On Sept. 11, 2001, America learned a lot about heroism. In the midst of that day’s chaos and devastation, we saw the very best of humankind as regular citizens and emergency services personnel risked their lives to save others.
On this 19th anniversary of 9/11, let’s remember those who were lost, the heroes who tried to save them, and those who work today to keep resources available for survivors and for the families of victims.
NEVER FORGET
Sept. 11, 2001 Stories from Locals Who Were Forever Changed that Fateful Day Patriot Day
A Special Publication of The Daily Star Friday, Sept. 11, 2020
Remembering the Facts
We Remember
Local Advertisers Remember 9/11
Sept. 11, 2020
SEPT. 11, 2020
9.11 – WE REMEMBER | THE DAILY STAR
9/11 an odd day of mixing tragedy and normal activities I had one thing on my mind when I got up the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. I had to make appointments for trials to get my and my bridesmaids’ hair done for my wedding coming up in less than a month. I got up a bit earlier than I normally did (about 9 since I was working a night shift), and immediately called CAZZOLLA my first choice of salons, but found out I’d have to look elsewhere. I don’t remember if the place was booked, didn’t do wedding parties, or maybe it went out of business. But because my choice wasn’t possible, I figured I’d call up my future sister-in-law for some ideas. Her husband answered, and after I asked to speak to his wife, and he said he’d get her. As I was waiting, he asked me, “Did you see two planes hit the Twin Towers?” At that point I was thinking small prop planes, not two jetliners. I immediately turned on the TV to see smoke billowing from the towers. Those were the same towers we had seen as part of the nighttime city skyline just three days earlier as we returning from a wedding in Queens. Looking out the window, I said to my soon-to-be husband, “Remind me to bring my camera next time we head to the city. I want to get a picture.” But now it was too late. Within an hour of me seeing the smoke, the towers fell, immediately taking the lives of thousands of innocent people who were working in those buildings. Nearly 3,000 people died in the immediate terrorist attacks on the New York City, the Pentagon, and the attempt by al-Qaida terrorists to hit another target, which was foiled by passengers on another plane. They had given their lives to take back The front page of The Daily Star from Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2001.
3
I called my mom in between calls to the hairdressers and watching the events unfold on television. My sister worked somewhere in Manhattan at the time, and my mom was worried, because she couldn’t get through to her. Mom eventually heard back from my sister: She was fine and had managed to get to a safe place. Why would someone purposely crash planes full of people into buildings, we wondered. I guessed it was Osama bin Laden. Turns out, I was right. I watched as much as I could before heading into work here at The Daily Star. I arrived in the early afternoon and the place was buzzing.
We had cleared out space so the first half of the paper was all about the 9/11 attacks. We talked to people who were in New York City at the time, those from the areas hit by the planes, local emergency officials, school officials and so many more.
the 9/11 attacks and eventually realizing how much the world truly did change that day. Denielle Cazzolla was Weekend and Special Sections editor of The Daily Star in 2001, and is now editor.
We combed the wires for the best stories and photos. One of my tasks was to lay out a two-page photo spread on the tragedy that was prevalent that day. It was sad to see the devastation. But in the days that followed, we also saw the kindness so many had. People lined up to give blood. Charitable donations were collected for the victims. Volunteer emergency workers headed to Ground Zero to search for survivors. A gentleman, whose name I can’t now remember, shared with me a CD of a song he wrote in honor of those whose lives were forever changed in the attacks While some memories of the day of attacks have faded, I will always remember hearing of
WE WILL NEVER FORGET
9.11 – WE REMEMBER | THE DAILY STAR
As I was watching TV, I spoke to my future sister-in-law and got some leads on hairdressers, and made calls to set up appointments. It was very surreal. It seemed odd to still be doing day-to-day things as it was clear terrorists had attacked our country.
It was hectic.
SEPT. 11, 2020
the plane after they had heard about the other attacks.
SEPT. 11, 2020
9.11 – WE REMEMBER | THE DAILY STAR
Honor America on Patriot Day September 11, 2001, was a tragic day in American history. On that day, nearly 3,000 innocent lives were lost due to the terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C. as well as in rural Pennsylvania, where another plane en route for more destruction crash-landed.
H Engage in service projects that can help your community, including its underserved individuals, like veterans. National Day of Service, which is the same day as Patriot Day, asks people to do at least one good deed in honor of those who died on 9/11.
