“[The deputy superintendent] said, ‘Is anyone in danger?’ and I said, ‘[There’s] no danger to us,’” Teitel said. “She said, ‘Then keep everyone in the building and they’ll be safe.’ And that’s what we did. Until about ten minutes later.”
The second plane struck the south tower at 9:03 a.m., jamming communications and leaving the administration without further guidance from the Board of Education. But the F.B.I. and Secret Service agents who appreared in Teitel’s office on the first floor wanting to use it as a command center had some information to offer, the principal said.
“I looked over to [the agent in charge], and all I said was, ‘I have just one question. What are the chances of those towers coming down?’ He looked at me and said, ‘No chance.’ Based on that, I made my decision.”
Teitel announced that students were to stay in the building.
“You need to understand at this moment that there are no trains and no buses in Lower Manhattan,” Teitel said over the loudspeaker. “So leaving the building, you can’t go home. There’s nowhere to go, and I think it’s dangerous in the street because of falling debris. Stay in the building. Stay away from the windows on the south side of the building. Those are the windows near the Statue of Liberty.
“We have security in the building, and federal agents,” Teitel continued. “If anyone asks for ID, please, just present your ID or your program card so we know you belong in the building. Whatever you do, just stay calm. Try to go to class. If you stay in the hallways we just don’t have enough room for walking. If you have a free period and you want to sit quietly, you’re welcome to come to the theater. I will try to come on the PA before 10:30 and give you more information. Thank you.”
Several days later Teitel said he could not recall making the announcement.
A little while later, Assistant Principal of Pupil Services Eugene Blaufarb announced over the loudspeaker that students were to report to homeroom; he soon announced he was extending homeroom until further notice.
“The federal officials were talking around me, saying they didn’t know whether the planes were part of an overall plot,” said Blaufarb in a later interview. “It could have been a larger plot, with people on the ground, coming out of covert places. One of my concerns was closing the perimeters, keeping the students inside the building; that’s why everyone was sent to homeroom.”
They were told the towers wouldn’t fall. But they did. At 9:50 a.m. the south tower collapsed, sounding a great boom and sending a shock wave through the school.
“And we realized the guy who told me we were safe had no clue,” Teitel said. “No clue.”
“A federal official came to me and told me the north building was in danger of falling, and it could hit us—which it couldn’t,” Blaufarb said. “But the shock wave, if it came at us, could bring our building down.”
Teitel huddled with other members of the administration and after “just a few minutes” they devised a new plan. Blaufarb announced over the loudspeaker that students were to evacuate the building from the north side, slowly and calmly. “My main concern was panic,” Blaufarb said. “Many students were crying and getting scared, and for good reason. I wanted everyone out of the building as quickly as possible, but as safely as possible.” To that end, Blaufarb said, he had to appear calm. “It was important to say, ‘Okay, there’s no danger,’ even though the danger was tremendous.”
He added, “It’s my job even when I’m scared. I have to keep in mind what my duty is.”
Teitel and Blaufarb positioned themselves in the lobby, Teitel near the security desk, Blaufarb standing on a chair, instructing students “to keep moving slowly, exit the building, and move north towards Chelsea Piers,” Teitel said. “We just wanted to get you north.”
“We were trying to evacuate 3,500 people through two doors,” Blaufarb said. “I’d let 200 through the door, wait 15 seconds, and let the next 200 through.”
Teitel said he thought the evacuation went very smoothly: the student body was quieter than he’d ever heard it.
At 10:30 a.m., as students were filing out, the north tower came down.
After the students left, Teitel went into I.S. 89, the intermediate school across Chambers Street from Stuyvesant, to see if he could help them evacuate safely.
But I.S. 89 had already been evacuated, so Teitel reentered Stuyvesant to make sure it was empty too. Then he walked north to Chelsea Piers, where he and several teachers organized younger students into groups for transportation home. Other teachers came upon students walking home and took them under their wing, helping them find their way.
“Teachers walked students across the Brooklyn Bridge, the 59th Street Bridge; others went up to the East Side, the West Side,” Teitel said. “Another teacher gave students his home phone number in case there were any problems.”
Teitel then proceeded north to Superintendent Tony Sawyer’s office, located in Martin Luther King, Jr. High School on 66th Street and Amsterdam Avenue. The superintendent was waiting to hear from Teitel “so he could tell the Board what the status was of student safety in all the schools of that area,” Teitel said. “Much earlier, his deputy had told me to sit tight. He had no way of knowing what had ensued from that point. As soon as I got there I went right into his office.
“So I gave him the report; I said as far as I knew, Stuyvesant High School was evacuated, that no one had been hurt in any way—physically, of course—that everyone was now being walked by faculty members to other boroughs.”
And now that it’s over, how do the administrators feel? “I’m still very affected, still very troubled by what happened,” Blaufarb said. Teitel’s take was slightly different. “I think having the responsibility of 3,000 students, 200-plus adults, everything I’ve had to do in the last eight, nine days, I haven’t had time to sit down and think about what I’ve witnessed as an individual,” Teitel said. “I’ve just been too busy.”
« return.