“The Sights and the Smells, the Feelings and the Fear”: A 9/11 Story at Stuyvesant

“My saddest memory from that day is when we were all walking down the West Side Highway and seeing one of my students, a boy named Chaz, looking back,” Assistant Principal of English Eric Grossman said. “There was just something about the way he was that caught my attention. I asked him, ‘Hey, are you all right? What’s going on?’ And he said, ‘My dad works in the north tower.’”

Stuyvesant students were blocks away from the Twin Towers, the site of the terrorist attack that would devastate the city and alter their lives, on September 11, 2001. Eighteen years later, eight of these alumni reflected on the events of September 11 in the HBO documentary, “In the Shadow of the Towers: Stuyvesant High on 9/11.”

“In the Shadow of the Towers” is one of three new HBO documentaries focused on the events of September 11. The film is comprised of interviews with Taresh Batra (’05), Liz O’Callahan (’02), Catherine Choy (’04), Ilya Feldsherov (’02), Mohammad Haque (’02), Himanshu Suri (’03), Michael Vogel (’02), and Carlos Williams (’05). The majority of interviewees were involved in the 2001 winter drama “With Their Eyes,” which was created by Stuyvesant students in response to the tragedy and shared the stories of the Stuyvesant community during September 11. English teacher Annie Thoms, who was integral in the creation of the play, also served a large role in the development of the HBO documentary.

The documentaries were directed by Amy Schatz, who primarily creates children’s shows about difficult topics. “HBO approached me because they had been in conversation with the September 11 Tribute Museum about the fact that there didn’t seem to be much out there for kids about September 11. Since I make children’s shows, they thought that making a children’s show about September 11 could be a great thing and fill a need,” Schatz said.

Schatz started by interviewing kids to find out what questions young children had about September 11. “The way that I start all of my children’s shows is that I talk with kids. Some of the questions kids had were, ‘Exactly what happened?’ or ‘Why did it happen?’ or ‘Why would someone do that?’ My goal was to try to answer some of those questions for kids,” she said. “Once I had their questions in hand, I went out to try to come up with what the show could be. That led me to the play that Ms. Thoms had created with some students from Stuyvesant in 2001 and 2002 called ‘With Their Eyes.’ I read it, and I thought it would be really interesting to learn more about the play, and that it might be an interesting thing for kids to hear about.”

“With Their Eyes” is based on the work of actor and playwright Anna Deavere Smith and is structured as an interview-based monologue. In the winter of 2001, Thoms, along with a student director and two student producers, cast 10 students to help them create and perform “With Their Eyes.” Thoms and the 13 students created a list of members of the Stuyvesant community—students, teachers, faculty—whom they wanted to interview about their experience during and after September 11. “The actors went and did the interviews on their own, and then when they had the interviews, they transcribed portions of the interviews very carefully, word for word, pause for pause, line by line, and cut them way down. They did some editing, shifting around. Some of the interviews were half an hour long, and they wound up being monologues that were two to five minutes,” Thoms said. Students transcribed the interviews into “poem-monologues,” which they then performed and presented during the winter drama.

In the early stages of creating “In the Shadow of the Towers,” Schatz interviewed the eight alumni, most of whom were involved in “With Their Eyes” as actors, interviewees, or producers. She intended to incorporate their interviews and information about “With Their Eyes” into her film for children. “When I interviewed these eight alumni, it wasn’t intended to be a film about Stuyvesant. It was really about ‘What can you tell me about that morning?’ and ‘What was your commute to school like?’” she said. “I started with all these child-friendly questions, which I thought a kid audience would be interested in. Once they started to tell the stories of the day, it seemed like it was a whole new film, solely about their experiences and what they went through.”

Schatz realized there was a larger story within the interviews, one about students’ experiences during September 11. “The stories were very powerful and very vivid. The memories of the day were so visual; these students had remembered the sights and the smells, the feelings and the fear. It seemed a little bit too intense for a younger audience,” she said. Schatz then decided to create three separate films: one for elementary age kids called “What Happened on September 11?,” one about the making of “With Their Eyes,” and one in which Stuyvesant alumni recount their memories of the day. This last film is now “In the Shadow of the Towers.”

