20th Anniversary
Sometimes you experience a day that you will never forget and that day was Sunday, Sept. 17, 2000 for me.
On that date, the girls, as we like to call ourselves, finally got the privilege of eating at the Windows on the World restaurant, located on 107th story of 1 World Trade Center building in New York City.
Our reservations were for the Sunday champagne brunch. We rode the #7 subway to the Cortlandt stop, walked through the underground mall that housed retail stores and restaurants, rode the escalator up to the fifth floor where we entered the elevator about the size of a living room that would take us to the 107th floor in 54 seconds.
As the elevator doors opened, we stepped into the restaurant that reached a quarter of a mile into the sky, giving us, some say, a view of 70 miles into the horizon. As we were led to our tables right in the Northeast corner, a band was playing a combination of gospel and jazz songs. The sky was a beautiful blue, no clouds, the best view of New York City, so high up that buildings looked like toy buildings, the bridges were tinker toy models, the Statue of Liberty was the size you would see in a tourist shop.
As we had several in our group that had a birthday in September, I went to the band stand while the band was on break and gave a note to the sound board tech, “Please sing, Happy Birthday, to the girls in the corner and also, please, sing any song by Al Green.”
When the band returned, the lead singer asked who had requested the Al Green song? I raised my hand and he came over to our table and knelt down beside me and sang, “Let’s Stay Together.” You know my face was beet red as photos prove. The singer then went to each girl and sang Happy Birthday to them.
The food was delicious and elegantly presented along with glasses of champagne and many toasts. Our waiters gave us a special meal on a special day. Less than a year later the Towers came down on 9/11 and every person in the restaurant that morning did not survive.
Our special day became even a more special day after 9/11, because we knew we would never have it again. Now, we celebrate the 20th Anniversary of that special day with only our memories.
RIP to all those thousands of victims, The Miserettes.