The indelible images of the World Trade Center collapsing in flames with crowds running for safety, as well as the ensuing visions of heroes and citizens working together, have created a lasting impression.
H Make a trip to New York City and visit the National September 11 Memorial & Museum.
While buildings have been repaired and new sites erected in the wake of the attacks, there are many ways to continue to honor the fallen. Patriot Day, which takes place each year on Sept. 11 to honor those who lost their lives in the 9/11 attacks, is one such example. The following are a handful of ways that people can honor 9/11 victims and their families. H Celebrate local heroes by visiting or making donations of food or supplies to local firehouses and police stations. H Commemorate the events of 9/11 by observing moments of silence at key times throughout the day: 8:46 a.m, 9:03 a.m., 9:37 a.m., 9:59 a.m., 10:03 a.m., and 10:28 a.m.
H If you display a flag at your home or business, be sure to place it at half staff from sunrise to sunset to mourn the lives lost. H Share stories of the heroism and bravery of first responders with young children who may not have been alive in 2001. H Unite the country by promoting acceptance of and kindness to all people, regardless of religious or political beliefs. H Attend a special service commemorating 9/11 at houses of worship. H Visit memorials honoring the fallen in various communities in and around your home. This Patriot Day, there are many ways individuals can honor those who lost their lives on 9/11.
Misinformation and conspiracy theories about 9/11 are still circulating today. But it’s important that people know how to distinguish fact from fiction.
• This was not the first terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. A bombing occurred in 1993 in the building’s parking garage, killing six people. However, the events of 9/11 have since been deemed the worst terrorist attack on American soil.
• The attacks of 9/11 were carried out by 19 men who hijacked four fuel-loaded American commercial airline jets that were bound for destinations on the west coast. These individuals were militants associated with the Islamic extremist group al-Qaeda. Three planes reached their targets. The fourth crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. • The first point of impact was the World Trade Center’s North Tower located in downtown New York City. American Airlines Boeing 767 left a gaping, burning hole in floors 93 through 99 at 8:45 a.m. Many people were killed instantly, and
• According to DoSomething.org, on a given work day, up to 50,000 employees worked in the Twin Towers, and an additional 40,000 people (including tourists) passed through the complex and underground shopping mall. • Hijackers aboard Flight 77 that departed from Dulles International Airport crashed that Boeing 757 into the western facade of the Pentagon building at 9:37 a.m. Fifty-nine people aboard the plane and 125 military and civilian personnel inside the Pentagon lost their lives.
• According to History.com, after passengers and crew members aboard hijacked Flight 93 contacted friends and family and learned about the attacks in New York and Washington, they attempted to retake the plane. In response, hijackers deliberately crashed the plane into a field in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, killing all 40 passengers and crew aboard. • Amid rumors that other high-profile buildings were being targeted, by 10 a.m. the Federal Aviation Administration grounded all flights over or bound for the continental United States. Various buildings were evacuated as well. • The South Tower collapsed at 9:59 a.m. and the North Tower collapsed at 10:28 a.m. CNN reports that 2,753 were killed in lower Manhattan alone. • As of 2016, Only 18 people were rescued from the WTC rubble. Many victims were never identified, even after intense DNA analysis of remains.
9.11 – WE REMEMBER | THE DAILY STAR
hundreds more were trapped on floors above the 99th floor. The plane crash was initially thought to be an accident. However, when a second Boeing 767 crashed into the South Tower shortly after the first crash, it became apparent that America was under attack and the first crash was no accident.
SEPT. 11, 2020
This fall, the world will gather once again to commemorate the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Nineteen years have passed since the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, and many people in New York City, Washington, D.C., southwestern Pennsylvania, and across the globe are still coping with the aftermath of those attacks.