Members of the Stuyvesant community were able to watch the documentary through an early screening hosted at Stuyvesant on September 10. This was coordinated primarily by HBO Publicity/Media Producer Manager Asheba Edghill and Director of Family Engagement Dina Ingram, with support from the Alumni Association. “In about May, Annie Thoms had told me about the work she had been doing with HBO on ‘With Their Eyes,’ and she and Amy Schatz wanted to bring it here to the [Stuyvesant] community,” Ingram said. “[Thoms] put me in contact with Amy Schatz at HBO, and that’s how it first started coming about. And then it just grew into Amy wanting to really bring the documentary she had made here for our viewing.”

Several of the alumni who appear in the documentary came to the screening and were able to share their thoughts on the documentary, “With Their Eyes,” and their September 11 experience during a panel moderated by junior Reilly Amera.

Despite creating “With Their Eyes” almost two decades ago, the alumni involved regard the play as an incredibly important part of their high school experiences and their lives as a whole. “I don’t think I explored 9/11 in my own mind outside of the ‘With Their Eyes’ group. [...] I don’t think I commemorated 9/11 with anyone but people in my homeroom or people in ‘With Their Eyes,’ and maybe a teacher or two,” said Williams, who performed a monologue in “With Their Eyes.”

Williams found that, to his dismay, his connection to September 11 prompted questions and inquiries from many people, especially in college. “You don’t want to have to tell [the story] over and over—it’s not a great experience to have and you don’t want to relive it every five seconds,” he said. “Having the play and being able to tell a large group of people at a time about the play really saved me from having to relive [my personal experience] over and over again.”

Vogel, who produced “With Their Eyes,” echoed similar ideas. “The people who created things around September 11 had a better opportunity to process what had happened than people who did not,” he said. “[We had] a real opportunity to think about and process what [had] happened and how we [...] thought it was appropriate to memorialize it, and I think that was [...] incredibly meaningful.”

Thoms agreed as well. “I’m an English teacher, and I love stories. I think there is great good in reading and writing and creating art and interacting with art that allows for an empathetic link,” she said. “In the days and weeks and months afterward, for me, being able to teach and work with students to create something was incredibly helpful, because what were you going to do? Sit at home and cry?”

While “With Their Eyes” was a way for students to process the attack immediately afterward, the HBO documentary served as a means for the interviewees to reflect on their experiences two decades later. “What you get from the documentary is this reflection of what [had] happened, and these critical events jump out and stick out of the memory for people who were there that day,” Vogel said.

The alumni noted other fundamental differences between the documentary and the play. “The documentary does a very good job of telling a story, and telling an important story, and telling a story that I hope can allow the current school population and maybe a broader audience to perceive what that story was like and how people were affected on a human level on September 11,” Vogel said. “But I think there is a meaningful difference between what the documentary had to capture and what it had available to it, and what we were able to capture doing ‘With Their Eyes’ and the resources that were available to us.”

Though the alumni do not hold the documentary with the same level of personal significance as the play, they have been touched by the feedback they have received regarding the film. “The fact that people identified with the story means a lot to me,” said Haque, a subject of a monologue in “With Their Eyes.” “Response to the interviews and the documentary has been overwhelmingly positive and really supportive, and as a result of that, I feel like I made the right decision by being involved in it and sharing something that’s pretty vulnerable and difficult to talk about.”

Many interviewees emphasized the idea that the documentary shed light on one specific aspect of the attack, and is not a fully comprehensive view of September 11 or the Stuyvesant experience of September 11. “It’s 30 minutes, right—you can’t tell the story of the whole school in 30 minutes. You could tell a story of what happened,” Vogel said.

Williams also believes that this documentary is not a complete depiction of the school’s experience with the attack. “I don’t think it’s the full story of Stuyvesant; I think it’s a conversation starter,” he said. “There needs to be more told, a lot more told, about what the school went through on that day.”

For Lila Nordstrom (’02), one such missing element is the health issue that has plagued survivors, including Stuyvesant students, in the aftermath of the attack. Stuyvesant was one of the first schools in the area to open its doors again shortly after the event, which unknowingly exposed students to the debris and fumes in the disaster area.

