The original owner of my cat Bonnie said goodbye to the seven month-old calico kitten and walked the short distance from Battery Park City to the World Trade Center. She never saw Bonnie again.

A few minutes earlier, my roommate Leslie Ballard and my upstairs neighbor and close friend, Jeffery Cotton — the celebrated classical composer — had both left our condo on Montgomery Street. It was a delightful, sunny fall morning and they walked to the PATH station and waited for a train to take them to the downtown World Trade Center stop.

I had been up until about 2 am on the night of September 10, sharing cocktails with a couple of friends, and planning my upcoming business trip to Denver on September 12, a trip that would never take place. As a result, I slept in later than normal on the morning of the 11th. Living so close to downtown Manhattan, the noise of daily traffic and motion was a constant sonic background, but that morning it seemed louder and more urgent that usual.

My girlfriend at the time, Jackie Ho, was an early riser and when I walked into the living room, she’d already been up for a while. “There’s a fire at the World Trade Center,” she said, quietly, in her characteristically controlled manner, much as if someone had said: “There was a fire at the car factory but it’s nothing serious.” And so I did not feel alarmed until I looked out of our east-facing front windows to see the enamel-blue sky filled with brown and white smoke. At that point we didn’t know what had happened and assumed it was a conventional fire.

Jackie and I lived only a couple of miles from the Trade Center and for some reason I wanted a closer look. I am not the sort of person who gapes at road accidents, but the scale of this fire was astonishing enough for me to want to investigate. I dressed quickly, grabbed one of my cameras and Jackie and I walked out onto Montgomery Street and headed for the Hudson River. The streets were full of people pointing and staring at the towers. During our fairly short walk, the second plane hit, and by the time we arrived at the west bank of the Hudson River—directly opposite the Trade Center—both towers were ablaze.

The south tower collapsed right in front of us, so quickly that I could scarcely believe such a massive structure disintegrated so rapidly. For a couple of seconds a ghostly three-dimensional pillar of dust hung in the air, exactly mimicking the size and outline of the vanished tower. I am a photographer and it is my duty to record remarkable sights, but I left my Nikon pointed at the ground. I knew hundreds or maybe thousands of hard-working New Yorkers were being crushed at that moment and I did not want to preserve the horrible scene. The tower falling is the most haunting image in my memory and I am glad I don’t have a photograph of it.

And then the survivors arrived.

Ferries, tug boats and other small vessels began discharging evacuees where we stood. Many were covered — I mean literally covered from head to toe — in dust the color of buttermilk. I wanted to give my cell phone to anyone who needed it to call a loved one so they could say, “The Trade Center just collapsed but I’m okay,” but the WTC towers were the cell phone towers and mobile phones were not working. I distinctly remember several young women — probably secretaries — in their work attire but still wearing street-friendly sneakers, indicating that they were on their way in to their offices when the planes hit. It was a good day to be a couple of minutes late.

Jeffery Cotton and Leslie Ballard were both on the PATH train, in the tunnel near the WTC station when the towers burst into flame. Passengers on the train ahead of them were crushed or incinerated by burning, cascading jet fuel. An elderly PATH employee knew something was terribly wrong above ground, and jumped on the tracks with a flashlight to stop incoming trains. I met him, entirely by accident, exactly one year later, and thanked him for saving my friends’ lives. Leslie moved to Connecticut and — some years later, still uneasy about riding the PATH train — Jeffery moved to Pennsylvania.

For two weeks after September 11 I did rescue work, and took photos, all day, every day. I devoted time to the Hudson County SPCA, also known as the Assisi Center, where I worked as volunteer art director. None of us at the shelter were prepared for the flood of orphaned animals who would suddenly and desperately need homes because their owners had been murdered by Saudi Arabians (yes, let’s please not forget who piloted those planes — citizens of “Western-friendly” Saudi Arabia).

New Jersey EMS doctors and nurses quickly arrived and set up triage stations

I never met Bonnie’s owner, and I suppose I will never really know anything about her. As best I can figure, Bonnie was rescued, on the morning of September 14, by fireman going through the shattered apartments of Battery Park City. She was put in a donated plastic cat box and left on one of the downtown piers, along with scores of other cats, dogs, rabbits, and birds. Our shelter was already overcrowded but we took her, and a few other cats anyway. Bonnie was a tiny thing, soaking wet and terrified, and doubtless wondering why she had been taken away from her home. None of the volunteers at the shelter could get her out of her box, but when I opened up the door, she took a few steps and brushed her cheek against my hand. We’ve been together ever since.

Bonnie

If I had been trapped inside one of the burning towers ten years ago today, my final moments would have been spent worrying about my adored pet. Bonnie’s owner didn’t need to worry. On the very rare occasions when Bonnie is naughty and claws up my couch or knocks something over and breaks it, I don’t shout at her, but rather I remember the silent promise I made back in 2001 — that I would always look after her and always give her the best life possible, because her original owner could not.

Text and photographs © by Geoffrey Notkin. All rights reserved. No reproduction without written permission.

I could tell you that I had to put a beloved pet to sleep yesterday but, if I am to be completely honest with my readers, he wasn’t exactly my pet. My actual in-house pet, Bonnie, is a petite calico cat. I rescued her seven years and eleven months ago today. She is a World Trade Center orphan and her owner was killed on September 11. I will share her story with you in September.

