WITNESS HORROR DISBELIEF.

Byline: Barbara Joan Grubman

THE bus let me off across from the World Trade Center that Wednesday evening. It was twilight, and the city was just ending its work day. As I looked up at the towers, I thought of the day my then 15-year-old son and I were denied seating at Windows on the World because he was wearing blue jeans instead of proper trousers. And, truthfully, I never thought they were great-looking buildings.

I was travel-weary and rumpled-looking from the plane ride from Los Angeles. I needed a place to wash up and take a deep breath before catching a taxi to what I called my New York pied a terre at East 18th Street. Only it wasn't really mine, just a warm and welcoming apartment of close childhood friends. Even the doormen recognized me.

The closest place to make myself more presentable for my hosts was the restroom of the Tall Ships Bar at the Marriott Hotel, across from the World Trade Center. I rushed past the still summer-tanned young people sitting at the bar or filling small intimate tables, and I thought of our differences. Old enough to be their mother, or perhaps even their grandmother, I observed with a twinge of envy their trim city clothes, the ease with which they talked. And then came, ``What would it be like to be that age again with Manhattan at your feet?'' I felt very old.

This was to be a trip of leisure, fun and talking. My friend's patio, which overlooked Irving Place, was just the spot to do all three, with time in between for a ferry ride to Ellis Island and whatever else caught our eyes in The New York Times Arts and Leisure section. An added bonus was a Yankee game on the following Tuesday evening. A born Bronxite, I never lost the thrill of walking into that stadium.

The game was rained out, but not until we had sat and satiated ourselves on kosher hot dogs and real cokes, under the protective cover of the section above us.

The next morning, Tuesday, dawned with a sky so blue that it could take your breath away and a promise of an autumn Indian summer day. As we were enjoying our breakfast on her terrace, my friend Judy said, ``I think we better go to Ellis Island today, as we don't know what the weather will be like the rest of the week.'' Then, we would head over to the World Trade Center and pick up some free tickets for a dance festival we had read about in the Times that morning.

It was about 8:30 a.m. We started to get dressed for the day's adventures. The TV was on in Judy's bedroom. She called out to me and to her husband, Irwin. ``A plane has just hit the World Trade Center!'' Only, in my mind, her words got mixed up with the plane that had hit the Empire State Building in the 1940s. Then I thought it must have been a small plane that hit the tower.

By now, the three of us were watching intently. I asked, ``Do you think that the building could fall?''

``Not likely,'' Irwin answered.

When the second plane hit, we all knew that the planes were not small, were not lost, and it was likely that the buildings might collapse.

I finished dressing, left the apartment, bought three disposable cameras at the corner CVS and headed toward Broadway. The burning towers came into view. No one was moving. Cars, with their doors flung open, were stopped in the middle of the road. Small knots of people listened to their radios. Strangers gathered at the horror of it all.

I started to walk down Broadway, not knowing where I was going. The first tower fell. I kept walking and ended up on the roof of my late aunt's apartment building on East 8th Street. Throngs of residents were already there. We all stood in disbelief, knowing what we were about to witness.

Fifteen minutes later, the second tower fell. Slowly, as if engulfed by a mushroom cloud and then faster, faster still, each moment bringing a new shape to the skyline. I snapped five pictures. I cried with strangers.

Then, sometime during the next week, I read about the many World Trade Center workers who used to stop into the Tall Ships Bar before traveling home to shed the concerns of the day. And I thought of how I had envied them.

Then I though of the bluest of skies and, once again, I cried.

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(1 -- 4 -- color) no caption (World Trade Center)