5
Remembering the facts of September 11, 2001
SEPT. 11, 2020
9.11 – WE REMEMBER | THE DAILY STAR
Trooper, wife recall 9/11 attacks, aftermath By Allison Collins
Contributing Writer
F
or Sharon Springs resident Patricia Johnstone, 53, Sept. 11, 2001, was the start of months of separation from her husband, Chip, a trooper with the New York State Police. “I was working for an engineering firm in Albany … and that morning, the receptionist came into HR because something was going on,” she said. “We had no idea. She brought (me) and a bunch of other people into this conference room and we were watching these events unfold. At first you thought this was some kind of anomaly, because who ever could think that something like that could happen? All of a sudden, we’re watching planes crash into the towers and I couldn’t even talk. Nobody in the room talked; it was jammed, but nobody spoke. “Eventually, the receptionist came and touched my shoulder,” Patricia continued. “She said, ‘There’s a phone call for you.’ It was my husband and he said, ‘We’ve been instructed to get our bags packed.’ I wanted to go home and meet him, of course, but he said, ‘There’s no time. I’m already on my way.’ It was surreal. That was the start of weeks, if not months, apart.” Chip Johnstone, 55, said he was at the state police driver training facility in Schenectady, awaiting recruits, when the attacks began. “Another trooper said, ‘Are you listening to the radio? A plane has run into one of the towers.’ I just assumed it was a small, single-engine plane and someone had lost control,” he said. “We started to learn it was a commercial passenger plane and, once the second plane hit the other
Patricia and Chip Johnstone are shown in this undated photo.
Contributed
tower, everything had changed. It was no longer an accident. We went to the academy … and shortly thereafter, they said, ‘Go home, pack a bag and be prepared to head to New York City.’”
Other tours, Chip said, included highway patrol, transporting recovered remains to city morgues and escorting victims’ family members to Ground Zero.
Chip, who retired from the state police in 2018 after 30 years, said that was his first of five “tours” of 9/11 duty.
“The two that were hardest,” he said, “were probably escorting remains and escorting the family members.”
“New York City never sleeps, but when we went down the thruway over what was the Tappan Zee Bridge, everything was closed,” he said. “There were no cars on the bridges, everything was shut down and there were no planes in the sky. That first (tour), I was at Ground Zero by 2 a.m. on Sept. 12 and, at that point, it was just chaos. The only way I can describe it is like something you’d see in a movie.
Chip said, though he counts himself lucky to have avoided the serious mental and physical illnesses afflicting many first responders from the time, his 9/11 service left its mark.
“I remember pieces of paper just everywhere and there was about six inches of ash on the ground that we walked through,” Chip continued. “It was so surreal; trying to take it all in was hard to do. I remember seeing the pile and
“I went for testing and I was diagnosed with some upper respiratory ailments from it,” he said, “but as far as PTSD, I think I’m one of the fortunate ones, because I didn’t have any. “For me, Ground Zero and 9/11 was one of the worst times in my career,” Chip continued, “but also one of the best, because I got to see the city of New York come together and to see that and see people wanting to help each other, that was something.”
“It was such a beautiful and sad time, because New York City and New York State came together,” Patricia continued. “When the New York City Fire Department or police came down the street, you took your hat off, you put your hand on your heart and you cried. People applauded. They were absolutely revered, as they should be, but people forget what happened down there. We are all so forgetful of the terrible acts and things that have happened. You feel it starting to be forgotten and it cannot be, especially because people I know and love, law enforcement and fire, were down there and gave their lives.”
WE WILL NEVER FORGET
9.11 – WE REMEMBER | THE DAILY STAR
– Chip Johnstone
“When I was able to see Ground Zero from a certain point, the windows of the buildings were sheared off and papers were still fluttering down from printers,” she said. “Families were coming in and it was just missing people flyers, hundreds of thousands of them, all over the place.”
“The state police in New York City, years ago, nobody knew who they were,” she said. “Once people started to realize who the New York State Police were … they couldn’t be more kind. I can’t even express how well we were treated. It was a time where you loved your fellow person.
SEPT. 11, 2020
Patricia said, once cleared to visit her husband while on duty downstate, devastation remained.
Patricia, too, said she remembers the sense of unity and respect that emerged from trauma.
7
For me, Ground Zero and 9/11 was one of the worst times in my career, but also one of the best, because I got to see the city of New York come together and to see that and see people wanting to help each other, that was something.”
it had a certain odor, (of) burning, and watching some of the largest equipment I’ve ever seen in my life as far as cranes and bulldozers struggling to move the pieces. Anytime I would go there, that odor and the gases got into the sewer system, so you could be blocks away and you’d still smell it.”
9.11 – WE REMEMBER | THE DAILY STAR
SEPT. 11, 2020
Effects of 9/11 felt long after attacks for Andes woman it for hours. The city was crazy.