My adopted pet was a large, imperious, and somewhat ragged feral black cat with long white whiskers, oval green eyes, and a white patch on his chest. He had been visiting me and my offerings of premium cat food for three or four years, when it was convenient for him. I was always happy when he appeared.

For the first couple of years the midnight-black cat was wary and would watch me cautiously from a safe distance. I had to leave his food far from the house before he would sniff at it but, in time, he came to trust me enough to sidle onto the garden patio. As feral cats do, he would sometimes hang around like he owned the place for days on end, only to vanish for a week or two, or a month, and make me worry that he had been snatched by a coyote, bobcat, or SUV. I named him Big Bill—an obscure reference to Patrick McGoohan’s Prisoner, my all-time favorite television show.

Recently Bill showed up after a long absence. He’d been in some kind of fight, maybe with a coyote. His front left paw was horribly mangled and his head and back were covered in sores. The previously guarded creature lay beside my patio door, crying. I was sure he was in pain, or at least very distressed. I got some antibiotics from the vet and slipped them in his food, but they didn’t seem to help. Then I contacted an animal rescue specialist and borrowed a humane trap. I spent five days trying to catch Big Bill and, after many failures, finally succeeded. Once I got him to the vet, to my great surprise, he was as calm as anything, lying quietly on the examination table, and I was able to pet him for the first time ever.

Big Bill during happier times

The news was not good. Bill’s foot was very badly injured and would require bathing, tissue removal, and ongoing care. Feral cats don’t do well with bandages. After taking cultures from his wounds they determined that he had massive infections and needed to be tested for Feline Immunodeficiency Virus and that a biopsy should be done as well. His liver was swollen and he was losing weight. We were looking at very high medical costs for initial tests only, with no guarantee that he’d even be treatable. And what if he was? Is it okay to spend $1,000 or $2,000 on a feral cat, only to put him back out in the wild with a bad foot? It was one of the hardest decisions I ever made, but I couldn’t bear to think of Big Bill suffering any more, so we put him to sleep.

I have been involved in animal rescue and animal rights work for many years and have helped find homes for literally hundreds of cats and dogs. I have lost pets to illness and wandering, to old age and road accidents, and I’ve seen elderly suffering animals euthanized out of compassion. But this was the first time I ever ordered the death of a relatively young cat. He was a scruffy guy, but he was my friend.

Big Bill spent most of his life in my garden, so I thought he'd like to be buried there

After I buried him in the garden, I sat down and wrote out a check for what I would have spent on Big Bill’s tests and sent it to my favorite Tucson animal shelter. I figured they could use those funds to help many cats instead of me possibly being able to help one. In those last few moments, Big Bill seemed quiet and calm, and stopped crying. I hope I did what was best for him, but I’ll never really know for sure.

I recently authored a piece about the HOPE animal shelter at 2011 East 12th Street and I am writing about them again today because my favorite local charity is in dire straits.

On Monday evening HOPE held an emergency financial meeting for their staff and some senior volunteers. Executive Director Susan Scherl announced that the shelter’s bank balance was $6,000. With an operating budget of $10,000 to $15,000 dollars per month the future was looking very bleak. Susan also stated that no new animals could be taken in until the financial situation improved. And there are a lot of needy cats and dogs out there, especially in the summer.

These tiny kittens were admitted to the HOPE animal shelter shortly before they had to close their doors to additional animals in need. Photograph by Caroline Palmer.

As Susan explained to me in a telephone interview: “Our expenses may seem high, but we have a lot of special needs animals, and we spend a lot of money on those that need care. The more animals we take in the more have to be spayed and neutered. We’re no-kill and we take care of [our animals]. That’s where a lot of our money goes. We don’t have a lot of employees. At HOPE, money is not going to administrative costs.”

When you take into account that salaries and wages of employees at the Humane Society of Southern Arizona amounted to a staggering 2.4 million dollars in 2007 alone, it sort of puts HOPE’s operating budget in perspective [Source 2007 income tax return].

Fundraising efforts have been going on all week at HOPE, but both Susan and one of the volunteers I spoke with described current efforts as “only a bandaid.”

Older cats and dogs are less likely to be adopted than cute little kittens. Some have lived quietly at the shelter since it opened back in 2005. Photograph by Caroline Palmer.

Susan plans to move HOPE to a new location some day, but to do so they will need at least $100,000. “We want to have a sanctuary and some land for these animals. If there is somebody who is willing to step up and sponsor the shelter, I can provide financial information. We don’t want to stay in this place forever but if we don’t get a good amount of money, we’re never going to be able to get out of this space, and we won’t be able to save more animals than we are already saving.”

Susan reminded me that no donation is too small. A lot of their money goes to buying canned cat and dog food, and interested people can help by bringing in a case of food if they cannot make a monetary donation.

One of HOPE’s active volunteers said to me: “I don’t have any children. The animals at HOPE are my kids. I told my friends and co-workers ‘I’m never going to ask you to buy cookies or magazine subscriptions for my children’s school fund, so please help me with HOPE.’”

Well put, and I concur. I mailed in my check yesterday. If you can assist with a donation of any amount, please visit the HOPE Animal Shelter’s donation page. These are good people doing good work and they need your help today. HOPE is a special place and should be kept alive.

Please see their current photos of adoptable cats and dogs in Tucson.