Jerry's office was downtown at that time and we had gone to work together that morning - as I got out of the car on Main Street and walked into the building a woman beside me was on her cell phone shouting "What? ... a plane hit the World Trade Center?" We were getting on the elevator and her call was cut off. On the ride to my office on the 13th floor, I assumed it was a terrible accident, since LaGuardia is very close to the city.
I had the only TV on the floor - it had very poor reception, since it was mainly used to review production videos - but it was a way to get more information. We turned it on and people began to gather.
We all watched as the building burned and sat in silence as the second plane hit the other tower. We hoped that the employees of our WTC Branch were OK and we started making phone calls. Our good friends Ronnie and Fran were both out of the country - in different countries in Europe, for business - so I called Fran's sweet Mom for news. Audrey let me know she had talked to them and they were both OK.
My office in New York was with the Marketing team at Grand Central Tower (GCT) - a short cab ride away from the World Trade Center and safe unless there was another attack targeting Grand Central Station. The executive offices were at 270 Park, also in mid-town. Our colleagues in Research, Home Improvement, Credit Card and many other divisions were two blocks away from "ground zero" at Chase Manhattan Plaza (CMP) - at the corner of Liberty & Nassau. We didn't hear from anyone at CMP for a day or two, but we knew that our team at GCT was OK - no one was downtown for early meetings that morning.
I was booked on the 7:20 flight into LGA the next morning (9/12) and had a meeting with our Texas Retail Manager and others at 2CMP that afternoon. I was worried that she was in the area, since she was flying in before me and staying "downtown". Luckily, she had been booked on a later flight on 9/11 and had not yet departed DFW. Needless to say, I did not fly to New York the next morning as scheduled.
News of the Pentagon hit seemed unreal and the sight of the first tower coming down made us sick. When the second tower fell it was unbelievable and I don't think we knew about Shanksville until later.
Soon I was summoned to the 14th floor, to the Texas office of the consumer banking division manager - she had responsibility for all bankers/branches across the organization and, being from here, happened to be in Houston that morning. She had a line open to New York and her boss, along with my boss's boss, had been scheduled for an early meeting at the WTC location and had not been heard from.
Anxiety was running high and with New York "disabled", her Texas office became the point of communication to the branch network. Needless to say, they were in need of direction. There were early rumors it was a strike against financial institutions, which created panic in branch locations far away from ground zero. We were also getting rumors about other planes in the air headed towards additional targets - some in Texas - that thankfully were not true.
They literally kept the line open to New York on speaker phone, because it would be impossible to make another connection. New York and New Jersey branches were closed and "non-essential personnel" were told to leave the downtown locations in Texas markets.
Once the fate of the plane crash into Shanksville became known, they wanted all of us out of the building. Our priority at that time was working with our agencies on external communications anyway, so we headed out ... waiting to see what would happen next.
We later learned that the missing executives had safely evacuated the World Trade Center building and caught a ferry to Staten Island. Along with them were the employees and children from a day care center on the ground floor of WTC. Many of those kids were were orphaned and others were listed as missing while their parents frantically searched for them until communication was possible and they were reunited.
Everyone remembers how strange it was in the days that followed - 24 hour news coverage, praying that they found people still alive and not one single airplane in the sky. My first trip back to New York was the first of October - although the FAA released airspace earlier, Chase had us "grounded" for another week as a safety precaution.
New York was a changed place, physically and mentally. Bomb scares and baggage checks - security was insane both at the airports and all over Manhattan. I went alone and had a meeting at 2CMP to learn the results of a research project. The presenter was fascinated when he heard that I had just flown in from Texas and stopped the meeting while people asked me questions about my flight. New Yorkers weren't flying yet ... and flinched every time they saw a plane in the air.
I'll admit it was kind of strange, but at the time I was flying so much I always got an upgrade to first class and in a way I knew the flight attendants, because I usually took the same flights. Everyone on-board was in the same boat - so to speak - and we KNEW there were Federal Air Marshals on every plane going in to LGA. My first flight was smooth and uneventful, although the Captain did stand at the door greeting and "inspecting" each passenger.
After the meeting was over, the moderator asked if I had been to ground zero. I hadn't had time and honestly felt it would be disrespectful to gawk at the aftermath. He encouraged me to go - he said that all Americans should see with their own eyes what they did to us.