By Allison Collins
Contributing Writer
D
espite losing her husband to after affects of 9/11, Andes resident and New York City native Joanne Callahan, 63, said she considers herself “one of the lucky ones.” “You never think the World Trade Center is going to blow up and your husband is going to blow up with it,” said Callahan, an upstate real estate broker. “It’s just such a horrible thing and I’m just one of so many. I had my husband for 15 years (after the attacks), so I’m actually one of the lucky ones.” Eddie Callahan was a New York City police officer, Callahan said, stationed at Ground Zero after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. He died in 2016 from vasospastic angina, a respiratory condition that she said was caused by time spent “on the pile.” “It was the exposure that gradually inflamed his chest cavity,” she said. “I have photos of him at the site … and there was debris everywhere. Things just blew around and it was horrible. He continued on the pile until November, every day. Most of the guys from his unit are dead and died horrible deaths; they all died of cancer or massive heart attacks. “He would get these crushing pains in his chest,” Callahan continued, “and on Jan. 3, 2016, 12 hours before we were supposed to go to the doctor’s, he got a chest pain and, in 20 seconds, he was
Contributed
Andes resident Joanne Callahan is pictured with her husband, Eddie, in this undated photo.
“You never think the World Trade Center is going to blow up and your husband is going to blow up with it. It’s just such a horrible thing and I’m just one of so many. I had my husband for 15 years (following the attacks), so I’m actually one of the lucky ones.” – Joanne Callahan dead in my arms. This is all due to 9/11. It’s a result of the toxins and breathing all that stuff in. It’s respiratory, and it affected his heart.” While her husband died years after the attacks, Callahan said, its effects were immediate. “I’d had two (personal training) clients (that morning) and
I was heading back home,” she said. “There was so much chaos in the streets and traffic agents were pulling people to the side. I said, ‘What the heck is going on?’ and turned on the radio and heard ‘This was not an accident. This was a terrorist attack on our country.’ I was the last car over the 59th Street Bridge and I sat on
“I didn’t hear from my husband and I was trying to get in touch, but there were busy signals and calls were dropping,” she continued. “He was only a block away when the towers got hit. (After I got home), I had the TV on and knew he was down there, but there was nothing I could do, so I just waited. About 12:30 a.m., he came home, covered in an ashlike substance from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet and he said to me, ‘I’m done.’ He was about to go into his 20th year as a police officer and said, ‘I saw a torso strapped to an airplane seat land on the roof of our building — no arms, no head, no legs.’ That changed my husband’s life forever.” Callahan said her husband “put in his papers as soon as he could in November,” officially retiring in January 2002. “He had PTSD,” she said. “We’d bought this house (upstate) in 2000 as a weekend retreat … and in 2001, he came up here after those two months (spent working at Ground Zero). They were ordered to be there, but then he just came upstate. I called home and he didn’t answer, and the answering machine wasn’t on. He took all the stuff out of our house and the dogs and the cats. He lost his mind. I said, ‘What are you doing?’ and he said, ‘I’m not coming back.’ He stayed up there and would not go back to the city. He was totally traumatized.” Callahan said her husband’s experience is not unique.
9
with a person who went through that experience.” “I don’t think people really realize what these first responders dealt with and how the PTSD is so prevalent,” she said. “They’re like Vietnam vets and there’s so many of them and so many are so sick. They have this mental strain on top of it all and I don’t think people really grasp that until you live
Callahan said, beyond thoughts of her husband, remembering New York City on and after Sept. 11. 2001, is visceral. “When I think of that day, it’s devastation and doom,” she said. “That’s the way I can describe it, just impending doom, only to be exacerbated by the smell of incin-
erating bodies. You could smell it. It was like an incinerator, for months and months.
seen this person? Last seen on
“It’s amazing how it just comes back, really hard. I was a personal trainer and actress at the time,” she continued, “and I’d go back into the city and … places were paved with hundreds of thousands of photos on every corner, every building, saying, ‘Have you
shred of DNA left. I’d walk down
9/11.’ These were the people in the towers and there’s not even a those streets of Manhattan and I would cry. The streets were just lined with dead people. It was a horrible time in our city, with a very melancholy feeling. How soon we forget.”
