Nyack Sketch Log: On 9/11, I Remember John Perry

by Bill Batson

In recognition of the 25th anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center, Nyack Sketch Log is honored to republish this memorial to one of the fallen, New York City Police Officer John Perry and the six Nyack residents who perished as a result of the collapse of the towers.

Each 9/11,  I remember my friend John Perry.  I was in New York City that day and was one of the last people to see New York City Police Office John Perry alive. For some,  revisiting the sadness of the day must be overwhelming, and I respect that. For me, sharing something about John feels necessary and salutary.

I waved goodbye to John at around 7am on the morning of the attack as he descended the stairs at the 72nd street IRT. He was going to One Police Plaza to hand in his badge and shield and start his life as a lawyer. Not sufficiently fulfilled by police work, he completed law school, passed the bar and accepted a position at a law firm that specialized in civil liberties. Yes, he was a rare bird.

We were working on a political campaign together and had been up since 5am  hanging campaign posters. I walked away from the train station, enjoying the crisp almost autumn air and thinking “what a perfect day for an election and for John to end one career and start another.”

John was a star volunteer on the campaign I was managing: Norman Siegel for New York City Public Advocate. Our headquarters was in a store front on 72nd Street between Broadway and Columbus Avenues.

As the planes struck the towers of the World Trade Center, you could hear the cell phone of almost every person walking down the street ring simultaneously, as news of what happened traveled by word of mouth. A crowd formed in front of the hardware store next to our campaign office. People watched in stunned silence as the smoke billowed skyward from the South Tower on TV sets displayed in their window. Others walked to the corner of Broadway to see the actual plume rising from the carnage with their own eyes. I thought to myself, “John is down there, trying to save lives.”

According to eyewitnesses, John saw the first plane hit while he was leaving One Police Plaza. He was seen buying an NYPD tee-shirt from a street vendor. He needed the shirt because he had just given up his badge, but that didn’t stop him from being a cop and doing his job on the day he was needed most. Later, he was seen racing into the towers. He was never seen alive again.

His mother started calling the campaign office around 9:30am. I think I still have several of the phone message slips that campaign volunteers used to record her pleas. She wanted to know if we had seen her son. When I told her that I had seen him heading downtown before the attack, she fell silent. We both knew.

About an hour after the first tower collapsed, a steady stream of men and women, all painted gray from pulverized concrete, with tears cutting paths through their dust covered faces, marched past our store front. They walked aimlessly, like refugees. Some people who lived to the south, in Brooklyn, marched north, driven by fear and confusion.

The Board of Elections cancelled balloting. We comforted each other and some of the wandering masses. News of the Pentagon attack caused a feeling of dread. Were there more passenger plane missiles heading our way? Yet the enormity of it all left us numb, not panicked.

We couldn’t send any campaign staff or volunteers home because the bridges and tunnels were closed, so we sheltered in place. Under a sky so cloudless it mocked us, we thought about the man who had walked away that morning and would never come back; a man who was in the end, what he always was: the best of us.

On 9/11, I remember a hero, John Perry.

This sketch log was originally published on September 11, 2011 for the ten year anniversary of the attack.

An artist, writer and activist, Bill Batson lives in Nyack, NY. Nyack Sketch Log: “On 9/11 I remember John Perry”  © 2021 Bill Batson. Visit billbatsonarts.com to see more.