Kristi the protestor, who asked to be identified only by her first name—spelled, to her displeasure, the same way as Noem’s—heeded a call from her church after the Minnesota shooting. On Thursday morning, she headed to Federal Plaza in lower Manhattan, outside an ICE field office, where Noem’s press conference was initially scheduled. When the location was moved, she joined the throng of a few hundred protestors marching the 15 minutes south to the World Trade Center, where Vanity Fair’s offices overlooked a crowd swelling in opposition to Noem and a heightened security presence accompanying it.
“I’m actually here to pray for her horrible, rotten soul,” Kristi said, “and show my solidarity with Minneapolis.”
Emily Dentinger.
As the face of ICE’s operations, Secretary Noem figured prominently into a vivid array of signs on display: along with a drawing of a red MAGA hat refashioned to read, “You’re in a cult,” and calls for “justice for Renee Nicole Good,” a woman was demanding “HAG 4 HAGUE.” The sun was shining on this unseasonably warm winter day outside the building, and a protest monitor from the American Civil Liberties Union kept a steady eye on the large crowd of police officers on hand. As marchers circled the building, passing by the reflecting pools placed on the footprint of the Twin Towers, a masked Port Authority counterterrorism officer stood in the shadow of Santiago Calatrava’s winged Oculus structure, holding a bundle of plastic zip ties hooked to a carabiner.
In an interview with TheNew York Times in the hours after the shooting on Wednesday, Donald Trump insisted that Good “behaved horribly” and “ran [the ICE officer] over.” But when he reviewed footage from the incident with the paper’s reporters, he sounded less confident. “Well,” Trump said. “I—the way I look at it…”
“It’s a terrible scene,” he said as the video ended. “I think it’s horrible to watch. No, I hate to see it.”
NEW YORK — Members of the New York City Fire Department and union leaders held an emergency rally in Manhattan on Monday afternoon over the discovery of previously undisclosed records about ground zero.
They are demanding answers after it was revealed that first responders were exposed to toxins on 9/11 that the city knew about but never shared.
Officials say 68 previously undisclosed boxes containing information on the 9/11 toxins were found after legislation was ordered demanding a probe into what and when the city knew about toxins at ground zero.
Union officials say the information in those documents contained critical “life-and-death” data.
Officials say the documents prove city leaders at the time of the attack were aware there was asbestos in the air, but intentionally hid the information.
“They had real testing done. And when that testing was done, it was suppressed. And everyone was told the air was safe; people would have made different choices,” an official said.
Since the 9/11 attacks, 400 members of the FDNY have died from illnesses linked to ground zero toxins.
A spokesperson with City Hall said they remain dedicated to the victims and their families and the answers they need.
“As one of the many first responders at Ground Zero on 9/11 and in the weeks that followed, Mayor Adams has been unwavering in his commitment to ensuring victims, their families, first responders, and survivors receive the care and services they deserve,” the spokesperson said. “While we cannot comment on the specifics of pending litigation, the city has begun turning over documents to plaintiff’s counsel, and both parties are working out a schedule to continue this process. We remain dedicated to getting 9/11 victims and their families the answers they need, and thank the brave men and women who risk their lives every day to keep our city safe.”
RED HOOK, Brooklyn (WABC) — The Tunnel to Towers Foundation kicked off its 24th annual “5K Run and Walk” on Sunday honoring the fallen first responders of 9/11.
Nearly 40,000 people are expected to participate in the event, which takes place each year on the last Sunday of September.
What began with 1,500 people in 2002, one year after the terror attacks, is now considered by many to be one of the top 5K runs in America.
The event retraces the final footsteps of FDNY Firefighter Stephen Siller on Sept. 11, 2001, from the foot of the Battery Tunnel in Brooklyn to the Twin Towers in Lower Manhattan.
Assigned to FDNY’s First Squad, Siller had just finished his shift and was on his way to play golf with his brothers when he heard over the radio that a plane hit the north tower of the World Trade Center.
Photograph of 9/11 first responder and FDNY Firefighter Stephen Siller.
Tunnel to Towers Foundation
In response, he drove his truck to the entrance of the Hugh L. Carey Tunnel, formerly known as the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, but found out it had closed. Siller then strapped 60 pounds of gear to his back and raced on foot to the Twin Towers, where he sacrificed his life to save others in the terror attacks.
Ahead of the race, Eyewitness News caught up with his son, Stephen Siller Jr., who described his father’s legacy.
“I feel like I hit the lottery in terms of a dad. You know, I didn’t get much time with him, but he gave me an example of how to live the rest of my life and what my priorities should be,” Siller Jr. said. “To see this and the legacy he left behind with his sacrifice and what he did for other people, it’s motivation to just make sure I’m living for other people too.”
Chantee Lans speaks with Stephen Siller Jr. about the event and his father’s legacy.
Sunday’s run and walk pays homages to more than 340 FDNY firefighters, law enforcement officers and thousands of civilians who lost their lives on September 11. Proceeds from the event support the foundation’s programs, including those benefitting first responders and service members injured in the line of duty.
Have a breaking news tip or an idea for a story we should cover? Send it to Eyewitness News using the form below. If attaching a video or photo, terms of use apply.
On Sept. 11, 2001, 11-year-old Magee Capsouto and her family lived in Lower Manhattan, just five blocks north of the World Trade Center.
“It was one of those days, like perfect fall. You know, you go outside, the sky is blue, you don’t see a cloud in the sky,” Capsouto, who now lives in the Philadelphia area, said.
Capsouto, her younger brother and their mother had walked over to the farmers market at the World Trade Center Plaza.
“We happened to be looking north, and we watched the plane barrel straight down the street and hit the north tower,” she said. “There was definitely no figuring out which way was up, it was just a very primal screaming for our mom. She came running back, she grabbed us, and she pulled us and we ran across the street.”
Courtesy of Magee Capsouto
With their home compromised once the South Tower collapsed, the family ran half a mile north out of harm’s way.
“My parents owned a restaurant, and that just was the only place we could think to go,” she said.
Her parents decided to open the restaurant to the community, serving three free meals a day to anyone who needed it.
“We actually became kind of a de facto staging ground for first responders, for people who spent their days on the pile trying to find survivors,” Capsouto said.
One night in the days after the attacks, Capsouto did something that helped change the course of her life.
“One of our neighbors from the building was like, ‘Hey, you play violin, I think that would be a great thing.’ And so they just kind of threw me up on a table, and I played,” she said. “And there was something deeply, deeply powerful about being able to give back.”
Capsouto would go on to play the violin professionally, including her current stint with the Philly Pops. She’s also earned her doctorate in music arts and works to advocate for equity in classical music.
Her younger brother is now a firefighter, both lives changed and shaped, like so many others, by the horrors of that day and the warmth, love and community borne of it.
“Music is a language that doesn’t require words,” she said, “and so we could just be in the moment of music together.”
As you walk through the 9/11 Memorial and Museum in New York City, it does not take long for the gravity of what took place on that hallowed ground to overwhelm you.
From rusty, twisted steel tridents to a half-destroyed fire engine, there are symbols of the destruction that took place on what had otherwise been a beautiful Tuesday morning in New York City in 2001.
Of course, the horror of 9/11 extended to the walls of a military fortress in Washington and a grassy field in Pennsylvania, a fact also represented in various places in the memorial and museum.
For many years while I worked at the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, I had the distinct privilege of taking groups of cadets through the memorial and museum. Those trips hold many special memories. Once, I watched a cadet find a picture of his relative among the nearly 3,000 people who had died that day.
