Mel French at an exhibition of her work in the Luan Gallery, Athlone in 2015.

‘I felt the sound of the plane hitting the tower in my chest’

Two weeks before 9/11, Mel French moved to New York to start a two-year MA at the New York Academy of Art, which is located in Ground Zero, only 10 blocks from where the World Trade Center once stood. Now living in Streete, she was in class on the morning of the attack and witnessed the towers collapse.

What are your initial memories of the day?

It was a sunny day and I was walking to college, a fire engine went past me and as it passed, a fireman who had the window open with his elbow resting on it, casually waved his hand in acknowledgment and I waved mine back. It is such a simple human gesture, but I often think of it and that fireman and the others in the engine and wonder if they survived, as they would likely have been some of the first on the scene after the first plane hit and before the towers collapsed. A lot of the responders were casualties.

“I was outside my college with other students when the World Trade Center collapsed. There was so much happening, strangers were gathering, some thought it was a bomb, others had seen the plane hit. I felt the sound of the plane hitting the tower in my chest, it was so loud. We saw the fire and, horrifically, witnessed people jumping from the building.

“When the building collapsed, it was as if it were in slow motion, some people were screaming, a woman next to me collapsed crying. There was such a feeling of horror and shock. I had moved to New York 10 days previously. My fellow students and I had known each other for a week. We were all checking on those most in distress around us, some had loved ones in the building, others were just terrified at what they were witnessing.

It felt like moments later people started running past us covered in thick dust, some screaming or crying, others silent. Everyone started asking where we would head to, people paired off or went in small groups. Halla, who was on the course with me and whom I had become friends with, and I decided to try to get to her apartment on the Lower East Side. We passed abandoned cars, one had its doors open and the radio on, I remember hearing the broadcast state that the Pentagon had been attacked.

What did you in the initial aftermath of the attack?

Halla and I walked to her flat. I can’t remember how long it took, but it wasn’t far. Other classmates walked to Brooklyn or further. The streets in Lower Manhattan were full of people walking or running away. Halla let me use her landline phone to contact my partner, now husband, who was in Ireland. He was watching it on a TV that had been brought in to the office. We had tried using our mobile phones, but it wasn’t possible to make connections – everyone was trying to contact people.

Did you know anyone who was injured or died in the attack?

No. Fellow students lost a partner, another a husband but I did not know anyone personally.

What was New York like in the weeks and months after the attack?

Lower Manhattan was so quiet. The area around the towers was referred to as Ground Zero. It was closed as the search for survivors, then bodies, continued. There were pieces of paper covering the railings surrounding Ground Zero, photos and notes from people trying to find their loved ones. The notes were all around Ground Zero and the lower neighbourhoods for months. The searching continued for weeks, possibly longer.

Do you think it has had a lasting effect on the city and its people?

I can’t answer that nor answer for the people of New York. I have only visited Manhattan twice since, both in the years immediately after 9/11. I, as a bystander, will never forget it and what I saw, nor stop thinking of all those that were affected by it, so I cannot imagine that the impacts are anything other than long lasting on the people that were truly affected by 9/11.

Did being in New York for 9/11 inspire or inform your future work?

No, I would feel that it is too difficult to respond respectfully in relation to the people who were truly affected by that event. I was just there at the time but I did not suffer the trauma or loss that so many did. I was contacted by my college in New York in the last month as an exhibition is being curated to mark the 20th anniversary of 9/11. Students who were attending the college during that time have been invited to submit work. I have not decided whether I will yet, it is such a delicate subject. My work often addresses ideas of grief, loss and human conditions, so if I did create work in response to the callout, it would be addressing those issues more generically rather than trying to articulate such a tragic event as 9/11 specifically.

Did it take the city long to get back to normal?

I don’t imagine it ever went back to normal, but I was in the Lower Manhattan for the next two years and in that time it didn’t. Food banks were set up for those who lost their homes, the public were being asked to donate essential clothes and food for everyone displaced.

The smell and smoke and debris in the air continued for a long time.

The lower part of the city was quieter. Unbelievably, from midtown up the city didn’t seem very changed, but I didn’t go to midtown or uptown often.

Anthrax scares followed in the months after and we were warned about mail as anthrax was being attached to the gummed area of envelopes.

Everyone seemed more aware of everything, like loud bangs or noise, which in a city like New York, there are a lot of.

The feeling of grief was tangible. The college remained closed until a new temporary location, a disused clothing factory, was found, to use for the year. Some students left, some lecturers had no homes as their homes were in Ground Zero.

I travelled to UK a couple weeks after 9/11 – one of my oldest friends was getting married, and I wasn’t going to go. I had just moved to New York and just felt I couldn’t, but after 9/11 I just thought I needed to.

There weren’t many on the plane and very few direct flights, many flights were cancelled, people were afraid to fly.

The pilot came on the intercom after the doors of the plane closed and told us to look at the other people in our rows, to shake hands with them and introduce ourselves to each other. The nearest person to me was four seats away as there were so few of us on the plane.

The captain then told us if someone tried to hijack the plane that we should get a blanket and get it over their heads and try and overpower them. There would be more of us passengers than there were hijackers.

I spent three days with my partner and friends at the wedding and returned to New York. It took three attempts to get back as my flights were repeatedly cancelled.