Let Us Not Forget…

Reprinted from our sister blog at www.crisispost.com:

I thought I would share with my faithful blogees an email that I sent yesterday to my employees and firm alumni.

All: As the bus taking us to the Ellis Island dinner for a conference last night passed the World Trade Center site, so many thoughts brought back the unspeakable tragedy which befell us now 8 years ago. I’ve forwarded an always updated version of this each year to our staff and alumni who were with us then as we approach the 9/11 anniversary so we will never forget that horrible day and the week that followed…

I was driving my then 11-year old daughter (now a sophomore in college!) and her friend to school on a sunny Tuesday morning when it came over the radio. We thought it was a joke on the top 40 station. “A small plane has hit the World Trade Center.” When we realized it was real, I said, well that’s downtown, my office is midtown, I should be able to still head in. I dropped off my daughter and found myself right next to JFK Airport when they reported the second plane hitting. At that moment, all traffic on this normally busy thoroughfare came to a dead halt. As I sat there very confused about what was happening (although immediately a radio commentator said “we’re being attacked”), I remembered the ’93 Trade Center bombing and immediately called the office and closed it, telling everyone to get home and get safe. After 20 minutes of inability to move, I turned around and went home, worried about my daughter at that point. Her school closed and she came home about an hour later.

The staff first gathered at the restaurant next door to our then office on West 44th Street to watch the TV and then realized they needed to scatter. My assistant at the time walked home to Queens over the 59^th St. bridge. One attorney was worried about his Dad, thinking he was downtown (he was not). Another’s wife, a lawyer who worked downtown, came up out of the subway down there and saw everything (she managed to turn around and get out). Another associate walked up to the upper west side to his mother’s and did not get home to Jersey until the next day. My family and I were worried about my brother-in-law next door to the Trade Center at World Financial Center (we did not hear from him until 2pm telling us he was in the hospital treated for smoke inhalation, he got home around 1 am that night after thinking he was not going to make it as the building fell very close to him).

I spent the day watching the TV and emailing basically every person I knew to see if they were OK (it took 3 scary days to find one friend who was out of the country). The next day, with all bridges and tunnels closed, almost all of us made it in anyway. There was no point, as our phones had gone out. We sent an email to everyone we could with our cell phone numbers and such, but no one was calling. We all went for a very long liquid lunch and then went home. That afternoon I reached an old friend who worked at Marsh & McClennan on the 107^th floor. Thankfully he was in Florida at a conference. He could barely speak. He told me he supervised a team of 12 people, and had ordered all of them to come in early that day, and they were all gone. Another friend was fine – he was supposed to have breakfast at Windows on the World on Tuesday but at 11pm the night before his client suggested they switch it to lunch.

Then Thursday, more people on the streets, but by noon there were over 100 bomb threats in the city and rumors the trains might shut down, stranding everyone in the city. Still no phones. We closed again and said we’d stay closed until Monday. I remember literally running from the office to Penn Station with an associate, stopping only for a moment to pay $2 for a small American flag which still sits in my office. Good thing we stayed closed because hundreds more bomb threats on Friday.

I spent Friday at home wondering what to do. Our phone provider said they had no idea when the phones would be back. Their transformer was at the Trade Center. It wasn’t like you could just call Verizon and ask them to come put new lines in. A law firm without phones is helpless. The city was a mess.

Around noon on Friday just for fun I called the office, and miraculously the phone lines suddenly were working. On Monday we all came back, still shaken up but determined. Clients started calling. That deal we were working on before this, let’s get it done. It took a month or so but then things were back to humming as always.

I allowed employees to volunteer down at the site during work time if they wanted to. I offered space in our suite to attorneys whose offices had been destroyed or inaccessible. We did all we could. But we could not bring back the thousands who perished, including so many who died trying to save others.

If Osama is indeed still with us you can bet he’s determined to do it again. I hope you will take a little time tomorrow, both to remember the bravery of those who died and those who risked illness to work on the Pile for months, and to remember our need to stay vigilant and resolute in our desire to rid the world of this horrific evil. And also, to remember the wonderful things that happened as the city and our nation came together in those difficult days. I worry that a rapidly growing population of kids, including my 7-year old son, either know nothing about the tragedy or will learn about it as part of history- let’s make sure they really understand what we faced.

I will remember two that I knew who did not make it that day, Dave Weiss of Cantor Fitzgerald and Neil Levin, head of the Port Authority.

Leave a comment