Another time, I listened as cadets shared their reactions to experiencing an event that had occurred before they were born. Every time my colleagues and I went on this trip, we felt reaffirmed that this was a critical experience for both us and the cadets — but not only because it helped us remember the past. The experience was also important because it allowed us to learn from the past. The building itself was, after all, a memorial and a museum.
As we observe another anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the United States, I still believe that 9/11 has much to teach us. Here are three lessons that seem particularly relevant to the challenges we face in America today.
Trusting we can still learn from mistakes
On 9/11, we learned that government was far from perfect, but that with effort, cooperation and compromise, it could be improved. I’ll never forget the words of Richard Clarke, who was the National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Counter-Terrorism on 9/11, when he testified before the 9/11 Commission in the aftermath of the attacks.
“Your government failed you,” he said. “Those entrusted with protecting you failed you. And I failed you. We tried hard, but that doesn’t matter because we failed.”
There is not enough space here for a full accounting of reasons and ways that the government failed, but Clarke was right. Yet, in the shadow of such a tremendous security failure, we decided as a country to alter the status quo and implement changes that made our country safer.
We face daunting challenges today, ranging from health care to immigration to economic uncertainty, and it might feel like our government is failing or is in danger of failure. It is true that many of our institutions are under stress in ways that we might never have anticipated. The specific solutions, in many cases, have yet to be determined.
That is exactly how we felt as a people on Sept. 12, 2001. But, we got to work and made government better. That is what is needed now, a desire to move forward with faith that improvements can be made and that we can emerge better on the other side.
Willingness to stand up and lead
On 9/11, we learned that leadership is not just for those in leadership positions. Even in the midst of unimaginable terror, we saw everyday people — our neighbors and fellow citizens — demonstrate tremendous courage. Consider the crew and passengers of Flight 93. Among them were pilots, flight attendants, a salesman, a COO, a student, an ironworker and so many others.
These were not special ops forces. Yet, in what became a tremendous act of personal sacrifice, they attempted to regain control of their hijacked aircraft, saving the lives of many who would have been killed had the aircraft struck its intended target. Nobody ordered them to do what they did, nor had any of them trained for the moment in which they found themselves. They proactively figured out what was going on, made a plan to address the situation, and gave their all for each other and for people who would never know them.
Today, we live in a time when leadership models in the public or political sphere seem to be few and far between. Often, we might feel that the best thing to do is to hunker down, protect our own, and avoid sticking our heads up.
The tendency to withdraw in difficult times is natural, but it ultimately will lead to worse collective outcomes. We need to be willing to stand up and lead with purpose for the greater good. We need to engage with others, build relationships and do what is right, even if it is difficult.
Recommitting ourselves to national unity
On 9/11, we learned that unity could come even in the midst of division. Sept. 11, in many ways, interrupted time, making it hard to remember what came before. A mere nine months prior to the attacks, the country had just seen the hotly contested 2000 presidential election, which ended a few months later by the split decision of the Supreme Court. The decision resulted in George W. Bush becoming the 43rd President of the United States over former Vice President Al Gore.
If that result, or anything similar, had happened today, it’s easy to imagine that the bitterness and resentment would have carried over into the public discourse surrounding 9/11. Yet, just one month after 9/11, Al Gore had the following to say with respect to those who lost their lives on 9/11, “We should honor their memories by fighting for the values that bind us together as a country. … I hope … even if we disagree about other things in America, that we find a way to remain as unified as we possibly can.”
That hope is desperately needed in America today, where strong feelings of disagreement are high and our problems in many ways appear greater than they ever have been. When the issues of our time threaten to divide us, we need to remember the many flags that appeared on American streets and the people who willingly set aside party to do what was needed to respond and recover.
As President Bush said on the evening of 9/11, “terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America. These acts shattered steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve.”
Not letting 9/11 shake the foundation of America was a choice. And it’s a choice we need to make (or remake) in our day.
The Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks should be remembered on what has been designated Patriot Day. But, just like my cadets walking that hallowed ground in New York City, we cannot stop at just remembering what happened.
We need to take the lessons of the many heroes of that day, ordinary men and women just like you and I, and apply them to our current challenges to show that we indeed will “never forget” what that day taught us.
Americans are marking 24 years since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks with solemn ceremonies, volunteer work and other tributes honoring the victims.Watch a livestream of the 9/11 ceremony at the Pentagon in the video player above.Many loved ones of the nearly 3,000 people killed were joining dignitaries and politicians at commemorations Thursday in New York, at the Pentagon and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.On Thursday morning, Denise Matuza, Jennifer Nilsen and Michelle Pizzo boarded a bus from Staten Island for Lower Manhattan — each wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the names and faces of their husbands, who died in the attack.“Even 24 years later, it’s heart wrenching,” said Nilsen, whose husband, Troy Nilsen, worked at Cantor Fitzgerald on the 103rd floor of the World Trade Center. “It feels the same way every year.”For Ronald Bucca, who lost his father, the FDNY fire marshal Ronald Paul Bucca, the annual memorial served as an opportunity to “educate people on that day, especially the younger generations, and learn from each other how to be resilient and deal with loss and rebuild.”Pizzo, whose husband, Jason DeFazio, also worked at Cantor Fitzgerald, hoped more people could just take one minute to reflect on the day.“Younger kids don’t realize that you have to remember,” she said.The remembrances are being held during a time of increased political tensions. The 9/11 anniversary, often promoted as a day of national unity, comes a day after conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed while speaking at a college in Utah.LIVE: Watch a livestream below of the 9/11 anniversary ceremony at the World Trade CenterThe reading of names and moments of silenceKirk’s killing prompted additional security measures around the 9/11 anniversary ceremony at the World Trade Center site in New York.Vice President JD Vance and his wife, second lady Usha Vance, had planned to attend the event in Manhattan but instead are set to visit with Kirk’s family on Thursday in Salt Lake City, according to a person familiar with Vance’s plans, but not authorized to speak about them publicly.Many in the crowd at Thursday’s ceremony at ground zero held up photos of lost loved ones as a moment of silence marked the exact time when the first hijacked plane struck the World Trade Center’s iconic twin towers. Family members then began reading aloud the names of the victims.At the Pentagon in Virginia, the 184 service members and civilians killed when hijackers steered a jetliner into the headquarters of the U.S. military were being honored in a ceremony attended by President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump. The president was then expected to head to the Bronx for a baseball game between the New York Yankees and Detroit Tigers Thursday evening.And in a rural field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, a similar ceremony marked by moments of silence, the reading of names and the laying of wreaths, will honor the victims of Flight 93, the hijacked plane that crashed after crew members and passengers tried to storm the cockpit. That service will be attended by Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins.People across the country are also marking the 9/11 anniversary with service projects and charity works as part of a national day of service. Volunteers will be taking part in food and clothing drives, park and neighborhood cleanups, blood banks and other community events.Reverberations from attacks persistIn all, the attacks by al-Qaida militants killed 2,977 people, including many financial workers at the World Trade Center and firefighters and police officers who had rushed to the burning buildings trying to save lives.The attacks reverberated globally and altered the course of U.S. policy, both domestically and overseas. It led to the “Global War on Terrorism” and the U.S.-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and related conflicts that killed hundreds of thousands of troops and civilians.While the hijackers died in the attacks, the U.S. government has struggled to conclude its long-running legal case against the man accused of masterminding the plot, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The former al-Qaida leader was arrested in Pakistan in 2003 and later taken to a U.S. military base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, but has never received a trial.The anniversary ceremony in New York was taking place at the National Sept. 11 memorial and Museum, where two memorial pools ringed by waterfalls and parapets inscribed with the names of the dead mark the spots where the twin towers once stood.The Trump administration has been contemplating ways that the federal government might take control of the memorial plaza and its underground museum, which are now run by a public charity currently chaired by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a frequent Trump critic. Trump has spoken of possibly making the site a national monument.In the years since the attacks, the U.S. government has spent billions of dollars providing health care and compensation to tens of thousands of people who were exposed to the toxic dust that billowed over parts of Manhattan when the twin towers collapsed. More than 140,000 people are still enrolled in monitoring programs intended to identify those with health conditions that could potentially be linked to hazardous materials in the soot.__Associated Press reporters Michael Hill in Albany, New York, and Darlene Superville in Washington contributed to this story.
