Where Were You?

It’s a conversation that Americans have every year on this date: Where were you? What were you doing when the planes hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon?

I was working for the Associated Press in Albuquerque and I rushed to the office when I heard the news, then spent the morning at the airport interviewing frightened passengers who had landed in New Mexico as the nation cleared its skies. That night, I covered the president’s speech from a local bar where patrons watched in silence.

SFR staff writer Justin Horwath was a freshman in high school in Minnesota, at home on the school day because he was sick. Art Director Anson Stevens-Bollen went to Santa Fe High, then left when classes were canceled. Publisher Jeff Norris was listening to NPR as he drove a car in Arkansas.

But the folks at SFR at the time were on the job on Marcy Street. Sept. 11, 2001, was a Tuesday. That’s deadline day for your local alt-weekly. The gravity of the national tragedy meant the main story got scrapped and replaced with a solemn black cover and a collection of firsthand accounts from writers at other alternative news outlets.

Then-editor Julia Goldberg, whose mother’s New York City office was just a block away from the building, sent reporters running while the rest of the city, the nation and parts of the globe stayed glued to the television and the radio. This was our generation’s Pearl Harbor, our Kennedy assassination.

We won't forget.

Click the button below to check out the issue that hit the stands the next morning:

Read the Articles

Santa Fe Reporter