9.11 – WE REMEMBER | THE DAILY STAR
– Joanne Callahan
SEPT. 11, 2020
WE WILL NEVER FORGET
“I don’t think people really realize what these first responders dealt with and how the PTSD is so prevalent. They’re like Vietnam vets and there’s so many of them and so many are so sick. They have this mental strain on top of it all and I don’t think people really grasp that until you live with a person who went through that experience.”
9.11 – WE REMEMBER | THE DAILY STAR
SEPT. 11, 2020
1
Seward looks back on close call, escape from New York By Allison Collins
Contributing Writer
O
n the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, Sen. Jim Seward, R– Milford, was breakfasting in a New York City hotel lobby, preparing a speech he expected to deliver to employees of the New York State Insurance Department later that day. “At the time, I was chairing the Senate Insurance Committee and I had gone down to New York City the night before, on the 10th,” Seward, 69, said. “I stayed at a small bouSEWARD tique hotel, Seaport Suites, about three or four blocks from the World Trade Center. I was having breakfast … in the lobby and there was a big-screen TV. We noticed they’d started showing pictures of the World Trade Center and that a plane had hit, but I didn’t think a lot about it. I assumed it was some accident and that the police, fire and EMTs would take care of it.
ond plane hit; it was a sound like standing next to a freight train, a horrible noise. Then, all hell broke loose in lower Manhattan. People were streaming out of buildings, there was panic on the streets and we realized it was not an accident.” Seward said, after arriving at the event site, he located then-head of the New York State Insurance Department, Gregory Serio. “We didn’t know exactly what was happening,” Seward said, “so he said, ‘Let’s go back to my offices and we’ll find out.’ It was there we
started watching TV and I called my wife and said, ‘I’m fine, don’t worry.’” Moments later, Seward said, it was from the New York State Insurance Department building that he and many others made a panicked escape. “When the towers came down, when they collapsed, that’s when things really got bad,” he said. “Thankfully, we were only on the third floor, but the whole building stated to shake. Looking out the windows, you could just see that
plume of smoke, dust and I don’t know what else coming down the street. We all started running to the stairwell. “I will never forget — it’s almost 20 years ago, but still fresh — as I was running down those stairs with the others to get outside, because we thought perhaps the building was going to collapse, thinking, ‘Here I am from a beautiful, bucolic, rural upstate area and I’m going to die here in a lower Manhattan stairwell,’” he continued. “We got outside, and it was
“It was a little disconcerting,” he continued, “because, as I looked out the window, there were office papers and cinders coming down, floating from the gap in the World Trade Center, but I still thought it was some horrible accident.” Operating on that belief, Seward said, he and his committee council members left the hotel. “We started walking … to where the (speaking) event was going to be held,” he said. “People were looking up, they were nervous. I did not see it, but I heard that sec-
Contributed
Sen. James Seward speaks at a dedication in Cortland of a new sculpture honoring those lost in 9/11 terrprost attacks.
“It was a beautiful sunny morning before all this happened, then you couldn’t see anything; it was like midnight,” he continued. “Finally, the (driver) said, ‘I can see the sun, we’ll work our way out of here.’ As we traveled very, very slowly through these dust-covered streets … we stopped at least three times. People were sitting on curbsides having respiratory problems, and (the driver) assisted them and … directed traffic. Eventually, we made it to the governor’s office.” Seward named the sight of the city’s first responders one of the most harrowing from that drive. “We were trying to get out of there, out of the point of danger, but they were heading toward it to do their jobs,” he said. “I’ll never forget the firemen … and the look in their eyes: it was steely determination that they were going to get there and they were going to save people, and they did.
– Sen. Jim Seward R-Milford “I always admired and respected our first responders,” Seward continued, “but after seeing them that morning, heading toward the World Trade Center, my respect and admiration has gone through the roof.” Seward said it wasn’t until arriving at Gov. George Pataki’s office that he began to process the morning’s events. “Only then did it strike me, the gravity of what had happened,” he said. “The World Trade Center was gone; it had come down. All we had seen from midtown was dust and smoke, but they were gone. I was one of the lucky ones. I ended up with a covering of dust and a lot of bad memories, but I was able to get out.” Following the attacks, Seward said, he participated in several me-
morials and events, upstate and downstate. “About three weeks after, the governor and Mayor Giuliani invited members of the Senate for a tour of the recovery effort,” he said. “We met at a pier and went on a boat to lower Manhattan. It was the strangest thing: I didn’t feel like I was in America, because this boat we were on was surrounded by smaller boats with law enforcement guys with these great, big bazooka-type weapons for security purposes. “When we got down to the site, it was heart-wrenching,” Seward continued. “There were still people standing on the outskirts (of Ground Zero) … with pictures of relatives that were still missing. We had to wear a face mask, because of what they called ‘the smell of death.’ There were so many re-
Seward said that aftermath, and Americans’ response to the attacks, proved, in time, as memorable as the day. “For the first few minutes of that attack, the terrorists did win; there was terror in the streets of New York City that morning,” he said. “But then, people rose to the occasion, first responders and individual citizens. I think that in the end, whatever victory those terrorists felt they had was short-lived, because people came together and we’ve recovered.