NEW YORK —
Americans are marking 24 years since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks with solemn ceremonies, volunteer work and other tributes honoring the victims.
Watch a livestream of the 9/11 ceremony at the Pentagon in the video player above.
Many loved ones of the nearly 3,000 people killed were joining dignitaries and politicians at commemorations Thursday in New York, at the Pentagon and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
On Thursday morning, Denise Matuza, Jennifer Nilsen and Michelle Pizzo boarded a bus from Staten Island for Lower Manhattan — each wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the names and faces of their husbands, who died in the attack.
“Even 24 years later, it’s heart wrenching,” said Nilsen, whose husband, Troy Nilsen, worked at Cantor Fitzgerald on the 103rd floor of the World Trade Center. “It feels the same way every year.”
For Ronald Bucca, who lost his father, the FDNY fire marshal Ronald Paul Bucca, the annual memorial served as an opportunity to “educate people on that day, especially the younger generations, and learn from each other how to be resilient and deal with loss and rebuild.”
Pizzo, whose husband, Jason DeFazio, also worked at Cantor Fitzgerald, hoped more people could just take one minute to reflect on the day.
“Younger kids don’t realize that you have to remember,” she said.
The remembrances are being held during a time of increased political tensions. The 9/11 anniversary, often promoted as a day of national unity, comes a day after conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed while speaking at a college in Utah.
LIVE: Watch a livestream below of the 9/11 anniversary ceremony at the World Trade Center
The reading of names and moments of silence
Kirk’s killing prompted additional security measures around the 9/11 anniversary ceremony at the World Trade Center site in New York.
Vice President JD Vance and his wife, second lady Usha Vance, had planned to attend the event in Manhattan but instead are set to visit with Kirk’s family on Thursday in Salt Lake City, according to a person familiar with Vance’s plans, but not authorized to speak about them publicly.
Many in the crowd at Thursday’s ceremony at ground zero held up photos of lost loved ones as a moment of silence marked the exact time when the first hijacked plane struck the World Trade Center’s iconic twin towers. Family members then began reading aloud the names of the victims.
At the Pentagon in Virginia, the 184 service members and civilians killed when hijackers steered a jetliner into the headquarters of the U.S. military were being honored in a ceremony attended by President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump. The president was then expected to head to the Bronx for a baseball game between the New York Yankees and Detroit Tigers Thursday evening.
And in a rural field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, a similar ceremony marked by moments of silence, the reading of names and the laying of wreaths, will honor the victims of Flight 93, the hijacked plane that crashed after crew members and passengers tried to storm the cockpit. That service will be attended by Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins.
People across the country are also marking the 9/11 anniversary with service projects and charity works as part of a national day of service. Volunteers will be taking part in food and clothing drives, park and neighborhood cleanups, blood banks and other community events.
Reverberations from attacks persist
In all, the attacks by al-Qaida militants killed 2,977 people, including many financial workers at the World Trade Center and firefighters and police officers who had rushed to the burning buildings trying to save lives.
The attacks reverberated globally and altered the course of U.S. policy, both domestically and overseas. It led to the “Global War on Terrorism” and the U.S.-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and related conflicts that killed hundreds of thousands of troops and civilians.
While the hijackers died in the attacks, the U.S. government has struggled to conclude its long-running legal case against the man accused of masterminding the plot, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The former al-Qaida leader was arrested in Pakistan in 2003 and later taken to a U.S. military base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, but has never received a trial.
The anniversary ceremony in New York was taking place at the National Sept. 11 memorial and Museum, where two memorial pools ringed by waterfalls and parapets inscribed with the names of the dead mark the spots where the twin towers once stood.
The Trump administration has been contemplating ways that the federal government might take control of the memorial plaza and its underground museum, which are now run by a public charity currently chaired by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a frequent Trump critic. Trump has spoken of possibly making the site a national monument.
In the years since the attacks, the U.S. government has spent billions of dollars providing health care and compensation to tens of thousands of people who were exposed to the toxic dust that billowed over parts of Manhattan when the twin towers collapsed. More than 140,000 people are still enrolled in monitoring programs intended to identify those with health conditions that could potentially be linked to hazardous materials in the soot.
__
Associated Press reporters Michael Hill in Albany, New York, and Darlene Superville in Washington contributed to this story.
It’s 24 years since that morning in September when a collective America watched in disbelief as within two hours two hijacked passenger planes took down New York City’s two 110-story world trade towers.
By noon, two more hijacked planes went down, first, slamming into the Pentagon headquarters, followed by the forced crash of a fourth plane found incinerated in a field in Pennsylvania, its passengers having perished fighting the hijackers to avert them from their intended target thought to be the Capitol Building.
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President Donald Trump’s administration said Friday that it is exploring whether the federal government can take control of the 9/11 memorial and museum in New York City.The site in lower Manhattan, where the World Trade Center’s twin towers were destroyed by hijacked jetliners on Sept. 11, 2001, features two memorial pools ringed by waterfalls and parapets with the names of the dead, and an underground museum. Since opening to the public in 2014, the memorial plaza and museum have been run by a public charity, now chaired by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a frequent Trump critic.The White House confirmed the administration has had “preliminary exploratory discussions” about the idea, but declined to elaborate. The office noted the Republican pledged during his campaign last year to make the site a national monument, protected and maintained by the federal government.But officials at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum say the federal government, under current laws, can’t unilaterally take over the site, which is located on land owned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.The U.S. government shouldering costs and management of the site also “makes no sense,” given Trump’s efforts to dramatically pare back the federal bureaucracy, said Beth Hillman, the organization’s president and CEO.“We’re proud that our exhibitions tell stories of bravery and patriotism and are confident that our current operating model has served the public honorably and effectively,” she said, noting the organization has raised $750 million in private funds and welcomed some 90 million visitors since its opening.Last year, the museum generated more than $93 million in revenue and spent roughly $84 million on operating costs, leaving a nearly $9 million surplus when depreciation is factored in, according to museum officials and its most recently available tax filings.New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, meanwhile, voiced her own concerns about a federal takeover, citing the Trump administration’s recent efforts to influence how American history is told through its national monuments and museums, including the Smithsonian.The takeover idea also comes just months after the Trump administration briefly cut, but then restored, staffing at a federal program that provides health benefits to people with illnesses that might be linked to toxic dust from the destroyed World Trade Center.“The 9/11 Memorial belongs to New Yorkers — the families, survivors, and first responders who have carried this legacy for more than two decades and ensured we never forget,” Hochul said in a statement. “Before he meddles with this sacred site, the President should start by honoring survivors and supporting the families of victims.”Anthoula Katsimatides, a museum board member who lost her brother, John, in the attack, said she didn’t see any reason to change ownership.“They do an incredible job telling the story of that day without sugarcoating it,” she said. “It’s being run so well, I don’t see why there has to be a change. I don’t see what benefit there would be.”The memorial and museum, however, have also been the target of criticism over the years from some members of the large community of 9/11 victims’ families, some of whom have criticized ticket prices or called for changes in the makeup of the museum’s exhibits.Trump spokespersons declined to respond to the comments.In all, nearly 3,000 people were killed when the hijackers crashed jetliners into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in southwest Pennsylvania during the Sept. 11 attacks. More than 2,700 of those victims perished in the fiery collapse of the trade center’s twin towers.
