Time Out

The Olympics! The Conventions! The Fannie/Freddie bail-out -- is Lehman Brothers next? TIME OUT! Today is the seventh anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and instead of using the day as a political video or even a teaching tool about the hazards that we can’t anticipate, I want to call a time out and reflect on that day, what it meant to me then and how I try to make sense of it seven years hence.

I remember September 11, 2001 vividly—it’s as if I can relive it in slow motion, starting with a morning run on the treadmill in my house in Providence, RI. CNBC reported that an airplane had hit one of the World Trade Center towers. I jumped off the treadmill, ran upstairs and made a bunch of phone calls. You see, my connection to New York is deeper than simply being born there—I actually worked at 4 World Trade Center, one of the smaller buildings adjacent to the Twin Towers and home for many years of the Commodity Exchange of New York where I got my start on Wall Street.

I quickly ran through a mental rolodex—“who works nearby? What firms are actually in the WTC?” I was able to make a few early calls to make sure that my closest relatives were OK, but then we lost contact. There were bits of data points that got through in the beginning—Mark in London had learned that three other friends were not in the building, but traveling on the West coast. An old trading buddy living in Florida said that our former clerk had been in the subway one stop away from the site. Then there was an eerie silence and like most of the world, my only connection was through the endless coverage on television.

The randomness of the event hit home when my father called, weeping…there were children of his friends who likely perished and all he could say was, “that could have been you and Evan (my brother-in-law, who also worked on the Commodities Exchange).” Evan and I used to eat breakfast at Windows on the World atop of the financial world, before the start of the trading. 4 World Trade Center had been destroyed by the end of the day.

In many ways, the events of 9-11 reminded me how connected I was to New York and in fact, led me to return there on a more permanent basis. Seven years later, I still tear up when I ride my bicycle down the West Side Highway and pass what was the site of the World Trade Center. I think of how desperate those people must have been during those terrible hours as well as the random acts of heroism that were recounted by so many of the survivors. I also understand that most of the country and the world have moved on from 9-11, healing from the brunt of the massive wound, but acknowledging that life will never be as it was previously. Here in New York, we too have healed, but perhaps not quite as smoothly. When planes pass overhead, I notice heads turning. When the police run random training drills and sirens are screaming, we are not so nonchalant about it all. And when we pass the massive construction site at the tip of Manhattan, most of us can’t help but tear up in remembrance of that fateful day.