But toward the southern end of the Island, the 59th Street Bridge was not clogged with its usual midday traffic of taxis and trucks.  Rather, it was laden with a seemingly endless procession of pedestrians making their way out of Manhattan, their shadowy outlines marching toward Queens.  Downtown New York was covered in a cloud of smoke – a sickly mixture of yellow, gray, and brown, like a gigantic black and blue mark.  The sky above LaGuardia airport in Queens, normally a ballet of airplanes taking off and landing, was ominously barren.

On Main Street, the Chapel was open and candles were lit.  Islanders sat inside, praying.  Residents walked slowly but purposefully, not dawdling to catch the last of the summer sun or engage in lively chats with their neighbors.  They kept their heads bent toward the ground; when they allowed their eyes to meet, people shared a solemn nod of the head.

There was nothing else for residents to do or say.  Everyone was struggling to make sense of the day that America, in less than an hour, suffered the worst terrorist attack in history, with the destruction of the Twin Towers that have stood vigil over our City for the past 25 years.  Islanders have not been immune to the devastation, and each one of us has been touched in his own way.

Eager to return home, residents trudged over the Roosevelt Island Bridge, via the Queensboro.  One weary family pulled luggage behind them.  A pair of police officers guarded the entrance to the Island, checking all motor vehicles.  Only residents were allowed entry.  Any suspicious vehicles, such as a large van filled with six men, were turned away.

By three-thirty, most of those arriving to the Island by foot had come from areas less directly affected by the morning's tragic chain of events.  They were exhausted after treks that had lasted as long as four hours.

Rivercross resident Cathy Holmes and her daughter Genny crossed the bridge hand in hand.  They had walked uptown from East 23rd Street, where Cathy had picked up Genny, a sixth grader at the United Nations International School.  "The whole FDR drive was shut down," said Genny Holmes.  Like many students, Genny had been well informed of the day's events.  "We could see from the downstairs window all the ambulances, fire trucks, everything coming down." The first thing Cathy Holmes planned to do when she got home was to pray "for all those people."  Genny, who fell into tears when she spoke that evening at the nondenominational service held at the Chapel of the Good Shepherd, became solemn.  She was going to "see how my uncle's doing.  He's a Navy captain."

Other Islanders talked about emotional reunions with their loved ones.  Yolanda James, Eastview resident and sophomore at the St. Jean Baptiste High School on East 72nd Street, thought first about her mother when her school announced the bombing.  "I was not scared for myself.  I was scared for my mother – she works at the ABC building on 66th Street.  I didn't think that anything had happened, but there's something still in the back of your mind."

It wasn't until four hours after the initial announcement that she was finally reunited with her mother, who picked her up at school at two o'clock.  She broke into a smile the width of her face when she remembered the moment they were reunited.  "My God, I gave her a hug." Some of her friends may not have been so lucky.  "My friend said they think her father was on the plane that bombed the World Trade Center."

Rivercross resident Larry Blumberg, who was walking over the Roosevelt Island bridge with his wife, Robin Lynn, was also concerned about those who had lost loved ones.  "I already know someone who died," he said.  "The son of a friend of mine was in the plane that crashed." Lynn, who works at the Jewish Museum on 92nd Street, which was evacuated immediately after the bombings, offered sentiments that echoed throughout the day on Roosevelt Island.

"I just hope none of our neighbors were there," she said.  And although she lived through the first terrorist attack on U.S. soil, in 1975, Lynn was shaken by the day's events.  "The scope of it is what scared me.  Is it the aftershock? Is it over? Is it continuing? You don't know," she said.  Blumberg was quick to point out that, despite their exhaustion, the couple had been extremely lucky.  "It's a big nothing compared to what's going on out there," he said.

Other residents were closer to the chaos.  Trial lawyers Mark Herman and Bill Beinin, and Herman's daughter Briana, who recently finished law school, were heading to court in lower Manhattan when the first plane crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center.  "We actually saw the building disappear, we felt the shock," Mark Herman said.

Not knowing where else to go, the three decided to get something to eat.  "When we went in to lunch there were two buildings, when we came out, they were gone," said Briana Herman.  Mark Herman said the scene was "like the walking dead.  People were dazed and shocked.  Covered with ashes and soot."

Beinin likened the atmosphere to a war zone.  "You see these movies of World War II, and people, refugees, running into different countries to escape terror? That's what it was.  It's like the day of the refugees." Briana Herman said, "People were bloody, they had no shoes on."

Barbara Kurka, a Rivercross resident, worked in the World Trade Center when it was the target of a terrorist attack in 1993.  Today, as she walked home from 56th Street with Jim LaBarbera of Westview, she could only think about how lucky she was that her company had relocated.  "I'm glad we moved out, and I'm uptown," she said.

Like the majority of New Yorkers, Roosevelt Islanders dealt with the day with great courage and aplomb, always remembering to keep things in perspective.  Although Anne Kubisch joked that her daughter, Marina Montgomery, a third grader at Brearley, had complained the whole walk home from her school on 83rd Street and East End Avenue, Marina managed to smile as she tugged on her mother's hand to hurry them home.  The mother and daughter got a free ride over the Queensboro Bridge from a Samaritan cabbie who had been taxiing doctors to hospitals and other New Yorkers around the City for free all day.  Kubisch gave him a $20 tip after he dropped them off at Queensboro Plaza.

Marina, who was impatient to return home since her mother began recounting their experience, tugged at Kubisch's sleeve as they were about to continue towards home, and whispered something in her mother's ear.  "Our taxi driver's niece was in the World Trade Center, and he's not sure if she's okay.  He was going to go home and call and see if they knew anything," Kubisch said, repeating her daughter's whisper.

Back on Main Street, Rivercross resident Toby Coddington was walking toward Motorgate in full Army fatigues, with a large pack on his back.  He looked ready to go off to war.  After spending the day trying to reach his military superiors, Coddington finally got through and was called to duty in Staten Island.  As he continued northward on the Island, Coddington was an unfamiliarly haunting figure for a country that has taken peace and security for granted.

After the subway reopened, the streets became more crowded, as people began to stream in from the Island's southern end.  Residents walked back from Gristede's with groceries under their arms, in an attempt to carry on with normal life.  Their purchases swung in plastic yellow bags with bright blue lettering bearing the name of the supermarket and an imprint of the New York City skyline.  It is a zigzag of rooftops that has become so familiar that even chain markets and coffee cups have adopted it as their symbol.  Among the nondescript high rises, the Twin Towers stand out proud and vigilant.  Today, the bag seemed a mocking reminder: This is a skyline that exists no longer.