15 years later: How one Salem man remembers being in NYC on 9/11

ROANOKE (WSLS 10) - September 11, 2016 marks the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

We wanted to look back on connections to the Roanoke Valley, including an interview we did with a man who grew up in Salem and witnessed the attack in New York.

John Carlin and photographer Nate Silvas traveled to New York in late October 2001 to shine a light on what was happening at Ground Zero. While there, they interviewed a Salem man, Cyrus Pace, who was living in New York playing guitar at night and working for a hedge fund during the day. He saw the planes hit the Twin Towers from his own office 20 stories up, two miles away.

"I saw the plane for a brief moment, right before it hit and then I saw the stream of fire and smoke coming out of the other side of the building. I think is what I saw. It's hard to tell I will admit to you it's a very weird thing to actually see in person and to see it from my office building," said Pace during the 2001 interview on the steps of Saint Patrick's Cathedral.

Today, Pace is back in Roanoke, where he is Executive Director of the Jefferson Center.

"The reality that someone could bring our country's biggest city and really I agree the best city in the world to a halt, that's frightening; you know, that things just stopped. The subway stopped and the buses stopped and people went home to try to figure out what to do next," he said during an interview this week, as the 15th anniversary of the attack approaches.

When I arrived in New York in the weeks following the attacks, the city was just re-gaining its energy; it's famous hustle and bustle. All of this as the ruins of the World Trade Center smoldered and the recovery effort continued.

As makeshift memorials became weather-beaten, tourists began to trickle in.

"They want to know where the Ground Zero is and what they can take pictures of," said Stan O'Connor, a New York City tour guide.

Rob Smith was on the sidewalk across the street from where heavy equipment moved the twisted steel that had once been the towers. Workers carefully moved through the scene looking for the remains of victims. Smith was only able to catch glimpses of the scene unfolding across the street as the view was mostly obscured by privacy fencing. Yet he was one of hundreds who wanted to see whatever they could.

"To show my children what happened, because in years from now it'll be gone and I don't want them to miss what happened," he said with his young daughter sitting on his shoulders

Meanwhile. Ground Zero t-shirts went on sale, as the world struggled to figure out the new reality, the new normal in a post terrorist-attack world.

"I probably found myself doing that too, not out of disrespect for the experience, but out of a sense that we should be doing the right thing and getting back to work and getting a sense of, of respect, you know what I mean?" said Pace here in 2016.

In 2001, with the experience still fresh in his mind, Pace said the experience was hard to describe.

"It kind of gave a different feel. Seeing it on TV is one thing, but actually seeing it in person is a very different thing," he said then.

Now 15 years later, he isn't sure it was any more impactful for him than for those who watched on television.

"My time, my reality of the experience of this is likely different, but I think the impact is equally shared among anybody they were there or not there are."

The other change in the past 15 years for Pace is that he now has a family. His oldest, Louis, knows his dad was there when it happened. But he hasn't shared the full story of the tragedy of the attacks, not yet.

New York and the world have moved on, but Pace believes we are collectively more anxious now than we were then.

"Now I have a 6 year-old and 2 1/2 year-old so yeah, you're when you have children of course your whole perspective on safety changes in the most real change to my senses and on anxiety about whether our environment is safe or not."


About the Author:

John Carlin co-anchors the 5, 5:30, 6 and 11 p.m. newscasts on WSLS 10.