Swimming in September

Tuesday, September 11, 2001, is the fifth day of my sophomore year. I get to school at around 8:30 a.m. for drafting, which started second period. On my way, I shove my swim bag—with my best goggles, which never leak or fall down when I dive in—into my locker. 

One minute after drafting starts, at 8:46 a.m., the first plane hits the North Tower of the World Trade Center. The second plane hits the South Tower 17 minutes later. 

In my next class, chemistry, from that ninth-floor window facing south, with a full, unimpeded view of the burning towers, I begin to understand the scope of what is happening. I watch debris and people fall hundreds of feet to the ground. 

We evacuate. Thousands of people, students from Stuyvesant and the elementary school across the street, business people in suits with briefcases, teachers and custodians, deli workers—all of us stream north while every emergency vehicle in NYC rushes south.

As the towers collapse against a pure blue sky, Stuyvesant is covered in a cloud of debris and dust.

Stuyvesant becomes a triage center, and our precious pool is full of ashes. No civilians are permitted downtown near Ground Zero. Until we’re allowed back, Stuyvesant will split Brooklyn Tech’s building with them—Tech kids in the morning, and Stuy kids in the afternoon—but Tech won’t share their pool. Our coach, Ms. Choy, makes some calls. We’ll do morning practice at Seward Park High School on the Lower East Side.

On September 24, I pack my second-tier leaky goggles, my best ones still sitting in my locker at Stuyvesant, and head downtown.

Seward’s pool is in a windowless basement, and it doesn’t have any lane lines, which keep people from banging into one another and mitigate the waves created by swimmers.

Ms. Choy, clipboard in hand, and characteristic pragmatism turned up to 11, takes one look at the lane-line-less pool and says, “Okay! Most important thing is to not crash into one another. Easy 200 to warm up. Let’s go!”

Once the 25 of us girls get going, kicking and flipping and gliding and quick pivots to avoid crashing into each other make the lower east side basement pool feel like open-water swimming in the ocean. My goggles leak immediately.

In the middle of a flip turn, I hear a piercing alarm. Coach Choy tells us this is not a drill, it’s an urgent evacuation. There’s a bomb threat in this unfamiliar school and we need to get out NOW, no time to change.

We hurry up the dark basement stairs, still dripping, and emerge into the bright sunlight, met by the entire Seward Park population staring at the gaggle of unfamiliar girls in bathing suits. They’re fully dressed, and I haven’t even taken off my swim cap. 

A Seward Park girl turns to her friend and goes, “We have a pool?”

Then we all laugh and we wait. Not everyone has a towel and we huddle together for warmth. September is turning into fall. Finally, we’re allowed back in—this time, the threat isn’t real.

“All right, girls, back at it!” Coach Choy says, and we all jump in. In that moment, in the windowless basement, in the choppy, wavy, chaotic lane-line-less pool, with my leaky second-best goggles, swimming is a blessing.