15 years later, memories of 9/11 still fresh

Although the events of Sept. 11, 2001, were 15 years ago, Chelsea Mayor Earl Niven perhaps remembers them more vividly than most Southerners.

Why? Because he was there.

Niven and his wife work with senior adults at Liberty Baptist Church in Chelsea, and they plan a bus tour trip for the group every year. In 2001, their 10-day trip was scheduled to conclude in New York City on Sept. 11. The couple, along with 45 other adults, had no idea they would experience firsthand the attacks on the twin towers.

After arriving in New York on Sept. 10, the group toured the city and got back to their hotel late that evening. They were scheduled to leave their hotel, the Marriott Marquis, at 8 a.m. the next morning. Niven said leaving 30 minutes late that morning, which happened by chance, kept the group out of harm’s way. Had they left at the scheduled 8 a.m., they would have been at Battery Park or boarding the ferry to Ellis Island, just four blocks away from the World Trade Center towers.

“I’m a person who stays on schedule, and when you travel on a 10-day trip over 4,000 miles you have to, because all the activities were under contract,” Niven said. “We were out late the night of the 10th, and having senior adults from ages 55 to 85, I thought they might need more time to sleep, so I said we’d leave at 8:30 a.m. instead. I believe that was God telling us to leave late and keeping us under His hand.”

It was when the group’s tour bus was en route to Battery Park to catch a ferry taking them to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island  that they found out a plane had hit one of the towers.

“We didn’t know what it was,” Niven said. “We saw a gaping hole in the building and thought it was just a fire.”

They turned on the bus radio and quickly found out a passenger plane crashed into the building. It was then Niven had the bus driver pull off the road because emergency vehicles were passing by. Niven grabbed his camera and began snapping pictures from his front-row seat.

“I have a photo I took after the second plane hit that I’ve made over 3,000 copies of,” Niven said. “It clearly shows the face of Satan. It’s appeared in Time magazine and several other publications. I didn’t know I had captured it until I had my film developed, and that’s when I saw it.”

During this time of uncertainty and confusion, Niven’s thoughts turned to his group of senior adults and what was going through their minds, especially how some with high blood pressure and heart conditions would be affected.

“I knew I needed to get them back to the hotel,” he said. “It took us 45 minutes just to get the bus turned around and head back to the hotel. Once we got out of the heavy traffic, I had the driver pull over and had a prayer for the people in the buildings.”

After an hour and fifteen minutes, the group arrived back at the Marriott, where FBI personnel were in the lobby checking room keys. The group watched news coverage in their rooms for several hours before heading out to walk around Times Square.

“I’ve been to New York several times,” he said. “There’s always so much traffic in Times Square. At 2 p.m. on the 11th, there was no traffic or cars there. All bridges and entrances into and out of the city were closed.”

Niven said he slept very little that night, as local media were calling him for interviews. The group was, however, able to leave as scheduled the following day via the George Washington Bridge.

When they arrived back in Chelsea, there was a reception of people and media welcoming them home.

Niven said a trip back to New York to finish the trip is on his bucket list. He said he hopes to take the group back East to Washington, D.C., and end in New York to see plays. He will soon have more time in his schedule to allow that, as the first and only mayor of Chelsea, he will be retiring Oct. 31 after 20 years in office.

“I’m pleased with what we’ve done. There’s a great foundation to build on,” he said.