9.11 – WE REMEMBER | THE DAILY STAR
“The insurance superintendent said, ‘Let’s go midtown to the governor’s office,’” Seward said, noting that the Insurance Department has police powers and access to police vehicles. “So, my council members and I got in the back of a vehicle.
“I will never forget – it’s almost 20 years ago, but still fresh — as I was running down those stairs with the others to get outside, because we thought perhaps the building was going to collapse, thinking, ‘Here I am from a beautiful, bucolic, rural upstate area and I’m going to die here in a lower Manhattan stairwell.’”
SEPT. 11, 2020
Following his escape, Seward said, Serio arranged transport to safety.
mains in the debris.”
11
just … you couldn’t see anything. Someone had grabbed a box of tissues on the way out and we covered our noses and faces with tissues, so we could at least breathe.”
“I look back and think, we saw the worst of humanity that day, but we also saw the best,” Seward continued. “You never saw so much unity and patriotism and people helping total strangers. In some ways, it was very beautiful. We need a little more of that today.”
WE WILL NEVER FORGET
1
SEPT. 11, 2020
9.11 – WE REMEMBER | THE DAILY STAR
A late morning led to witnessing the towers collapse By Vincent Mussolino I usually arrived at the office at The World Trade Center at 8 every morning. I usually took the 5 train from the 59th Street station on the East side. That morning I woke up late. I don’t know why, but when I realized the time, I hurried up and headed for the subway. It was a beautiful day. I didn’t take time to check news that morning, I just MUSSOLINO rushed out to get to work. I actually did not hear any sirens. I was growing frustrated waiting for the subway train, wondering why it was taking so long. The train finally arrived, and at some point stopped and waited at a station on its way down to the World Trade Center. A woman’s voice kept announcing over the speaker system that “Due to a police action, the train is being delayed.” I had never heard that in all my nine years at that time of living in New York City. The train did this over and over again, stopping and sitting and then going again. Finally it arrived, but the station was not the usual station that I got out at, which was located down by The World Trade Center. I came up out of the subway, with no indication that anything other than a “police action” was occurring. As I turned the corner, frustrated that I was at the wrong station, I was stunned to see one of the Towers on fire. The whole top of it. The other tower was smoking. It was a moment of disbelief. I felt like my brain froze for a moment. I could not fathom how this could be happening. How could such a huge building that I was around every day, and was sometimes in, be on fire, and the other tower, too? There was a
crowd of people around me, and they were all looking up as well, nobody speaking, held back by police tape and officers. I noticed long streamers of paper coming down from the top of the tower, and then I noticed people falling. I must have been in a state of shock. I said “My God, that’s people.” A guy beside me said “Yes, people jumping.” I remember thinking that I was witnessing the final moments of someone’s father, mother, sister, brother, son, daughter, spouse. I asked what happened and a guy said planes flew into the buildings. I of course realized the fact that both buildings were hit, meant that it was a terrorist attack. The second plane must have hit just before I got there. I remember thinking about my building (7 World Trade), and my coworkers so close to the towers. This went on for, it seemed, a long time. Most of the time it was just silent around me, no one speaking, I guess as stunned as I was. At some point, I heard a “boom” sound, and the top of the first tower seemed to tip over, engulfed in a huge cloud of smoke. We had regular drills at 7 World Trade Center because of the attacks that occurred at The World Trade Center years earlier. I was actually one of two designated on my floor to be a searcher (to check bathrooms and other areas if we were called to evacuate). I think that these procedures put in place probably saved a number of lives on 9/11. Again I was stunned that this could have happened. I never thought that it would collapse. There was a huge gasp from the people I was standing around, and you could see the cloud of dust coming up the street, people turned in unison and started walking away up town. It was like we all moved as one. I said something at the moment
