Good morning friends.
Where I was on September 11th, 2001 — A personal story.
I know the whole world was tuned into what was happening from afar, but I will share the story from someone who lived and worked in NYC that day.
The Twin Towers were synonymous with New York City just like the Empire State building and they dominated the New York skyline. Those towers gave new meaning to the word “gigantic.” Anyone who stood in front of them and looked up was in complete awe.
The towers were built in the early 1970’s during which time my father was a commercial leasing broker in NYC up until his death in 1984. The developers of the towers invited many brokers to take a look at the palatial office space that was now available to companies for lease. When I went down there with my father I must have been 5 years old, that was 40 years ago and I can remember it vividly.
I remember walking up the stairs to the second floor to get the elevators to the observation deck at the top building. Even on the 2nd floor you can hear and feel all the wind flowing through the elevator shafts. There was a lot of purple carpet on the second floor waiting for those elevators. I guess that was a sign of the times or something. Anyway, I don’t remember going to the top that day, later on life I had made it to the top a couple of times.
Fast forward to 1994 when I interviewed with the company Cantor Fitzgerald who leased space on floors 101 through 105 in one of the towers. I had interviewed with a gentleman named Will Raub. He was a nice guy. Despite me having no experience he recommended me to their training program. It turns out the training program did not hire me either. Will Raub along with 3000 other people from hundreds of companies throughout the two towers were killed on September 11th, 2001.
I will fast forward now to the morning of September 11, 2001. I was working midtown for another Wall Street firm on 47th street and 3rd avenue. When the first plane hit, we all said to each other it was a private plane, and while being a tragedy was not something to be alarmed about in terms of security. When the second plane hit the other tower, we knew life changed forever in an instant. Many of us were on the phone with other traders from Cantor Fitzgerald who were stuck at the the top of one of the towers. The things we were hearing and the decisions they had to make were incomprehensible. The head of the firm I worked for stood up and told us all to leave the building immediately and get on the street.
We were about 3 miles north of the twin towers to give you perspective. The thing was for me I lived only one mile from the World Trade Center and had to walk in that direction to get home. While I was walking South to get home, tens and tens of thousands of people were walking North to get out of the downtown area. Thousands were walking on bridges to get to into queens and Brooklyn.
Hardly anyone was walking towards downtown, but that’s where I lived, so I continued on. This was before smart phones existed mind you, so people were stopping in banks, and Charles Schwab offices to watch the news on their big screen TV’s to figure out what exactly happened. People were crowding around street vendors to listen to their radios for current news. Not in a million years did I or anyone think those towers would come down. It was literally unimaginable and unfathomable. But they did come down, and were completely destroyed. Three thousand people lost their lives in complete horror and shock.
When I finally got home my apartment smelled like burnt rubber tires. It was not possible to breath like that for too long. I packed up my stuff that night and stayed with a friend for two weeks on the Upper West Side. From there a signed a lease on the Upper East Side and never lived downtown again. That was 14 years ago today. (Just a heads up, this story was written in 2015)
And today, NYC has come back strong, real strong. There are twice as many people living down there then before 9/11 happened. We have the Freedom tower now at One World Trade Center. It is the tallest skyscraper in the Western Hemisphere. I will conclude with this, New York City will never be the same, and New York City has never been stronger.
No lives will go in vain, no pain will go unnoticed. Scott Smith for Sammy & Family.
