So today was September 11th and I thought it was appropriate to tell my story of what happened on that awful day in 2001. Sorry if I already did that, but I am going to do it again down below just in case.
As for the events of today, we observed moments of silence at work. A bell rang (on TV during a 911 ceremony) at each time the attackers struck and we all went silent for a moment before resuming our business.
Got home, love, hugs, kisses. Jake asked to go out and play catch. I said, “Sure.” and off we went. It was today that I finally conceded that, despite my very strong arm and powerful throw, Jake has a stronger throwing arm. I don’t get it. Though I outweigh him by 80 pounds and am at least 3 times as strong, he still whoops me when it comes to long throws. He effortlessly drills the ball to me from 150’ – 200’. While I consistently land the ball in front of him despite my best efforts. Wow.
Afterwards, we had some dinner and then Rochelle dropped Jordan and me off at the baseball academy for Jordan’s batting practice. And this ‘Swingout’ was not like his first one last week. This week he was spot on. After a few swing warm-up, he was blasting the ball like a pro. And I could tell after it was all over that he felt much better about the whole thing.
Back home, we got ready for bed, Jordan practiced programming in Python on his computer, and both he and Jake watched some Southpark (oy) in their room while simultaneously, we all kept tabs on the Yankees v. Rays game on TV in the livingroom. It was the top of the 8th and Alex Cobb of the Rays was just taken out after allowing a hit to spoil his no-hitter even though his pitch was still a great pitch. Anyway the score was Rays 4, Yankees 0 and there was little hope for a Yankee victory.
But in the bottom of the 8th, a Chris Young double was followed by a Martin Prado HR to make the score 4-2, and in the 9th inning, Chris Young stepped up once again with a walk-off 3-run homerun to win the game. Awesome.
And then off to bed.
“Champions keep playing until they get it right.” — Billie Jean King, World #1 ranked, Hall of Fame professional tennis champion
And so my story of 9-11-2001…
It was a sunny summer morning. I was sitting with my coworkers on the trading floor of the Bank of New York at 32 Old Slip, 15th floor, NYC.
On the floor, there were no walls and we all sat only a few feet from one another, both to the sides and back to back. So you could pretty much hear everything that was going on around you.
It started when I heard a scream over the cell phone of one of the sales guys, Baudouin De Guchteneere. She was talking with him as she walked past the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center. He asked her what was wrong, and she said that there was an explosion in one of the towers. She did not know the cause.
His heightened voice caused somewhat of a stir and got the attention of all the traders in the immediate area. Not 60 seconds later (it seemed), CNN was broadcasting footage of the twin towers, one of them smoking from the apparent explosion.
On TV, it looked like a small hole in the side of one of the towers. We later learned that the hole appeared small only because of the enormity of the building itself. At the time, the television commentators were commenting that, from the look of the hole, it must have been a helicopter or a private plane that smashed into it.
As time went on, the news stations somehow obtained footage of what really happened. It was a massive commercial jet that smashed into the tower. Everyone was shocked and amazed that such a thing could have occurred. They were calling it an unfortunate accident, but I immediately questioned how such a thing could be an accident. When you come into a city on one of those planes at hundreds of miles per hour, even skyscrapers look tiny, and it seems pretty infeasible that a jet liner could accidentally run straight into the most obvious obstacle in the entire NY skyline. I said to my coworkers that this was no accident. I think most people scoffed.
Nonetheless, I was unfortunately vindicated a short while later when the next jet crashed into the other tower. Then people freaked out. Then it was obvious.
We were under attack.
Immediately, it seemed, sheets of paper started floating past our 15th floor windows — millions of them. Before long, there was a blizzard of 8 ½” x 11” papers forming a bridge across the entire East River, completely blotting the water from view. Of course, they had all blown over from the now exposed floors of the Twin Towers.
At that point, we didn’t know how many planes were about to crash into the New York City skyline, and since our building was very prominent and exposed along the southern border of Manhattan — the direction from which the planes came — we were all understandably very nervous.
Now, Jake, at the time, was about 10 months old, and Rochelle was several months pregnant with Jordan, so there was NO WAY I was staying in that building. I immediately called Rochelle from my work phone to tell her that I was leaving work and that I would be home as soon as I could get there. It was only some time after that call that the management told us to evacuate the building.
I remember the head of FX Sales, Jorge Rodriguez, telling the sales people to call all their clients and tell them that we were evacuating. Are you serious. Just leave. The customers will figure it out.
We were told to congregate at the emergency meeting point which was just this side of the pier outside our building. I couldn’t help but think, once I got there, that if a plane rammed into this building, the spot we were in would be completely destroyed by debris. So I was compelled to simply leave.
Even though everyone was supposed to meet there, they weren’t. I’m not sure if they were still up in the building or if they had gone off on their own. All I knew is that I had to get out of there. I had a family depending on me, and I was not going to let them down.
My coworker, Steve Simonis suggested we start walking. Another coworker, Tim Kelly, and I joined him and we began our journey — one I will never forget.
After only a block or so, we saw the first bizarre event… a line at the payphone. I hadn’t seen anyone use a payphone for a very long time, forget a line of 50 people waiting to use one. It turns out that the primary cell communicator in the area was at the top of the towers and was no longer functional. So people, now cell-phoneless, were desperately trying to contact loved ones. Fortunately, I called from a land-line at work before I left. And Rochelle also spoke with my family in Warsaw to let them know that I was okay despite what they saw unfolding on TV in front of their eyes.
