The world 9/11 created
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Those of us who are old enough remember where we were when the news broke on Sept. 11, 2001. I was a senior in my Manhattan high school, standing on the rooftop, slack-jawed, as I watched smoke from the collapsing twin towers envelop the downtown skyline. My fellow students and I were soon sent home. We trudged out of school en masse, hushed and silent. It was, as many recall, a balmy, sunny day, save for the dark cloud looming over half the city.
Even within the small bubble of our lives, let alone the wounded metropolis that was our home, it was clear that something had fundamentally changed. The world turned in both dramatic and imperceptible ways in the aftermath of 9/11. Thousands of people lost their lives to al-Qaeda’s brazen strike on the United States. Hundreds of thousands more would die in the sprawling wars and conflicts that unfurled across the planet.
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