He described what it was like on 9/11 when the first tower fell. Giant plumes of debris billowed up like a black cloud enveloping the buildings from the ground up. By then, there was no mass transportation, so thousands of people had to walk through the dust until they were several miles away from ground zero to find cabs. Most had to walk from Manhattan to outer boroughs, because road closures prevented the cabs from circulating. Debris and dust was knee high on the streets surrounding the Chase Manhattan Plaza complex.
One woman from our Research team talked about how they went into the bathroom and took off sweaters or suit jackets and soaked them in water to use as a mask to breathe through as they walked miles through the black smoke. She walked from 1CMP, across the Brooklyn bridge, to her apartment in Brooklyn Heights. It took hours and there were hundreds of people walking with her.
They were right about wanting all Americans to see ground zero, most regard it as an event that happened "to New York", if at all. As horrible as my first glimpse of the rubble was, the sight was not as powerful as the smell. I've never smelled anything like it ...
My cab driver that afternoon was Russian and when he learned I was from Texas (they always ask) he said "God Bless George Bush!" This was not a common sentiment in New York before 9/11 and was surprising to hear. He said that he believed God had determined the outcome of the 2000 election and gave us a President who could deal with a terrorist attack.
My next trip was a group meeting in mid-October and I brought two members of my staff with me. We didn't fully realize it at the time, but we were all changed by 9/11. As a cab we had hailed pulled to the curb, my companions took a step back when they saw the "turban" on the driver's head. I insisted we get in the cab - if we had let fear get the better of us we would not have been able to do our jobs. As the months passed, many Muslim men started wearing turbans tied of red, white and blue segments of cloth to show their support for America.
New York had changed once again with the addition of huge concrete barriers around almost all of of the buildings to prevent car bombers. The Chase Manhattan Plaza complex was completely enclosed in tall, chain-link fence and that was surrounded by concrete barricades. There were building evacuations and subway shut-downs all the time - everybody was on edge and there were many who found it difficult to return to work in high-rise buildings.
Air travel became interesting and we pared down our suitcases to the bare minimum - we could get through security without even a blip. Heavy jewelery and belts capable of setting off an alarm were for the birds, shoes with a buckle or tie were definitely out and while we might have pushed the limits of what the TSA considered "liquid" by a tube of lip gloss or two, our quart-size baggie of products was always ready for inspection. It was the new "norm".
We learned the position of the Air Marshal - always seat 2B - after attempting to get the guy (dressed as if he didn't buy a business class ticket) to change seats with my travelling companion. He just said "I can't", with a serious look on his face. We proceeded to make him miserable by passing file folders and magazines back and forth over him for the next three hours. As we landed at LGA, he leaned over and said he didn't want me to think he was just a jerk, but that he was the Air Marshal and they had to sit in 2B for maximum visibility/access to the flight cabin. Hmmm ... felt a little guilty about the magazines, but good to know where they were located. Actually, they travelled in pairs with one in first and the other in coach.
Personnel changes and a major re-organization moved my team to 2CMP - something they were not thrilled about for a variety of reasons. We saw many strange sights in the months and years after 9/11. For a period of several months, the entire building was wrapped in what could only be described as "shrink wrap". Some expensive coating stuck on all of the windows to prevent them from shattering if the threat against the Federal Reserve next door was carried out.
This didn't do anything to calm the nerves of our New York colleagues, nor did the familiar sight of snipers dressed in black and carrying high-powered rifles on the roof outside my boss's office window. I guess you can adjust to anything - it all became common place in a fairly short time. Of course, I was able to jump a plane for home and they had to live with the threat 24/7.
The one thing we never got used to was all of the "missing" posters. Every light pole, power box, fence - any surface you could tape a poster to - in lower Manhattan was covered with posters showing photos of missing loved ones. Thousands of missing posters.
It's odd to think about the impact of something that happened so far away, but I now understand why my mother always remembered December 7th, 1941. Attacks on American soil are few and far between - and I'll remember September 11, 2001 for a long time.
This photo was taken the following Christmas and features the [much discussed] cross that remained of the twisted, burned metal cross-beams from one of the towers. It was snowing like mad that trip so you have to look through the blur of snow flakes to see it!
This photo was also taken the following December, but these Christmas lights were put up in December of 2011 across the front of the Federal Reserve Building.
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