LGBT Lives Profoundly Changed on 9/11/2001

See also September 11, 2001 and LGBT History

Artist Hunter Reynolds remembers:

On the evening of September 10th 2001 I went to the gay bar Boots and Saddles to have my favorite German beer on draft. In walked a hot German man from Berlin. I lived in Berlin for 8 years and was really missing my time there. Frank Haeussler was on his first trip to America celebrating his graduation from seminary school to become a priest. We hit it off and he invited me to spend the night with him at his hotel in SOHO.

He told me that he was leaving the next morning to go back to Germany at 3 pm, and that he wanted to be up early to have breakfast at Windows On The World at 8 am and then go to the observation deck at the top of the north tower. I said “OK I might go with you. I have never been to either place”.

Well we had sex. Got up at 7:30. Had sex in the shower and did not get out of the hotel until 8:20 am. We ran down church street and arrived at the towers at 8:35am. Instead of going directly up to the restaurant I said “Frank I want to show you something amazing! Lets go to the Path Train Escalators and watch the thousands of people coming to work like ants climbing a mountain of humanity. Its one of those Koyaanisqatsi Phillip Glass moments.

Philip Glass - Koyaanisqatsi

We were riding the escalator up when the first plane hit the north tower. We ran outside and saw the burning hole in the tower. Then the first person jumped falling to their death. Another. Then another. Frank fainted. When he came to he looked at me and said, “God sent you to save my life”. I said “I know! I think we should walk north.”

We ended up at Tirbeca Park where we watched the towers collapse. When the south tower fell I thought my cousin Dianne Blell’s home was being crushed and that she might be hurt or killed. She is a well known artist and photographer who has lived in the artist loft building at 125 Cedar Street, across from the South Tower.

We found each other alive 3 days later. I spent the next three months doing a gorilla art recovery mission retrieving her art and thousands of negatives and slides from her destroyed loft. We posed as volunteers and infiltrated every security system in place to get into Ground Zero. Then I spent the next year helping to restore her art. Cleaning the WTC dust from 40 years of her photography.

A lot was lost that day. Artists died and art was shattered and our hearts bled for our community of artists.

Hunter Reynolds is represented by PPOW Gallery. For more information go to PPOW Gallery: Hunter Reynolds and the artist's website.