that just came out without me thinking about it. I said: “That means war. Someone is going to pay for that.” A guy beside me, as we turned to walk away, gave me a strange look. I knew from my affinity for history, that we all just witnessed the worst attack in our country’s history, and that war would be the only response. I knew at the time that we just witnessed thousands of people die in an instant. As we all moved en masse up the street. For some reason, I fell away from the pack and sat on a bench not far from where we started. I don’t know why, but I remember thinking to myself how strange it was that I was sitting there in lower Manhattan and I was all alone. It seemed like no one in sight. After, I guess five minutes or so, I started making my way up the street to walk back home to 58th street. There were taxis pulled over with their radios playing the news. People had their store doors wide open. Some of the stores were giving people bottles of water. People were gathering around radios. I had been trying to call my girlfriend on my cellphone, but it was not working. I tried pay phones, and they were also not working. I walked along with various people, and we talked. Complete strangers. We just started having conversations as we walked. My girlfriend had no idea if I was OK, and later told me how hard that was knowing that I worked down there, and not knowing if I was OK. I thought about my associates at 7 World Trade, as we would usually go to get breakfast together at 5 World Trade in the food courts under the building, and was starting to wonder if they were all OK, as we would walk right by the towers every morning. They were all OK, but had terrible stories of people falling to the ground right by were they were walking, and plane parts, etc. My company lost a few people who happened to be in the towers that morn-
WE WILL NEVER FORGET
ing. I did not see my co-workers for weeks. We had conference calls until it was decided when and where we would go back to work. Later that night as I watched the news incessantly, I saw 7 World Trade collapsed. It was hard to imagine. Eventually we were all requested to make a list of things that we lost for insurance reimbursement. I was surprised at how much my total came to of personal property that I had at the office. When asked about the possibility of rebuilding 7 World Trade, a number of the people on those company-wide conference calls said that they would never go back to work at The World Trade Center again. Of course, this was the second attack there in the last decade. In the months after the attack, the city smelled terrible. It really was a combination of a rotting smell of death and fuel. The smoke seemed to rise in the sky for so long afterword. The signs of missing loved ones starting going up right away, and there were thousands of them all over the city. I remember that these were up for it seemed like a year. It was so difficult to see their faces and know that each one represented a devastating loss to their loved ones, who will still holding out hope. These were the people that I stood beside and walked among for years. Of course we all did not know what
Did you know? Each Sept. 11, communities across the United States commemorate the lives lost during the 2001 terrorist attacks that took place on American soil. On Sept. 11, 2001, four commercial airplanes were hijacked and sent to various targets in the United States. Two planes crashed into the towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, one plane crashed into the U.S. Pentagon Building near Washington, D.C., and a fourth plane was intercepted from the hijackers and crash-landed in rural Pennsylvania. In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, President George W. Bush declared Friday, Sept. 14, 2001, as a National Day of Prayer and Remembrance for the Victims of the terrorist attacks. But many people felt there should be an annual event dedicated to preserving the memory of the victims and the heroism of the first responders. A bill to make Sept. 11 a national day of mourning was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives on Oct. 25, 2001. The bill passed the Senate unanimously. On Sept. 11, 2002, the country recognized the first Patriot Day. On this day, the U.S. flag is flown at half-staff. In addition, a moment of silence beginning at 8:46 a.m. is observed to correspond with the attacks. While not a federal holiday – schools and businesses remain open – memorial ceremonies are held for the 2,977 victims, including an annual reading of names of the people who lost their lives.
9.11 – WE REMEMBER | THE DAILY STAR
Vincent Mussolino was assistant vice president of institutional client services, working at Citigroup Asset Management, which had its headquarters at 7 World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, He lived at 58th Street and Sutton Place on the East Side of Manhattan. He is now a multimedia account executive at The Daily Star.
SEPT. 11, 2020
I have always been amazed when I think back over what occurred, that these first responders went into these monstrous buildings knowing that they may not come out alive. I will always be so thankful for their bravery and the people they saved.
