BY MICHELLE KEY
PUBLISHER
AUBURN — Hardy Gilbert remembers the silence.
In a city known for noise, movement and crowded sidewalks, that was one of the things he said stood out most on Sept. 11, 2001.
Gilbert, owner of The Avondale Bar & Tap Room in Auburn, lived in Manhattan for nearly six years, from 2000 to 2006. At the time of the terrorist attacks, he lived in an apartment at Riverside Drive and West 141st Street in Hamilton Heights.
“The first thing I remember, before even turning on the TV, was looking out my bedroom window,” Gilbert said.
From his eighth-floor apartment, he could see the West Side Highway, the Hudson River and Riverbank State Park.
“I remember seeing park officials clearing people off the soccer field,” Gilbert said. “I remember thinking, ‘What, someone phoned in a bomb threat to the park?’”
He later realized the park was being cleared because it sits above a water treatment facility.
Gilbert had been out late the night before and slept in that morning. His work schedule gave him Mondays and Tuesdays off, and he followed his usual routine of turning on television station WLNY to watch reruns of “Kojak.”
“As I came back into the den with my coffee, I noticed real amateur footage of a building on fire, and I then realized it was one of the towers,” Gilbert said. He said he was confused at first, thinking he had never seen an episode of “Kojak” like that.
He quickly switched to NY1, New York City’s local news channel.
“By this point, the North Tower was about to collapse, and the Pentagon had also been crashed into, so it was obvious these were no accidents,” Gilbert said.
Because he lived far uptown, Gilbert said he was not close enough to hear the chaos unfolding in lower Manhattan.
He said what stood out more than the sirens was how quiet the city had become.
“I was way uptown in Hamilton Heights, so the only thing I heard were the occasional sirens of emergency vehicles on the West Side Highway, which was the only traffic allowed,” Gilbert said. “And that is what was more noticeable, in a way — the lack of regular noise.”
Gilbert said Hamilton Heights was usually anything but quiet, but that day was different.
“At the time, Hamilton Heights was largely Dominican, so the sidewalks and street corners were always vibrant and alive and joyously loud,” Gilbert said. “But not that day.”
He said he called his parents in Alabama, then checked on friends in New York.
“I just told them I was okay, and [I wanted] to make sure my local friends were okay, as well,” he said. “Then I think we all just…waited.”
At the time, Gilbert worked at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Like many public institutions in the city, the museum remained closed for several days after the attacks so Gilbert said he just stayed close to home.
“Honestly, I started drinking once it was apparent there were no more imminent attacks,” Gilbert said.
He went to a neighborhood bodega on Broadway and bought beer, then later spent the evening with friends.
That night, he said, was also unusually quiet throughout the neighborhood.
“Again, it was quiet, very quiet,” Gilbert said. “Which for NYC, was almost unnerving, in a way.”
In the days that followed, Gilbert said the city began returning to routine faster than some might expect.
“NYC is surprisingly resilient, so before we knew it, our routines resumed,” he said. “Which lent everything an air of the surreal.”
He said New Yorkers already shared a strong sense of identity before the attacks, but that feeling deepened afterward.
“New Yorkers, at least to me, have always united around their love of being a New Yorker, especially those born and raised there,” Gilbert said. “But after 9/11, that unity was tempered by loss and sorrow, so we were all closer.”
Now, 25 years later, Gilbert said what he remembers most has changed.
He does not often think about the attacks themselves in the way people might expect.
Instead, his mind returns to that evening with friends.
“My memory often drifts back to that night, when friends came over to my apartment, and we shared wine and smoke and fellowship,” Gilbert said. “We were young and still alive and very blessed that none of us lost anyone.”
He said there were no tears that night, only gratitude they still had for one another.
“Time is funny,” Gilbert said. “Most of those from that night I will never see again. Some I can’t see again.”
Gilbert said the farther Sept. 11 moves into history, the harder it may be for people who did not live through it to understand its impact.
“For most, it is now a footnote in time, a memorial plaque, as new tragedies unfold almost daily,” he said.
Gilbert said the attacks did not change his relationship with New York or fundamentally change who he was. Unlike many who experienced Sept. 11 firsthand, he said he does not associate particular places, sounds or smells with the day.
He considers himself fortunate.
“Like I said, I was blessed,” Gilbert said.
For younger people who did not experience Sept. 11, Gilbert said the scale of the tragedy may be harder to grasp today.
“Sadly, violence is so much a part of America today,” he said.
But when asked what one thing he would want someone born after 9/11 to understand about what it was like to live through that day in Manhattan, his answer was simple.
“We were no longer invincible.”
