New York - For the first time since 1973, students at Pace University have to shield their eyes from sunlight peeking in their windows.
A perpetual shadow was cast on the 9,000-student campus by the 110-story World Trade Center towers when they were built almost 30 years ago.
Students say they see the light now - the world isn’t as innocent as they thought it was.
“It’s like a reality check,” said Sara Shikhman, a Pace University junior. “It was always very dark here. We’ve never had sunlight before. The tower just tumbled down like a playhouse.
“Nothing is forever.”
Tough lesson
Within hours of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the campus was transformed from an academic setting to a triage center. Students and administrators were sheltered in university buildings, while classrooms and lobbies were converted into a field hospital and National Guard bunker.
The student union was commandeered to be used as a morgue, but rescue workers didn’t find any bodies.
Many were crushed, buried or disintegrated.
“Some people saw body parts on their window sills,” said Marijo Russell-O’Grady, dean for students. “Those kids went through a lot.
“I thought I’d seen it all before this. I’ve had a lot of kinds of crisis, but not terrorism.”
Pace University senior Roland Aviles didn’t have to check the morning news to watch his favorite landmark fall to dust.
He heard the first Boeing 767 slam into the north tower. He watched while the second one barreled through the south tower.
“It looked like a giant white missile,” he said. “The first thing I said was, ‘That’s no accident.’ I couldn’t believe there were people jumping out. I didn’t know if it was the end of the world or what.”
But there was no time to wonder who was behind the attack. When the south tower collapsed at 10:05 a.m., the streets were crowded with people trying to escape. He ran to a friend’s apartment, where he hid with other strangers looking for comfort.
Hours of alcohol, nicotine and television got them through the day.
“It sounds like an avalanche,” Aviles said. “I always said those things would never come down. The geek in me admired them for their brilliance. They were so robust. I don’t like to be wrong, and that was something I really believed.
“What a fool I was.”
Aviles grew up with the towers, taking trips to the top when he was in elementary school and riding his bike through the lobby as a mischievous college student. He cut through them every night to shorten his walk home and bought most of his wardrobe in the stores there.
He planned to find a marketing job in the towers before Sept. 11 but decided to delay graduation instead of looking elsewhere.
He doesn’t know where his life will take him anymore.
“Right now I feel like I’m falling apart,” he said. “I’m really screwing up. I’m really dropping the ball. There are millions of news reports, vigils, memorials and moments of silence, and they all just keep reminding me.
“It’s like there are two of me now. I’m so lethargic. It just induced a depression. I don’t remember what the routine used to be. ”
The university closed for two weeks, giving students a chance to leave the miserable area where they thought they were safe.
Four students were killed, along with about 30 Pace alumni.
The university’s counseling center professionals saw 40 percent more students between September and December than they usually see in a year.
“It shakes your sense of security and well-being,” said Richard Raskin, counseling center director. “It makes it hard for people to focus and study and sleep. Your body goes into this state of hypervigilance, and it’s difficult to settle down. It’s just in your face and there’s no way to deny it.”
One student Raskin saw Sept. 11 cried for her father, who Raskin later discovered was a firefighter. When the father and daughter were reunited, Raskin could see a beaming smile through a soot-covered face.
Another student said with a flat tone and blank stare that he pulled two bodies from the rubble. One was alive, the other dead. The student spent 12 hours more looking.
“The proximity to the attack profoundly changed the university,” Raskin said. “We were covered in that bizarre beige snow. Some people were really freaked out, but mostly they’re holding on.”
Aviles, who also is treasurer of the university’s Student Government Association, said he’s trying to get his life back in order. He has urges to start a new life outside New York, but he can’t leave.
“I just couldn’t function anywhere else,” he said. “I get homesick on spring break. I love it so much it’s frustrating. No one is kicking me out of my house.
“I don’t go to the roof of my building anymore. I would see things that aren’t there.”
But even in New York, Aviles has a hard time adjusting to life without his favorite skyscrapers to look up to. He can’t bring himself to look at books of World Trade Center photos - the shot of the towers being built is too much like the baby picture of a dead child.
The six-block lines to see the empty pit where the towers stood seems unfamiliar and unfair to people who had a memory for every collapsed floor.
“I just want to scream ‘You should have come when they were standing,’” he said. “I always had my own little adventures. I have my little personal things. I’m just forced to remember them now.”
Back to school
After nearly two weeks away from campus, returning students were greeted at the door by school administrators and security guards.
University administrators reported many students didn’t return but never officially disenrolled, leaving classroom populations a mystery.
The largest holes in the class were left by the four dead students.
“Some people would still walk around crying, raise their hands in class and say ‘How could you teach at a time like this?’” said Shikhman, who is the junior class representative for the Student Government Association. “The buzz question was, ‘Did you know anyone?’
“Whenever I’m at school and hear a loud noise, I look up. Better safe than sorry.”
Even for students who would rather study than cry, classes became counseling sessions. Some professors incorporated the attacks into their lessons. Classes regarding terrorism in the United States were added to the school’s schedule.
“The gear shifted in class,” Shikhman said. “The key words were no longer ‘profits’ and ‘expectations’ - now it’s ‘long-term growth’ and ‘stability.’”
But the most noticeable changes were the ones that hit students outside the classroom.
Hard-to-find tickets to Broadway shows were easily purchased just hours before the curtains rose. Nearby clubs and bars desperate for patrons stopped checking for identification.
Students have a new accessory - a mandatory photo ID that allows access to campus buildings. Cement barricades keep cars away from the school. Video cameras and check-in points are common.
Buildings are decorated with air filters to clean the acrid-smelling scent wafting from the site.
“The air smelled like electricity and burning bodies,” Shikhman said. “I’m not the crying type, but I was just paralyzed when saw the site. I hope to God it would never happen again.”
Anthrax scares were a familiar worry to Shikhman, who opens mail working as a paralegal, but it didn’t stop her from going to work.
Although she said she considers avoiding large crowds, she’ll never give up on the city.
“I don’t have time to worry,” she said. “It made me want to focus more and accomplish more. I love New York, no matter what happens.
“Life is too short anyway.”
