Author's Note: This story is a creative nonfiction piece about my experience on September 17, 2016.
It’s funny how fate works. I remember hearing stories about people who worked at the World Trade Center during 9/11, and they only survived because they were running late to work. I felt like one of those people during an unforgettable incident on September 17, 2016.
That day was a Saturday, and it was a weekend before one of those hectic work weeks. I had wanted to do some work at home in preparation for the madness, but my absent-minded self forgot to bring home my laptop charger from my office. Fortunately, I lived in Kips Bay in Manhattan, and my apartment was just a 15-minute walk to work, which was on 23rd Street between 5th and 6th Avenue. Wanting to make the best of the situation, I decided that after I grabbed my charger from the office, I’d take advantage of being in the area and wander around Chelsea for a few hours.
I left my apartment at around 5:30. It was a perfect evening for walking around New York - sunny, yet the sun didn’t shine too brightly as it began to set. After I grabbed my charger, I took a short stroll south on 6th Avenue and did some shopping. At around 7:30, I was getting hungry, so I considered turning west towards 7th Avenue and exploring cafes in the area. But the restaurants listed in my Yelp app weren’t standing out, so I decided instead to turn east and to go somewhere you can’t go wrong: Shake Shack in Madison Square Park! My mouth watered with the thought of eating the ‘Shroom burger with some fries and a shake on the side. Little did I know that this craving may have saved my life.
As usual, the line was long at Shake Shack, but I didn’t mind since I enjoyed people watching as I waited. New Yorkers walked their puppies towards the dog park at the west side of the square, and lovers embraced under the shack’s dangling circular lights. The night was serene, and the diners’ chatter resembled a low hum with distinct laughs sprinkled here and there.
As I sat on a park bench and munched on my fries, I couldn’t help but think about all the work that I had do the next day. I stressed about minor errors I had made in a project the prior week, which at the time seemed like the end of the world. What happened in the next moments put everything into perspective.
8:31. A booming sound filled the park, and it seemed like something very large had fallen, perhaps a construction tower crane or a billboard. The whole park fell silent. Wide-eyed, I looked towards 23rd Street and 5th Avenue, since the noise came from towards that corner of the park but further west.
After a few seconds, the normal chitchat and laughs started again. Although I was initially confused about the sound, I shrugged it off and went back to taking bites of my burger. I stopped being calm after a few minutes, when I saw a long line of ambulance trucks and police cars heading down 5th Avenue. They then turned west on 23rd Street, and I had an awful feeling that something horrible had happened close by. Instinctively, I quickly headed towards my apartment in the opposite direction, suddenly feeling like I should be indoors. As I walked briskly, I continuously checked my phone for news updates, typing in search terms like “Chelsea New York” or “New York City accident.” No noteworthy news came up.
Cars blaring horns and flashing lights passed as I rushed to my apartment on 28th Street and 3rd Avenue. I felt unnerved about the number of emergency vehicles heading towards the direction that I came from, but simultaneously I felt a bit calmer since there was no alarming news on Google. As I climbed the stairs of the walk-up I lived in, I wondered if I had simply imagined that something bad had happened. Perhaps the series of wailing trucks was simply an occurrence on a normal night in Manhattan.
An hour later, as I lounged on my apartment’s couch and started to forget about the evening’s events, I noticed a CNN update on my phone and became horrified. It turned out that the sound I had heard was a bombing on 23rd Street between 6th and 7th Avenue, and dozens of people were injured. I later learned from the news that this explosion was an act of terrorism. At that moment, I worried about my coworker who lived in Chelsea, and I texted her to check if she was okay. She told me that luckily she was out of town. Then I thought about what would have happened if, earlier that night, I had actually decided to explore restaurants in the block where the explosion occurred, which I had considered doing. I could have been one of the folks who were injured. Maybe I could have even been killed.
That night and the next day, I received texts from family and friends asking if I was okay, and I felt immeasurably fortunate as I messaged back telling people that I was fine. Although I eventually resumed my life stressing about the little things, at that time I could only feel worried about my loved ones who may have been in Chelsea during the bombing. I felt terrified about what the world was coming to, and I wondered how all the hatred started. And lastly, I felt so lucky to be alive, safe, and healthy, which was a near miss – literally by a distance of two blocks.