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New York, September 11-16, 2001. Batton and Jackie had planned to attend the EXPO/SPX in Bethesda, MD on September 14-15, 2001. They flew from San Diego to the East Coast on September 7, 2001 to visit with Batton’s family in Brooklyn; they planned to take the train to Maryland on Thursday, the 13th. Needless to say, their plans changed drastically. On Monday, September 10, 2001, Batton and Jackie went into Manhattan for Jackie’s birthday and stayed overnight at a midtown Manhattan hotel.

The Day Everything Changed
Batton and I were in Manhattan on the morning of September 11. We had arrived on the 10th (my birthday) and had enjoyed a wonderful evening seeing Les Paul and his trio at the Iridium. During breakfast in our hotel coffee shop, we could hear some kind of radio news report coming from the kitchen, but couldn’t catch the actual words. In the elevator on the way up to our room, a hotel security officer said there had been some kind of plane crash at the World Trade Center. As soon as I got to the room I immediately turned on the TV; the second plane had just crashed.

For the next five hours, we were glued to the TV screen, constantly changing channels, from local NYC stations to CNN to the nextworks, watching the whole awful series of events unfold. At 3:00 in the afternoon, we finally ventured out onto the street, which was eerily empty and quiet. We stood in the middle of 7th Avenue at 55th Street, by Carnegie Hall, and couldn’t see a moving vehicle in any direction--no cars, taxis, buses, trucks. Aside from an occasional fire truck or police car, the street held only pedestrians and a few bicycle riders. The skies were silent as well—punctuated only by the sound of two fighter jets zooming by over head. All the stores were closed except for delis, little markets, and the ubiquitous electronics/camera shops.

We walked to Times Square, where most of the big electronic screens had gone blank. News of the attack scrolled by on the NBC ticker. We did see one soot-covered police car go by on 42nd Street. We walked over to Fifth Avenue (Rockefeller Center) and looked down toward the tip of Manhattan, where all that could be seen were clouds of black smoke where the two towers had been. Apparently another of the WTC buildings had just collapsed. We ate dinner at a restaurant where we were the only customers.

On Wednesday there seemed to be police on every corner; buses and taxis were up and running on a limited basis. We walked to the upper East Side to give blood but were turned away because they had reached their capacity for the day. Everywhere we went, we saw American flags. Later in the day we took the subway to Fifth and 34th, to go to Jim Hanley’s Universe, which is on 33rd Street, right across from the Empire State Building, which was cordoned off by police, apparently because of a bomb scare. We could smell the smoke and see some ashes. Hanley recognized us and greeted us graciously; he said he felt obligated to be open for any customers who made the effort to get there. We bought lots of books and comics—many of which we had been planning to get at SPX, had it not been cancelled. We had dinner with our friend Arlen Schumer, and again we were the only ones in the restaurant. At Grand Central Station, where we saw Arlen off on his train to Connecticut, the police had a heavy presence (apparently there had been a bomb scare there as well).

On Thursday, we were able to get out of Manhattan--took the subway with all our luggage to Brooklyn (since no cabs were able to go there), then a car service to Batton's parents house, where we stayed the rest of the time. Over the next three days we spent most of our time watching the news reports on TV, checking the Internet / e-mailing friends, and reading all the New York papers. Rudy Giuliani is my new hero. He handled everything with strength and compassion.

On Friday we took the bus to Brooklyn Heights, Batton’s old neighborhood. Interestingly enough, we ran into cartoonist Dean Haspiel in the Waldenbooks on Montague Street. He described having seen the Twin Towers go down from his apartment in Carroll Gardens; charred scraps of paper from WTC offices had blown across the East River and into his window. We walked to the Promenade, which has a spectacular view of the Manhattan skyline. Lots of other people had the same idea. The length of the Promenade was strewn with flowers, candles, and flags. One couple brought red, white, and blue balloons attached to a large flag and floated it above the iron fencing. It was emotionally wrenching to see the skyline with just smoke where everyone was used to seeing (as Lesle Sternbergh called them) "Mr. and Mrs. Building."

On Sunday, we attended the SPXiles event at artist Charlie Orr’s loft in the Greenpoint area of Brooklyn. Dozens of cartoonists who had been planning to exhibit at the cancelled Expo/SPX in Bethesda spread out their comics and minicomics on blankets on the floor. It was great to see the indy comics community come together so spontaneously. Through donations at the door, the event raised $1,925 for the Red Cross and the New York Fire Fighters Relief Fund.

We finally got a flight back to San Diego on Monday morning. We were glad to be back home, but in a way we were also glad to have been in New York that momentous week. It would have been harder on Batton to be 3,000 miles away from his family and his beloved city during this world-altering week. It is an experience we will never be able to forget.