NEW YORK —
President Donald Trump’s administration said Friday that it is exploring whether the federal government can take control of the 9/11 memorial and museum in New York City.
The site in lower Manhattan, where the World Trade Center’s twin towers were destroyed by hijacked jetliners on Sept. 11, 2001, features two memorial pools ringed by waterfalls and parapets with the names of the dead, and an underground museum. Since opening to the public in 2014, the memorial plaza and museum have been run by a public charity, now chaired by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a frequent Trump critic.
The White House confirmed the administration has had “preliminary exploratory discussions” about the idea, but declined to elaborate. The office noted the Republican pledged during his campaign last year to make the site a national monument, protected and maintained by the federal government.
But officials at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum say the federal government, under current laws, can’t unilaterally take over the site, which is located on land owned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
The U.S. government shouldering costs and management of the site also “makes no sense,” given Trump’s efforts to dramatically pare back the federal bureaucracy, said Beth Hillman, the organization’s president and CEO.
“We’re proud that our exhibitions tell stories of bravery and patriotism and are confident that our current operating model has served the public honorably and effectively,” she said, noting the organization has raised $750 million in private funds and welcomed some 90 million visitors since its opening.
Last year, the museum generated more than $93 million in revenue and spent roughly $84 million on operating costs, leaving a nearly $9 million surplus when depreciation is factored in, according to museum officials and its most recently available tax filings.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, meanwhile, voiced her own concerns about a federal takeover, citing the Trump administration’s recent efforts to influence how American history is told through its national monuments and museums, including the Smithsonian.
The takeover idea also comes just months after the Trump administration briefly cut, but then restored, staffing at a federal program that provides health benefits to people with illnesses that might be linked to toxic dust from the destroyed World Trade Center.
“The 9/11 Memorial belongs to New Yorkers — the families, survivors, and first responders who have carried this legacy for more than two decades and ensured we never forget,” Hochul said in a statement. “Before he meddles with this sacred site, the President should start by honoring survivors and supporting the families of victims.”
Anthoula Katsimatides, a museum board member who lost her brother, John, in the attack, said she didn’t see any reason to change ownership.
“They do an incredible job telling the story of that day without sugarcoating it,” she said. “It’s being run so well, I don’t see why there has to be a change. I don’t see what benefit there would be.”
The memorial and museum, however, have also been the target of criticism over the years from some members of the large community of 9/11 victims’ families, some of whom have criticized ticket prices or called for changes in the makeup of the museum’s exhibits.
Trump spokespersons declined to respond to the comments.
In all, nearly 3,000 people were killed when the hijackers crashed jetliners into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in southwest Pennsylvania during the Sept. 11 attacks. More than 2,700 of those victims perished in the fiery collapse of the trade center’s twin towers.
Patriot Day events in the High Desert will honor the memory of those who died during the terrorist attacks on U.S. soil on Sept. 11, 2001.
Some events will also honor the men and women who have and are serving in the U.S. military.
Victor Valley College Associated Student Body welcomed the public over Labor Day weekend to help set up 3,000 flags in honor of the people killed in the 9/11 attacks. The process takes anywhere from 10 to 20 hours and took place on Saturday, Aug. 31, and Sunday, Sept. 1 at Victor Valley College in Victorville.
The events of 9/11 included terrorists hijacking four commercial airplanes and deliberately crashing two into both towers of the World Trade Center complex in New York City, according to the 9/11 Memorial & Museum.
A third plane crashed into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. Passengers on the fourth hijacked plane, Flight 93, fought back, and the aircraft crashed in an empty field in western Pennsylvania.
The attacks killed 2,977 people from 90 nations, including 2,753 people in New York, 184 people at the Pentagon, and 40 people on Flight 93.
Flags of Honor
Victor Valley College invites the public to join the Associated Student Body on Labor Day weekend to place over 3,000 symbolic Flags of Honor at the Victorville campus.
Flag placement times are scheduled between 7 a.m. and noon on Aug. 30, Sept. 1 and 3, on the hillside adjacent to the campus library.
The flags, courtesy of the Victor Valley College ASB, have already been prepped for placement.
For more information, or to participate, call 909-208-8515 or 760-245-4271 Ext. 2395.
Victor Valley College Associated Student Body welcomed the public over Labor Day weekend to help set up 3,000 flags in honor of the people killed in the 9/11 attacks. The process takes anywhere from 10 to 20 hours and took place on Saturday, Aug. 31, and Sunday, Sept. 1 at Victor Valley College in Victorville.
9/11 Commemoration Ceremony
The United States Veterans Support Group will host Barstow’s 4th Annual 9/11 Remembrance Celebration Ceremony at 10 a.m. on Saturday, Sept. 6, at Mountain View Memorial Park at 37067 Irwin Road.
The event has traditionally included an invocation, the retiring of colors, posting of colors, a gun salute, taps, guest speakers, the laying of wreaths and refreshments. For more information, visit usveteranssupport.org.
Veterans Freedom Market
The Veterans Freedom Market Night is scheduled from 4 to 8 p.m. on Sept. 11, at the VFW “Joshua Palms” Post 2924, 10184 Hesperia Road in Hesperia.
The event will include vendors, food trucks, live music and a beer garden. For vendor and additional information, call 760-912-2981.
More events may be added as information becomes available.
Daily Press reporter Rene Ray De La Cruz may be reached at RDeLaCruz@VVDailyPress.com. Follow him on X @DP_ReneDeLaCruz
Unlike the infamous December 7th date that baby boomers would forever be conditioned to remember and respect by their forebears, September 11th is becoming less and less of a date to “revere” and more and more of a “thing” to meme. And, although the attack on the World Trade Center hasn’t even yet reached its twenty-fifth anniversary, it’s already but “fodder” for a generation that was barely coherent, if even born at all, when the calamity occurred. Thus, it’s easy to find “levity” in the incongruous images from that immortal day (including a screen grab of an advertisement for Mariah Carey’s doomed movie, Glitter, against the backdrop of the smoking towers).
And oh, how Gen Z has found quite the substantial amount of levity in 9/11. As a recent article from Rolling Stone characterized this phenomenon, “To be on social media in 2024 is to be swimming in jokes and memes about 9/11. Things that might once have been whispered among friends are now shared by meme accounts with hundreds of thousands of followers. On TikTok, videos contrasting the year 2024 with 2001 (often ending with someone reacting to the planes hitting towers) frequently went viral.” An Instagram account called always_forget_never_remember (a “tasteless 9/11 Meme Dealer”) describes the latest glut of memes about the tragedy as having “the effect of exorcising the event from America’s collective consciousness.” While some might view that as a “positive” form of “healing,” others are aware of the long-term damage it can cause to “forget” (hence, the long-standing 9/11 urging to “never forget”—especially if you still have the non-presence of mind to live in New York).
Germany didn’t make the mistake of “forgetting” about World War II and Adolf Hitler’s dangerous, life-destroying demagoguery. Ergo, the reason why its ratio of neo-Nazis is actually far smaller than the one in the United States, where the history taught in schools is often not exactly “on the level.” Therefore, making it easy to forget the lessons that are theoretically supposed to be imparted by history. If 9/11 was meant to impart any such lesson, it’s that hubris will be the U.S.’ ultimate undoing. And yet, Gen Z has instead seen fit to take up allegiance with Osama bin Laden in the matter after his “Letter to America” went viral on TikTok. Mainly because part of his “logic” for killing thousands of people stemmed from the U.S.’ de facto support of Israel’s occupation of Palestine. But, as the aphorism goes, “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” Especially Gen Z—blind to the severity and unprecedented nature of this event that has continued to negatively impact people’s lives to this day.