In response to the lack of medical attention given to survivors, Nordstrom developed StuyHealth in 2006. StuyHealth is an advocacy group for young adults affected by the events and aftermath of September 11 and provides health resources and information for qualified survivors and responders. “We do work to help people find out about the health programs and compensation programs that are available to them,” Nordstrom said. “[We] also do the best we can to make sure that the needs of young adults are represented in conversations about how these services should be coordinated and with services people in the community need.”

Nordstrom expressed her frustration with the lack of acknowledgement of health issues as part of the September 11 story. “I don’t fault my classmates for not bringing it up because none of them were at the time of their interviews having health consequences,” she said. “But the filmmakers were given an opportunity not only to discuss that topic with me but with other people and they chose not to include even passing mention of it, which was incredibly frustrating considering how long we’ve been engaged in this work and how much of a struggle it’s been to convince people that this is a part of the story.”

Nordstrom also believes the health aspect is intensely personal, as Choy, one of the eight alumni in the documentary, passed away before the film was released due to gastric cancer linked to September 11. “To me, a part of this story, of the film is that [Choy] gets on camera and talks about her experience of 9/11,” Nordstrom said. “The end of that story is that she dies of an illness that was linked to that time. The end of the story is about the health consequences, and [the filmmakers] sort of don’t follow through on that promise.”

The documentary is dedicated to Choy, whose time at Stuyvesant is remembered dearly by members of the community. “She really was just a totally great person and kid, and incredibly warm and positive,” Grossman said.

Additionally, he attributes his reaction to the film to his personal connections with the people interviewed and the event itself. “I found it very affecting,” Grossman said. “But I know that a big piece of that is because I was here on 9/11 and I knew those students and Cathy Choy [...] was a sophomore in my class that year and was in my room when the planes hit.”

Grossman’s experience watching the documentary was shaped by his familiarity with the students who appeared in it. “It was 18 years ago, but I remember most of those faces and a lot of those names, and they’re still active for me,” he said. “The fact that those students are now full-fledged adults, not just grown, but well into their 30s—I don’t feel like it’s been that long.”

The interviewees recognize the significance of having a documentary like this about September 11. “It changed the world. And I think ‘With Their Eyes’ does a good job of capturing, and I think the documentary does a good job of capturing, in some ways, how the world changed in that moment,” Vogel said.

One particular aspect that Schatz captured was the shift in political climate after September 11 and how it mirrors that of today. “It seemed clear to me that one of [Schatz’s] hopes was to draw a line between the reaction to Muslims and brown people in the wake of 9/11 and the political climate today, and that feels valid and important to me,” Grossman said.

Haque, a Muslim-American, grappled with his identity amid the persisting racial issues following September 11. “Especially when the news [was] really talking about how the perpetrators of this heinous act claim to be Muslims and claim to carry out the act in the name of the religion, it [created] a lot of identity issues,” he said. “I was born and raised in Queens, grew up as a Queens kid, went to school in the city. I really identified as not only Muslim, but also as American, as a New Yorker. There is this confusion in your mind about how people can take what you hold so close and so dear to you and twist it and manipulate it into something so hateful.”

In addition to his identity issues, Haque also struggled with day-to-day life after the attack. “There were specific instances, and non-specific instances as well, just the way that people reacted toward you or looked toward you. Your identity is on your face, and that’s what people see first. They see a Muslim person or a brown person, and that’s the first idea they have of you, and they come up with preconceived notions and ideas that are then projected onto you,” he said. “It’s really difficult to be happy and functioning when you are worried about what people think and how people are going to see you.”

On a smaller, more Stuyvesant-focused scale, the alumni hope the documentary can educate the Stuyvesant population about their own community. “I think [it] would benefit current and future students to learn about the place that they’re standing. There’s some history there,” Williams said. “So much of history class [...] is like 50 years ago in Selma or in 1776 with Washington crossing the Delaware, and you’re so detached from it.”

Thoms built upon this notion. “It was a pivotal moment in our national history. In terms of students at [Stuyvesant], it’s a pivotal moment in national history and in the history of our community,” she said. “Having some sense of what those individual experiences were like is incredibly important in order to have a better sense of our community’s small part in history.”

Those involved in the documentary hope it sheds new light on the perspectives of Stuyvesant students during September 11. “There’s no small story when it comes to something like September 11,” Haque said. “Maybe stories that were never really exposed or told before—the documentary maybe, potentially brought some of those to life.”