There were many Aussies in New York on 9/11. I was one of them

September 10, 2026 — 3:30pm

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Almost 25 years ago, on September 11, I was sitting at my desk in my New York apartment, struggling with a sentence in the novel I was writing.

I looked up occasionally, searching for inspiration among the windows of the high-rise buildings across the street and the blue late-summer sky.

Four blocks south and directly in sight of my fourth-floor window, the World Trade Centre towered above them.

I lived on Chambers Street, a busy conduit which ran east-west between the Hudson River and the East River. Our loft was in a building near the corner of West Broadway, one of Tribeca’s main streets, home to the Odeon restaurant.

I was startled by the sound of a jet roaring low overhead. It was not the sound of a plane making an approach to an airport (Newark wasn’t that far away) but one gunning its engines, speeding up, roaring. I looked up a few seconds before it hit the north tower. I saw it go in, cookie-cutter style,........

© The Age