And not just the lives of those who lost loved ones in the most brutal and unfathomable manner, but to those still living who were subjected to the toxic materials of the aftermath. As the CDC phrases it, 9/11 “created massive dust clouds that filled the air and left hundreds of highly populated city blocks covered with ash, debris and harmful particles, including asbestos, silica, metals, concrete and glass.” Consequently, many people, young and old alike, were subjected to toxins that would result in ongoing health issues or even death.
Indeed, according to the Mesothelioma Center, “more people have now died from this toxic exposure than in the 9/11 attacks [themselves].” But that is of no importance to Gen Z, who could give a goddamn about anything (except looking young and excoriating those who don’t). Perhaps Rue Bennett (Zendaya), the ultimate numb/disaffected Gen Zer in Euphoria, puts it best when she narrates in the series’ pilot episode, “I was born three days after 9/11. My mother and father spent two days in the hospital, holding me under the soft glow of the television, watching those towers fall over and over again, until the feelings of grief gave way to numbness.” In a sense, she’s not just talking about her parents’ numbness, but also referring to the osmosis of those images—played ad nauseam until they meant nothing anymore—contributing to her own eventual numbness. Not just to 9/11 and its “weight,” but to life itself.
While there are those who would take up the defense of Gen Z (including Gen Z itself) by saying it’s not their fault they didn’t live through the catastrophe in order to be “appropriately sad” enough about it (therefore not make totally callous memes about it), others are aware of the growing sociopathy that exists within each new generation—and yes, it arguably started with baby boomers themselves, the generation first accused of being selfish and sociopathic via an illustrious 1976 article by Tom Wolfe for New York Magazine called “The ‘Me’ Decade.” And yet, while boomers might have been quick to join cults and indulge in many a bad acid trip, one can’t imagine them ever creating content that eradicated the entire emotional meaning of December 7, 1941.
Undoubtedly, Gen Z, in contrast, comes across as particularly sociopathic because they are the first generation to “forget” about 9/11. Not, however, the first generation to have the internet-oriented platforms to mock it. That would be millennials. But millennials were in the trenches when it happened, affected by the news coverage and anti-Middle East rhetoric that followed in such a way as to not even dream of poking fun at such a serious moment in the culture. After all, this was when people were still even taking Rudy Giuliani seriously. As for previous generations that were made aware of somber historical events, baby boomers didn’t have the means to mock Pearl Harbor (the event consistently likened to 9/11 because it was the only other large-scale attack on U.S. soil), nor did Gen X didn’t have the means to mock, say, the Kennedy assassination or the Vietnam War. At least not in a manner that could be disseminated to so many thousands of people.
The irony, of course, is that Gen Z is known for being the most “sensitive” generation yet—even though everything about them and their reactions to things connotes the exact opposite. Treating 9/11 like nothing more than a “trend” or meme to fill the internet space is, thus, but part and parcel of this generation’s highly limited capacity for empathy. Oh sure, there’s using humor as a coping mechanism, as many did try to in the wake of the events of September 11, 2001 (which meant being “canceled” before that was a term). But that’s not what it’s about with Gen Z, who has no emotional attachment whatsoever to that day. Nor do they seem to have much of an emotional attachment to anything (again, except to looking hot). Leading some to ask the question: can you blame them? After all, they live in a post-Empire world—how can they trust that it’s even worth it to attach to something, knowing how ephemeral it all is. The decimation of the Twin Towers certainly proves that, if nothing else, to Gen Z, so overexposed to tragedy and trauma at this point that their desensitization can be “justified.” As anything can be when it suits a purpose…sort of like bin Laden justifying the attacks.
On September 11, 2001, 343 members of the Fire Department of New York perished while trying to rescue people trapped in the World Trade Center. Scott Pelley speaks with firefighters who were there that day and the loved ones of those who never made it home.
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NESCONSET, N.Y. — There is a new milestone to mark this Sept. 11. The number of people who died after volunteering, working or living near ground zero has surpassed the number of people killed in the attacks.
And it has happened amid an ongoing struggle for more first responder funding.
World Trade Center Health Program needs more funding
The World Trade Center Health Program was to be funded through 2090, but outspoken advocate John Feal, who has lobbied Washington more than 350 times, often with comedian and television personality Jon Stewart, says that money is running out, and health services will have to be cut.
“Nobody apologized after 9/11 to us. Nobody said, ‘Sorry for lying to you,’” Feal said. “Their apology was to create the World Trade Center Health Program. We had to fight for 20 years to get legislation passed. Imagine, we had to chase our own apology.”
Created by Congress in 2010 and reauthorized in 2015, the fund has supplied $1.6 billion to those in need, but advocates say $3 billion more is needed.
Bridget Gormley, whose FDNY father died of 9/11-related cancer, lobbies Congress.
“There is always a question of where the money is going to come from, and that is always the issue in D.C. and politics. Who is paying for it. Where is it coming from,” said Bridget Gormley, whose FDNY father died of 9/11-related cancer.
“No one took into consideration medical inflation in 2015,” Feal said. “There were 70,000 people in the program in 2015. Now, there are 132,000-plus in the program. This is our apology.”
“Most of the illnesses now that are popping up are the cancers, and they told us back when they were doing the studies that when we got to the 20-25th year, and that’s what we are seeing now,” added Rich Palmer, retired Department of Correction warden.
Congress has until 2028 to approve the funding. If it doesn’t, medical treatments could be cut for those sick, and those whose diagnosis is coming.
Emergency Services workers were on the front lines on 9/11
Mike Negron, a retired New York City Department of Correction Emergency Services Unit worker, spends a lot of time at Responder Memorial Park in the Suffolk County hamlet of Nesconset.
“So many names … this wall is getting so filled with names, it’s heartbreaking,” Negron said. “The park is getting too small for the amount of names that are going up so fast. I kind of lost track.”
More people have died of 9/11-related illnesses than perished in the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
CBS News New York
Negron said he comes to the park to be with colleagues lost, and added he’s seeing more and more of them each year.
“I kind of lost track. It’s crazy how fast guys are going and getting sick,” Negron said.
Negron’s guys worked six days a week for months. Officials said the air was safe. Negron was in charge of scheduling.
“That lingers in my heart. It hurts to know I had to send somebody down to ground zero, and may become sick, may die,” Negron said.
It’s where we now know they were breathing in toxic carcinogenic dust.
Negron said. “At the time, it didn’t matter. We were there to do one thing, and that was to try to find survivors,” said.
Negron said lawmakers need to visit the park and see the names on the wall.
“Maybe they’ll do the right thing,” Negron said.
The health program treats more than cancers. For Negron, it’s crippling PTSD.
“Every day, I have flashbacks,” Negron said.
“We didn’t really know what we were marching into”
Twenty three years later, more people exposed to the dust cloud have died of cancer and other diseases than in the attack, itself. More than 2,000 names fill Responder Memorial Park and more slabs are needed.
Overall, more than 6,400 people have died of 9/11-related illnesses, according to Feal.
“I have no doubt that I’m going to beat this,” retired ESU worker Phil Rizzo said. “I’m not going to be in that park, no.”
The sky filled with smoke and ash after both towers of the World Trade Center collapsed on Sept. 11, 2001.
CBS News New York
Rizzo is battling head and neck cancer, a diagnosis he knew was coming.
“All we had were baseball caps. We had no masks. We had no gear. We had nothing. We didn’t really know what we were marching into. I told the other captain, we may be marching these guys to their death,” Rizzo said.
Rizzo said first responders deserve the additional funding, and they deserve to have the situation resolved quickly.
