A remembrance of beauty persists alongside the horrors that mark Sept. 11, 2001. A storm had swept across the Northeast the day before, giving rise that morning to a rare meteorological phenomenon known as “severe clear.”
In “The Only Plane in the Sky,” an oral history of 9/11, Garrett Graff writes of the “cloudless skies that made an enduring impression on all who would witness what transpired in the hours ahead.” He quotes people who describe the sky high over New York and Washington. “A gorgeous blue,” says a Virginia police officer. “Deep blue,” says a Capitol Hill staffer. “Deep, deep blue,” says a chef in Manhattan. Others remember the hue overhead as “cobalt blue,” “cerulean blue” and “the bluest of blues,” and as one “that you wish you could put in a bottle.”
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