As we walked northward beyond the Brooklyn Bridge, it was apparent that all traffic had come to a complete standstill. All vehicle movement over the bridges and through the tunnels were forbidden. I’m not sure why. Maybe the police were trying to inhibit the escape of some of the conspirators — maybe they thought someone on the ground would be caught. I don’t know.
All along the way, there were cars packing the roads. All of their engines were turned off, and many of them were abandoned. Still others were blasting their radios with coverage of what was going on just blocks away. Some small businesses were still going about their business as best they could even as they stood just beyond the shadow of the burning towers. Because of their height, we could see the towers at most points along our journey uptown. We couldn’t help but stare in disbelief at the twin towers that looked like smoking cigarettes standing on end. People said they could see people jumping out of the windows knowing full well that there was no escape from the inferno, so, sick to my stomach at the thought, I struggled to avoid looking, but I couldn’t help myself. And then it happened. As we were all stopped and watching the spectacle, the top of one of the towers began to move… and then drop… and as it dropped, it seemed to dissolve the building beneath it. World Trade Center One had collapsed right in front of our eyes.
Shock was an understatement. People were screaming, and crying and sprinting away from the towers as though they were about to be crushed as they fell.. even though we must have been 20 blocks away at that point.
We certainly did not fully comprehend what had just happened. It was a situation so surreal that the enormity and profundity would not hit us for some time. We could only move on with our journey.
And as we proceeded uptown, we strategized our route in order to avoid all landmarks — potential targets for attack. That meant detouring around the UN, the Chrysler building and Grand Central among other notable places.
People had gathered — in bars and restaurants and park benches. It wasn’t readily apparent why people had gathered in such places, but it soon seemed obvious that they were seeking company and avoiding being alone in a time of such dire circumstances. This seemed like the place where all the people that abandoned their cars had gone. They weren’t partying. They were grieving.
And then there were the radio broadcasts — the continual stream of announcements on radios that were blasting from storefronts, cars and restaurants for the entire trip northward. And the reports were not encouraging. Not only had the attackers hit the Twin Towers, but they had also hit, according to the broadcasters, the pentagon, the capitol building, the Sears Tower, the White House, the Justice Department, and many other targets.
There was also the point where we heard that the second tower had fallen.
And then there was the roar…
It was growling and getting louder and louder. I was nearly certain that a missile was about to hit — I even thought it was the final one, an ICBM. It kept getting louder and louder until finally it came into view — they were fighter jets. They were flying over the city in an attempt to protect it from further attack… but they were too late. All the damage that was going to be done that day by the attackers had been done.
Eventually, Steve parted ways — off to Penn Station where he would find that no trains were coming or going. Not sure how he finally got back home to Long Island.
Tim and I continued and separated only when he got close to his building on the upper east side.
When I got home, I gave my family a huge hug and thanked the power that be that we were safely together. I also went out and got some supplies with the anticipation that deliveries into the city might be stalled over the next few days.
I remember at one point, looking out our window (at the time we lived on the 17th floor (17G) of 345 East 93rd St), stared at the billowing smoke rising over downtown Manhattan — and smelling the burning plastic in the air, and wondering what we’ve done bringing our kids into such a world.
I called Mom to let her know I was okay, and she told me that everyone was freaking out up there, as I imagine they were across the world. She told me that Karen was watching the destruction on TV and just sobbing at the horror.
The following morning I got a call from Emil Menzies, a guy from work who is in charge of some of our trading systems. He had a message for me, “John Gaines (My boss and head of North American FX Trading at the time) said that you have to go into work this morning and make sure that all the systems are working.”
My response?
“There is no way that I am going to down there today. Skyscrapers are falling. We’ve no idea what ‘s going to happen next.”
He was clearly taken aback by my response, but tough nuts. There was no way that was happening. After several moments of stunned silence, he then told me that I would have to speak with John about that. “No problem. What’s his number?” I then called him and explained my position. To his credit, he totally understood and said no problem, he’ll get some other sucker to go down there. (John Bundy was the one who actually went).
Things that I mentioned were that the entire city was shut off below 14th street and there was no indication that you could legally go beneath that line. The source of the attacks had yet to be determined and there was no assurance that other would not follow in one form or another.
I have a young and growing family, and there is no way I was going to threaten that to just to check a couple of stupid systems.
Later that day, as the wreckage of the towers continued fiercely billowing smoke and fumes, Rochelle and I went to Lenox Hill Hospital on 77th Street to donate blood for those who were injured in the horrors of the prior day.
But the hospitals weren’t taking any more blood donations. There were no injured people. It seems that all the triages that were set up to bring in the wounded were empty. There were only two types of people that experienced the attacks — the ones who got away, and the ones who didn’t. Those who got away were mostly without injury. Those who didn’t… were no longer alive.
As the days went on, some coworkers went to a contingency site in Connecticut. I was not one of them. I stayed home with my family and we consoled each other.
The following week, we returned to our building — an intensely acrid stink in the air. It burned your throat and for several days it compelled me to wear a mask over my mouth and nose when I went to and from our building.
Upon my return, I learned that when the first tower fell, a massive cloud of debris blew over to the remaining employees that were standing outside the building at the meet-up point near the pier — the place that we were waiting before deciding to make our way uptown.
We also learned that the Giants had played on Wednesday, September 10th — the night before — and because of that, many people stayed up late to watch them. That meant that many of those people went into work a bit later the next morning. A fraternity brother of mine from Syracuse was one of those people. He came up out of the subway just after the plane had hit Tower 1. As he was entering the tower, others were running out. He was shocked at this behavior and wondered what could be going on… and then he looked up. Holy _____! And he immediately ran from the scene. The Giants saved his life.. as they did many others who worked in the building and decided that they were going to go into work just a bit later that day.