“Why is it the right thing to do?” CBS News New York’s Carolyn Gusoff asked.
Carolyn Gusoff has covered some of the most high profile news stories in the New York City area and is best known as a trusted, tenacious, consistent and caring voice of Long Island’s concerns.
Elon Musk met with Donald Trump in Florida this past Sunday, according to a new report from the New York Times. And while it’s not clear what the two men discussed, news of the meeting comes as Musk has ratcheted up his rhetoric against illegal immigration and Trump looks for new sources of cash.
The Elon Musk Twitter Saga, Part 1 of Who Knows?
The Times report doesn’t name a source for the meeting but cites “three people briefed on the meeting.” An account that tracks Musk’s jet on the social media platform BlueSky shows he landed in West Palm Beach on Saturday, March 2, and left the next day.
Musk previously claimed that he’d never voted for a Republican before 2022, which heavily suggests he never voted for Trump either in 2016 or 2020. But Musk has fully embraced Republican politics in recent years, even if he’s kept Trump at an arm’s length at times.
Musk was an early advocate for Vivek Ramaswamy to become the Republican nominee for president, though Ramaswamy dropped out of the race back in mid-January. Ramaswamy, an entrepreneur and long-shot candidate, never put up much of a fight against Trump and has since endorsed the former president.
The billionaire SpaceX CEO may not love Trump personally, but the two men have many shared interests. Trump, for example, wants to unleash U.S. troops on American streets to round up anyone who might look like they’re in the country illegally, a plan that Musk might just agree with.
Musk has created a steady drumbeat of xenophobic nonsense on X in recent months, insisting that illegal immigration is the biggest issue facing the country—an overwhelming potential threat that’s become a fixation for Musk. Oddly, Musk didn’t seem to care much about immigration until about 2023, judging solely from his tweets and public comments. And Musk’s new pet issue puts him at odds with President Joe Biden, who’s not exactly a dove on immigration policy.
“This administration is both importing voters and creating a national security threat from unvetted illegal immigrants,” Musk tweeted late Monday in a tone that’s become typical of the billionaire.
To be clear, non-citizens aren’t allowed to vote in the U.S., so Musk’s insistence that Biden is “importing” voters is flat wrong. But Musk went on to say immigration could create a threat as serious as the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.
“It is highly probable that the groundwork is being laid for something far worse than 9/11. Just a matter of time,” Musk continued.
It should be noted that none of the terrorists that carried out the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center in New York were in the country illegally. They all entered on completely legal visas.
Biden has said he’d like to “close” the border if Republicans can get him a bill that addresses the issue. Sen. James Lankford, a Republican from Oklahoma, spent months negotiating a bipartisan bill that’s widely viewed as the toughest immigration reform in a generation. But that legislation was torpedoed by Republicans after Trump made it clear he wants the border to be an issue he can campaign on in the lead-up to November’s presidential election.
And that’s the problem the U.S. now faces. Trump, who’s currently leading Biden in several national polls, thrives in a world of chaos. And Musk might be signing up for precisely that kind of chaotic mission if he starts to support Trump financially.
ARLINGTON, TX—When asked about whether he was looking forward to his team’s upcoming World Series matchup against the Texas Rangers, Arizona Diamondbacks owner Ken Kendrick admitted to reporters Friday that nothing would ever top his team beating the New York Yankees right after 9/11. “Sure, winning another World Series would be nice, but it won’t hold a candle to winning against that post-9/11 Yankees team that for once had all of America behind them,” said Kendrick, adding that he would never forget the looks on the faces of New Yorkers who were searching for something hopeful in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and had those hopes dashed completely. “Honestly, not making it to the World Series for over 20 years has been absolutely worth the wait, given how we took the wind right out of their sails. They had the president come throw out the first pitch and had all this patriotic support because people felt bad for New York for once, and our team went out there and basically stomped on the heart of America. It was the one time people would have been okay with the Yankees winning, and we didn’t let them. When Luis Gonzalez hit that bloop single to win Game 7 in a walk-off and we prevented the nation from healing from 9/11 in some small way, well, that’s a feeling that no World Series will likely ever eclipse.” Kendrick added that beating the Yankees after 9/11 gave him all the satisfaction he needs in a lifetime, and so he doesn’t give a shit whether or not the Diamondbacks win this World Series.
The head of a powerful transportation workers union is formally calling on prosecutors and two inspectors general to probe MTA honcho Janno Lieber for alleged conflicts of interests involving his real estate investments.
John Samuelsen, president of the Transport Workers Union, made the demand Thursday in a letter to New York State Attorney General Letitia James, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams and the inspectors general for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the U.S. Department of Transportation.
Samuelsen’s union is now locked in a bitter contract dispute with the MTA. On Thursday — the same day Samuelsen sent his letter — the TWU took out a full page ad in The News accusing Lieber of being an “ethically challenged fraudster.”
In his letter, Samuelsen attempts to elaborate and cites two Daily News stories that revealed Lieber holds financial stakes in properties that could potentially be impacted by MTA decision making, as well as investments in his stock portfolio — all of which Lieber has disclosed as required under state rules.
The properties — which Lieber has a financial stake with his former employer Silverstein Properties — include a plot of land on the West Side that Silverstein is eyeing as a site to develop a full-fledged casino and two high-rise buildings in the mass transit-rich World Trade Center complex.
“I urge you – if you have not already done so – to begin investigating the disturbing pattern of self-dealing and conflict-of-interest that has emerged within the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), the country’s single largest transportation agency under the administration of MTA President John ‘Janno’ Lieber,” Samuelsen writes in the letter.
“Lieber, a former President of Silverstein Properties’ World Trade Center division, potentially violated anti-corruption statutes, public disclosure requirements, and agency policies governing the previously undisclosed overlap between his governmental position and his extensive personal investments,” Samuelsen continues.
Transport Workers Union Local 100 President John Samuelsen speaks during the third annual New York Daily News Hometown Heroes in Transit Awards at the Edison Ballroom on Thursday, Jan. 29, 2015 in New York City. (James Keivom / New York Daily News)
The MTA did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The two inspectors general also did not immediately respond, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to comment.
The attorney general’s office confirmed receiving the letter, and an official there said it’s “reviewing” it.
In the letter, Samuelsen ticks off a laundry list of potential conflicts.
The first is Lieber’s 3% financial interest stake in a parcel in Manhattan’s West Side Silverstein is planning to develop for a casino. As The News reported, the MTA and Amtrak both have easements on the property, meaning those agencies would have to sign off on aspects of development at the site. Records show Lieber also met with lobbyists representing the Related Companies, which is proposing its own, competing casino plan atop a rail yard owned by the MTA.
“Given that Related Companies requires the rail yard decking to build its casino, it is impossible for Lieber to separate the issue of the infrastructure itself with the developer’s motivation for building the infrastructure,” Samuelsen contends in his letter.
The union leader also points to Lieber’s 3% financial stakes in 3 World Trade Center and 4 World Trade Center, both steps away from the WTC Cortlandt subway station that was destroyed during 9/11. For years, during Lieber’s tenure at Silverstein, reconstruction of the station hit snags and was delayed. In 2017, after Lieber had begun working for the MTA, he said he made the work “a priority,” following up on the agency’s long-standing plan to prioritize upgrades to the station.
MTA
Luiz C. Ribeiro for New York Daily News
MTA Chair Janno Lieber speaks at the MTA headquarters in Lower Manhattan in 2022. (Luiz C. Ribeiro for New York Daily News)
Samuelsen claims in his letter that Lieber’s involvement in the project flies in the face of his assertion that he’s recused himself from work that might benefit Silverstein. The MTA would need release Lieber’s recusal documents to The News.
