The Black Family Weblog

The week before was miserable as I worked many late hours in order to “turn a building on.”  It was also said that we “lit the building” or “brought service to the building.”  What does that mean?  Ha!  Well 6 years ago I worked for an Internet Service provider based out of Newark, New Jersey.  We had the solution to what was known as “the last mile” to bring ultra high speed bandwidth directly to a customer.  This involved huge fiber optic rings around NYC and working with proprietary equipment.  It also meant long hours some days in order to bring a building up very fast.  We had a list of customers to be brought on board with our service.  This building was located just a few short blocks from WTC.

I used to call WTC my “homebase” or my “launch pad” as I used to plan my day and my trips from this starting point.  I was always happy to work in lower Manhattan as this meant I didn’t have to subway it up to some midtown location.  What it meant was I would walk from our office, through the gateway center, all the way to the PATH trains in Penn Station.  Travel to WTC, take the long escalators up to the mall, and exit onto the street level to walk another 1/4 mile to one of our buildings.  I would walk somewhere between 2-4 miles a day I imagine.  I very rarely took the company car into the city, nor did I ever take a cab.  I would have to be dead tired to do so.  So it was always, walk the streets or take the subway.

The WTC was also special for us for on Feb 20 2001 we celebrated our 2nd anniversary at the Windows on the World restaurant.  We both had so much work to do that we couldn’t get away, so we decided to celebrate our anniversary in the city and see other sights we’ve never seen before.  A coworker friend of mine knew the manager (one of the managers) who was able to get us in.  The problem was there were 2 parts of Windows on the World.  The bar area and the restaurant.  The bar area was easier to get in than the restaurant.  But I didn’t know where the bar was not the mention the restaurant was located, so we ended up going to the restaurant, for a tremendously expensive meal overlooking the Empire State building and looking down upon midtown.  Haha!  It was after we left did we find out where the bar area was, but it was too late and we were extremely happy to have had the opportunity to eat in such a well known establishment such as that.  Clearly one of our best anniversaries yet.

So the week before I am working just a few short blocks away from WTC.  I remember that week because I got to see the North side of the center, rather than the South side.  I usually walked past WTC7 and then spent a few minutes speaking with the guys who ran the show.  These guys were always down by the docks, or worked security, or worked the elevators or maintenance in each building.  I had some great times with these men, although I didn’t know them well, we spoke and complained about the world and cracked jokes like we knew each other all our lives.

We worked extra hard this week because we wanted to bring the customers online.  One night I purchased a book at the Border’s books so I would have something to do.  We had union guys doing the line tests, and I had to be present to make sure they pulled the correct fibers.  It was mandatory that an engineer had to be at each building on the loop to make sure the exact fiber would be pulled to be tested.  Pull the wrong fiber, and you would possibly pull one that had data flowing down it.  So that night we worked until 2am.  But by the end of the week, we had the building turned on and all the fibers working.  The next week we had to switch gears and move to midtown.  Ahh…but we had the weekend right?  Time for some much needed rest.

Not so.  A good friend and coworker wanted to travel back into the city for the weekend and visit a building he had seen and been through many times but never did go up on the top.  Which building is this do you ask?  Why, the WTC of course! (to be continued)