13
would happen next. We didn’t know if more attacks were already set to happen. My girlfriend and I had a property in East Meredith that was our weekend home. As soon as we could, we left the city, and some friends from the city came up with us. It was extraordinary to experience the contrast of the state of New York City, and the peace and beauty of that property. As soon as we were allowed to, we went down to Ground Zero. I had to see it. For some reason, even though I saw the first building go down, I could not get it in my head that all of those buildings were gone. It was a terrible mess of smell and piles of concrete and metal. The shops surrounding the World Trade Centers were still left untouched, and uncleaned. As they were when the buildings went down. I got some amazing photos of dust-covered stores with broken out windows.
1
9.11 – WE REMEMBER | THE DAILY STAR
SEPT. 11, 2020
For Gilboa woman, birthday not the same after terror attacks By Allison Collins
Contributing Writer
D
espite the fact that it’s her birthday, when Gilboa resident Nora Manon thinks of Sept. 11, the first thing she feels is anger. The 68-year-old retired nurse and New York City native said she was watching the Today show, talking with MANON her sister who had called to deliver birthday well-wishes, when the second plane hit the World Trade Center on that day in 2001. “To begin with, I didn’t know it was a passenger plane; nobody knew that at the time,” she said. “My first reaction was, ‘Oh, my God,’ and I said to my sister, ‘I don’t think this was an accident,’ but I no more than got those words out and the second plane came. You knew it was coming for (the building), you knew right from the flight path.” Manon said, while she grew up aware of conflicts elsewhere in the world, seeing such an attack on American soil and what she called the ensuing “loss of innocence” struck a chord. “We grew up with air raid drills because they said the Russians were going to bomb us, so that was our form of terrorism,” she said. “You went through the motions and that was how you grew up, but this was different because it actually happened. That’s what made me so angry. Up until then, we’d only had Pearl Harbor, and living in New York, you weren’t ever thinking you’d be touched, then that happened and you didn’t feel safe anymore. It felt like a shot to the heart. “We didn’t have a bomb drop on us,” Manon continued, “but we did have a plane fly through a building. The mere fact that they had the audacity to do it to our country, that’s the thing. It might not have been a nuclear bomb, but it was nuclear in the sense of all the lives it took. You lost everything you thought you were safe
from and your parents, they couldn’t protect you. Nobody could protect those people in that building and on those planes.” Over the years, Manon said, her anger has muted into “overwhelming sadness.” “You could not help but cry for the people that you didn’t even know,” she said. “And the man (aboard United Flight 93 that crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania) that said, ‘Let’s roll’ (while attempting to overpower hijackers), that to me is a hero. You want to talk about American; when you stop and think about non-military people (such as Todd Moran Beamer) and ordinary citizens willing to give up their lives and their loved ones, I don’t know if I could ever forget that. Our innocence was gone, our way of life as we knew it was gone, the World Trade Center was gone.” In the intervening years, Manon said, she’s revisited the city of her birth and the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, opened in 2014. “It was a stark reminder,” she said, of the museum. “It’s hitting you right in the face again and you’re saying to yourself, ‘My God.’ Three-thousand people is just a number, but to go there and see the markers and the names and to see it, it impacts you.”
“The other thing I’ve seen is
people’s attitudes change. We had an overwhelming sense of patriotism (following the attacks), and that’s gone. I honestly feel people today, unless they’re older, don’t fly the flag. There’s a big difference between the patriots of World War II and the greater generation and (people today). How soon we forget. Like everything, you forget until it happens again. I hope people still feel as strongly about it as I do.” – Nora Manon
Manon said her lingering sadness is colored by concern for the future. “If you don’t learn from history, it’s going to repeat itself,” she said. “Everybody is letting their guard down. We’re becoming more and more relaxed, and that worries me. “The other thing I’ve seen is people’s attitudes change,” she continued. “We had an overwhelming sense of patriotism (following the attacks), and that’s gone. I honestly feel people today, unless they’re older, don’t fly the flag. There’s a big difference between the patriots of World War II and the greater generation and (people today). How soon we forget. Like everything, you forget until it happens again. I hope people still feel as strongly about it as I do.”
WE WILL NEVER FORGET
15
SEPT. 11, 2020
9.11 – WE REMEMBER | THE DAILY STAR
first responder noun
a certified, often volunteer, emergency, medical, or law enforcement officer who is the first to arrive at an accident or disaster scene.
9.11 – WE REMEMBER | THE DAILY STAR SEPT. 11, 2020
1