The letter goes on to reference “other unreported conflicts.” According to Samuelsen, they include four companies “that have either recently received or attempted to secure MTA contracts [and] have performed work on the parcels co-owned by Lieber.” Those companies are Langan Engineering, Gensler Architecture, the Syska Hennessy engineering firm and the WSP engineering firm.
“Given the [MTA’s] reputation for cost overruns, it is not difficult to imagine a contractor submitting a low bid for work on one private sector job in the hopes of influencing the selection process for more lucrative MTA work,” Samuelsen notes.
He also asks that prosecutors probe Lieber’s stock holdings and other financial investments, citing the possibility of “insider trading based on knowledge of procurement and budget.”
Samuelsen specifically points to financial disclosure forms that show Lieber holds “five- and six-figure investments in publicly traded companies with MTA business, including Express Scripts, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase.”
John Dickerson reports on an American freed from a cave in Turkey, earthquake disaster in Morocco, and a new sighting of the escaped Pennsylvania prisoner.
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Guest host: Lee Cowan. In our cover story, David Pogue talks with Walter Isaacson about his new biography of Elon Musk. Plus: Norah O’Donnell interviews Oprah Winfrey and Harvard professor Arthur Brooks about their collaboration, a book on happiness; David Martin talks with Gen. Mark Milley about intelligence for the war in Ukraine; Mo Rocca sits down with former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg to discuss a new arts complex at the site of the World Trade Center; Lilia Luciano profiles Colombian megastar Maluma; Faith Salie visits an art installation on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.; and Kelefa Sanneh finds out what chef and restaurateur Mario Carbone puts in his Sunday sauce.
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This is an updated version of a story first published on Sept. 12, 2021. The original video can be viewed here.
In the neighborhoods of New York, there are 217 firehouses. Each holds a memorial to firefighters who answered the call 22 years ago and never returned. As we first told you in 2021, 343 members of the Fire Department of the City of New York perished on 9/11, in the greatest act of gallantry ever bestowed on an American city. This is their story.
Joe Pfeifer: This plane raced past us along the Hudson River at such a low altitude I could read “American” on the fuselage.
At 8:46 that morning, Battalion Chief Joe Pfeifer was blocks away, searching for a routine gas leak.
Joe Pfeifer: I saw the plane aim and crash into the North Tower of the World Trade Center.
Joe Pfeifer
From that moment, the firefighters of the FDNY would have about an hour and a half to save 17,000 lives.
Sal Cassano: They knew that they might not come home, but they knew there were people trapped. That’s our job.
Peter Hayden: There’s no way we were gonna stand back and say we’re not going in. That wouldn’t be the FDNY.
Dan Nigro: Our aim was to get above that fire and get those poor people out that were calling us.
Melissa Doi: We’re on the floor and we can’t breathe. And it’s very, very, very hot!
Dan Nigro: And all the dispatcher could say is, “We’re coming for you.” So, we like to keep our promises. You know, we told them we’re coming. We’re coming.
Joe Pfeifer was coming with a camera. Filmmakers Jules and Gideon Naudet were making a documentary about the FDNY.
Joe Pfeifer: We have a number of floors on fire. It looked like the plane was aiming towards the building.
Dispatch: Engine 6 to Manhattan, K.
Dispatch: Engine 6
Radio Transmission: The World Trade Center, Tower Number One is on fire!
Dispatch: Engine 1-0, World Trade Center 10-60. Send every available ambulance, everything you got to the World Trade Center now!
At FDNY headquarters, in Brooklyn, 54-year-old Chief of Department Peter Ganci Jr. raced to his car. He was the boss, leading the second-largest fire department in the world—after Tokyo. Dan Nigro was his number two.
Dan Nigro: So we went downstairs quickly, got in the car and headed over the Brooklyn Bridge, where we could see the damage, see the smoke, see the fire. That’s when I said to Pete– “Pete, this’ll be the worst day of our lives.” And, you know, that was before I knew the half of it.
Radio Transmission from Pete Ganci: Car 3 to Manhattan, K.
Pete Ganci’s voice was recorded en route.
Radio Transmission from Pete Ganci: Transmit a fifth alarm for this box and get us a staging area chief, uh, chief, somewhere on West Street, K.
A “box” is a location. “K” signals the end of a message — a throwback to the 19th-century telegraph which, on this day, was punctuating the greatest crisis in the department’s 136 years.
Peter Hayden: Right away I got a deep sense that we were going to lose a lot of firefighters this day.
Division One Commander Peter Hayden met Battalion Chief Joe Pfeifer in the lobby of the burning tower.
Peter Hayden
Peter Hayden: Well, I knew that we weren’t gonna be able to put out the fire. So, the order of the day was to search and evacuate as many people as we could. And then we were gonna back away.
The fire was 93 floors above. Elevators were out, so firefighters climbed tight stairwells shouldering 75 pounds and more.
Peter Hayden: And I thought we would have enough time to get the people out. And everybody that was above the impact of the plane we were pretty much sure were either dead already or going to die. There were a lot of people jumping out already.
1,355 people were trapped above the fire. The Boeing 767 had severed all three stairwells—leaving one way out.
Radio Transmission: …Jumpers, K! Jumpers!
Radio Transmission: Alright Division 1 be advised, Battalion 2 advised he has jumpers from the World Trade Center.
Joe Pfeifer: We heard a loud thud. And I knew that was somebody that either fell or jumped from the building.
The first firefighter killed was hit by a fellow human being.
Joe Pfeifer: It was happening so rapidly that I grabbed the PA system at the fire command post And I said, “The firefighters are coming. If you can, hold on.”
Sal Cassano: It’s something that’s gonna haunt us probably for the rest of our lives.
Tour commander Sal Cassano had arrived precisely 17 minutes after the North Tower was hit.
Sal Cassano
Sal Cassano: Just as I got outta my car, I heard another explosion. And I can tell you exactly what time it was. It was 9:03, because that was the plane that hit the South Tower.
Radio Transmission: You have a second plane into the other tower, the tower of the trade center! Major fire!
Radio Transmission: Mayday! Mayday! Engine, ah, another plane hit the second tower, K.
The second 767 exploded into floors 77 through 85. Now, 2,000 people were trapped a quarter-mile high. Cassano ran into the department chaplain, Mychal Judge.
Sal Cassano: And I just told him, “Father we’re gonna be in for a bad day. You’re gonna need a lot more chaplains here.”
Peter Hayden: You know, the more and more firefighters they kept coming in, they took their assignments with no question, pretty tough to do.
Scott Pelley: But it’s also hard to give them those assignments.
Peter Hayden: It was, it was, but I could tell that when I gave the assignments out, I could see the look in their eyes. I remember seeing firefighters hugging each other. And heading up.
Scott Pelley: How many firefighters did you see that day refuse to go up the stairs?
Joe Pfeifer: Nobody refused to go in.
Joe Pfeifer: I could remember one lieutenant from Engine 33 coming up to me and not saying a word. And we stood there wondering if we were both gonna be okay. And that lieutenant was my brother Kevin. And then I told him what I told many of the other fire officers. I said, “Go up to the 70th floor.”
Seventy, they hoped, could be a staging area in the North Tower.
In less than half an hour the FDNY had rescue operations in the North Tower, the South Tower and the nearly sold-out 800-room hotel between them.
Sal Cassano: From the time the first plane hit the North Tower until the second tower collapsed was 102 minutes. The things that were going through Pete’s mind in just 102 minutes is just mind-boggling.
Sal Cassano was with Chief of Department Pete Ganci at his command post on the street, below the towers.
Scott Pelley: Was Ganci the kind of boss that you did things for because you feared him, or because you desperately did not want to let him down?
