Dear Reader,
Today, 23 years ago this morning I was at the New York Stock Exchange when those two planes hit the World Trade Center.
I was one of those people running from the buildings and the smoke.
I always trade texts with friends of mine who were also there and remember the friends we lost.
I was going to talk about something else today but this is what’s on my mind. So I’m going to talk about it on-camera today for the very first time ever.
On this day, 9/11, 2001, I remember it was a chilly day. Fall was in the air. I was wearing a really nice suit.
I was in a meeting at the New York Stock Exchange when someone interrupted our meeting and said, “oh my God – a plane just hit the World Trade Center.”
We didn’t know what happened. We all rushed down just to see what was going on – it was just a few blocks away and we had a clear view of the buildings.
I remember standing outside the New York Stock Exchange as burning papers from the building floated down, falling on top of us.
I also remember the second plane coming in – we just thought it was a plane – and it hits the tower and just shocks everybody.
A piece of metal from the building or the plane just shot out across and hit a building where we were standing – the original JPMorgan building – and fell to the ground. All the people I was standing with and I – we jumped back.
For the next hour or so we just stood around talking – what the heck is happening? Who did this? What’s going on?
We had radios – car radios were playing through open windows.
We’re hearing fighter planes flying across, we hear something attacked the Pentagon.
We were standing there while this was all going on. I walked into a drugstore and bought a disposable camera and started taking pictures.
And then something I could never have imagined happened – the tower fell down.
I was stunned. The last picture I took was the big cloud of smoke shooting down and people just started to run towards me.
Everyone started turning around and running. I took that picture and started running like Forrest Gump.
It may be hard to believe now but back then I was really skinny and fit – I’d been running 40 miles a week – I could outrun anyone.
I ran all the way down to the East River. Then ran right up the South Street Seaport and then turned around after a quarter mile or half a mile and I saw the smoke just shoot down Wall Street and go POOF – right across the East River.
This was a massive amount of smoke – I’d never seen anything like it.
It was crazy – that was a crazy day.
It’s really strange. There’s a few things I remember from back then. One of them is, boy that changed the world – you think about what Osama bin Laden did, and our reaction to that – it changed the world.
I remember Palestinians dancing in the street when that happened… Saudis dancing in the street. I remember a lot of people in the Middle East dancing in the street after the attack.
And now I see these college kids marching and protesting for them.
Basically, right before they were born this happened.
It just shocks me – they don’t understand what happened and the people who were lost. Maybe we don’t do a good enough job teaching these kids what the heck is going on.
I remember the next day seeing people covered in soot… I couldn’t get my car out of the garage…
So I walked up Manhattan and there’s all these people around, and later that day, it’s a ghost town.
It just felt crazy – like that movie Devil’s Advocate.
The next day in the city I went into the Armory. You just see pictures of everybody’s face and everybody’s just walking around stunned.
I bumped into the actor John Turturo and he and I walked all the way down the West Side Highway together just looking for a way to help.
Just a few days after that George W. Bush came down and said, “we will get them.”
I remember feeling very grateful about that – that might be the last time I remember crying.
Today, on 9/11 I just want to remember and honor the people I knew who were lost, and all the things that happened afterwards.
I hope we remember how lucky we are not to have had a bunch of ongoing attacks and how well our leaders have done keeping us safe since then.
“The Buck Stops Here,”
