EAST LANSING, Mich. (News 10) – Brandon Joseph, an East Lansing native, was in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001, to see a Michael Jackson concert.
“I mean, I think every day I think about it in some way. I think it’s more or less just a blessing that, you know, I woke up that day,” Joseph said.
A day that started like any other
Joseph was with friends and planned to meet with a guide to take them through the city.
“We were scheduled to be right there that morning. He wanted to take us down to the World Trade Center. He wanted to show us all that and everything,” Joseph said.
Joseph and his friends woke up in a Times Square hotel to nonstop ringing on their phones. They turned on their TVs as the events unfolded, then went out onto the streets.
“And you get out there and it was like people, you know, were running—I mean, literally they were running for their lives, you know? And we were part of that,” Joseph said.
Stuck in the city
“They shut down the bridges, they shut down the subway, they shut down the train. You couldn’t get out. So we were stuck,” Joseph said.
Joseph said he thought of his family back home in Michigan throughout the day.
“I think that was one of the scariest things is like not being able to tell your family that you’re okay and your family knowing that you’re okay… I talked to several people that night when our phones kind of came back on a little bit, and they were just sitting at the phone all day, worried,” Joseph said.
Returning to the memorial
Joseph has returned to New York twice since 2001 to visit the memorial.
“It’s time for us to see if we can get some type of closure to this. But I mean, there is no really closure to this. It’s always going to be something that’s always going to stick, I think for the rest of my life. It was one of the worst days of my life,” Joseph said.
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