustista was looking forward to his day off the next day. He had earned it: he had become fluent in English in just two years, he had been supporting his family back in Peru, and he had just been accepted to the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. On top of all that, tomorrow would be his 24^th birthday. But when a co-worker called him that night and asked if Ivhan could take his shift the next day at the Windows of the World restaurant where they both worked, he didn’t hesitate. He was determined to make it in America, and one more day’s work would get him one step closer to his goal.

Christine Lee Hanson woke up perhaps the most excited of all. The next day was the two-and-a-half-year old’s very first plane ride, from Boston to Los Angeles. United Flight 175. She and her parents were going to first visit her mother’s relatives and then onto Disneyland. In the weeks leading up to the flight, Peter Rabbit had replaced a red Teletubby as Christine’s favorite toy. After being introduced to the wide world of wonder at Disney, her next must-have-it-can’t-go-anywhere-without-it toy would be anyone’s guess.

That day—September 10, 2001—was a day like any other. That night, the Denver Broncos beat the New York Giants, 31-20, on Monday Night Football. In Anaheim, Freddy Garcia threw eight shutout innings as the Seattle Mariners beat the Angels 5-1, winning their 104^th game of the season, on their way to a record 116-win season. Across the nation, newspaper headlines sounded the alarm on the American economy, as worries of a recession grew. The New York Times declared “FEAR OF RECESSION IGNITES DISCUSSION OF MORE TAX CUTS” along with stories about the next day’s New York City mayoral primary, which surmised that Public Advocate Mark Green would emerge as the Democratic nominee and the heavy favorite against his likely Republican challenger, Michael Bloomberg. TIME Magazine hit newsstands with preacher T.D. Jakes on its cover, asking: “Is This Man the Next Billy Graham?” In public polling, 51 percent of Americans approved of the job the President was doing, the lowest mark yet in his nascent term.

The world moved slowly, predictably, just as it had for the previous decade or more. Computers were still large and bulky, watching a television show meant tuning in at a given time, and contacting someone meant picking up the landline and dialing. That evening, Dianne Signer returned safely back to Middle Village. She drifted off to sleep next to her fiancé, hopeful of the bright days ahead. Victoria Alvarez Brito made her kids dinner and put them to bed. Christine Lee Hanson fell asleep with bright eyes beaming with visions of Disneyland. Ivhan Luis Carpio Baustista fell asleep ready for the next day in the land of opportunity. Across America, children washed up from school and changed into their pajamas. Some of us, like me, came home from the first Monday of the third grade. We didn’t think ahead beyond learning cursive and recess. We weren’t thinking about the world we could come to inhabit or how much of our lifetimes would be defined by the next few hours.

It was a day like any other.