Sal Cassano: You did it because you loved him.
Ganci joined the FDNY in 1968.
Scott Pelley: What kind of man was Peter Ganci?
Dan Nigro: Pete, I guess people would say he’s my alter ego. Had a chest full of medals. And he was just a down-to-earth, honest, hard-working guy. You know he was a paratrooper in the Army, worked his way up to be chief of department in the FDNY. Quite a story.
A story of courage over his 33-year career.
Scott Pelley: He won the department’s medal of valor. Crawling into a burning apartment on his hands and knees, grabbing a child who was certainly going to die, and dragging that child out and saving her life.
Sal Cassano: That’s the kind of person Pete was. He would put people before himself without a doubt.
He put his firefighters before himself three months before 9/11. Ganci, the chief of the department, responded from home to a call of firefighters trapped in a burning store. He went in wearing shorts and boat shoes. He once said his 11,000 firefighters were his children. On that day in Queens, he lost three.
On 9/11, the man responsible for firefighter safety was Chief Al Turi, who was tormented by the passing minutes.
Al Turi: …Let it burn up. We ain’t putting this out.
He asked Pete Hayden if he had considered the threat of a partial, localized collapse on the burning floors.
Peter Hayden: I said yes but, we needed to get the people out. There were hundreds upon hundreds of people coming down the interior stairs.
Scott Pelley: How much time did you think you had?
Peter Hayden: I thought we had a couple of hours.
The chiefs knew, no steel high rise in history had ever completely collapsed due to fire.
Dan Nigro
Dan Nigro: None of us expected the building to come down. We expected the fire to keep burning, and conditions to get worse. But if we could just get one route above in each building, perhaps we could bring some folks down, at least.
Scott Pelley: You just needed a little more time.
Dan Nigro: We just needed time.
Orio Palmer receives orders in the lobby of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001
CNN
No one would do more with time than Orio Palmer. That’s him on the right with the mustache. He’s receiving orders to go to the South Tower to try to clear a path to the trapped souls calling 911.
911 operator: How many people where you’re at right now?
Melissa Doi: There’s like five people here with me.
911 operator: All up on the 83rd floor?
Melissa Doi: 83rd floor.
Melissa Doi
9/11 Memorial & Museum
32-year-old Melissa Doi was saying the Hail Mary prayer when 911 answered. The once aspiring ballerina was a manager in a financial firm on 83, one of the burning floors in the South Tower.
Melissa Doi: Are they going to be able to get someone up here?
911 operator: Of course ma’am we’re coming up to you.
Melissa Doi: Well, there’s no one here yet and the floor is completely engulfed. We’re on the floor and we can’t breathe. And it’s very, very, very hot.
The operator was right, someone was rising toward Melissa Doi. Orio Palmer ran marathons as a hobby.
Radio Transmission from Orio Palmer: Battalion 7, Ladder 1-5,
“Battalion 7” is Chief Palmer. “Ladder 1-5” is a team of firefighters, a few floors below.
Radio Transmission from Joe Leavey: What do you got up there, Chief?
Radio Transmission from Orio Palmer: I’m still in “boy” stairway, 74th floor. No smoke or fire problems, the walls are breached, so be careful.
Joe Leavey
FDNY
This is ladder 15’s lieutenant, Joe Leavey.
Radio Transmission from Joe Leavey: Alright, we’re on 71 we’re coming up behind you.
Radio Transmission from Orio Palmer: I found a Marshal on 75.
Palmer found Fire Marshal Ron Bucca on the 75th floor, evacuating civilians.
Ron Bucca
FDNY
Radio Transmission from Orio Palmer: Battalion 7, Ladder 1-5.
Radio Transmission from Joe Leavey: 1-5.
Radio Transmission from Orio Palmer: I’m going to need two of your firefighters “adam” stairway to knock down two fires, we have a house line stretched, we could use some water on it, knock it down, K.
Palmer had discovered the only intact stairway to the top of the South Tower. Unlike the North Tower, the second plane had missed stairway “A.”
Radio Transmission from Joe Leavey: We’re on 77 now in the B stair. I’ll be right to you.
Orio Palmer
FDNY
If Palmer could clear this stairwell, 619 souls would have a way out. He was five floors below Melissa Doi and rising.
Melissa Doi: I’m going to die, aren’t I?
911 operator: No, no, no, no, no, no …
Melissa Doi: I’m gonna die.
911 operator: Ma’am, ma’am, ma’am say your prayers. We’re not gonna…
Melissa Doi: I’m gonna die.
911 operator: We’re gonna think positive because you’ve gotta help each other get off the floor.
Radio Transmission from Orio Palmer: We have access stairs going up to 79, K.
Radio Transmission from Ladder 15: Alright I’m on my way up, Orio.
911 operator: You’re doing a good job, ma’am. You’re doing a good job …
Melissa Doi: It’s so hot. I’m burning up…
An hour had passed since the attack on the World Trade Center began. In the South Tower, Battalion 7 Chief Orio Palmer took the only working elevator as high as it would go. Then, he led the men of Ladder 15 on a climb from the 40th floor. Palmer was trying to clear a path to 619 people trapped by fire.
Radio Transmission from Orio Palmer: Battalion 7, Ladder 1-5.
This is Palmer’s radio transmission from the 78th floor of the South Tower. He’s calling the firefighters of Ladder 15 who are coming up with rescue gear from a few floors below.
Radio Transmission from Orio Palmer: We’ve got two isolated pockets of fire. We should be able to knock it down with two lines. Radio, radio that. 78th floor. Numerous 10-45 code 1’s.
10-45 code 1’s were fatalities, more than he could count. Palmer pressed toward 79, climbing at about one floor a minute. As he rose, Melissa Doi, speaking to 911 from the 83rd floor, thought she heard someone.
Melissa Doi: Wait, wait, we hear voices. Hello! Help!
911 operator: Hello ma’am?
Melissa Doi: Help! Oh my God!
911 operator: Are they coming through to you now?
Melissa Doi: Find out if there is anyone here on the 83rd floor!
911 operator: Ma’am, don’t worry, you stay on the phone with me …
Melissa Doi: Can you find out if there is anyone here on the 83rd floor because we think we heard somebody!
We don’t know what she heard. But hearing no answer to her shout, Melissa Doi returned to the call.
Melissa Doi: Can you, can you… stay on the line with me please?
911 operator: Yes, ma’am…
Melissa Doi: I feel like I’m dying.
Joe Pfeifer: Orio Palmer knew how dangerous this was. And he didn’t stop. Ladder 15 knew how dangerous it was. But we never thought that an entire high-rise building would collapse. There was no history of it anywhere in the world.
But this day, history was changing because the planes had blasted away the spray-on fireproof foam insulating the structural steel. The burning floors were sagging, slowly pulling the exterior inward. EMS Division Chief John Peruggia was in the city emergency operations center, where he received a warning from an official he believes was an engineer.
John Peruggia
John Peruggia: He said, “The buildings are severely compromised. You can see slight lean. They’re in danger of collapse.” So I grabbed one of my staff guys, EMT Rich Zarrillo. And I said, “Rich go to Pete Ganci, don’t talk to anyone else, and deliver this message: the buildings are in danger of collapse.”
In a four-second video, at the far left of the screen, you see Rich Zarrillo’s blue shirt. He’s delivering the warning to Pete Ganci. Zarrillo hardly got the words out when Ganci’s attention was drawn to a roar from the South Tower above him.
Sal Cassano: Loud noise, had no idea what it was. All we saw was this plume of dust and smoke and debris.
In the moment before, Melissa Doi had given the 911 operator her mother’s phone number and the message that her daughter loved her. Then, there was silence.
911 operator: Oh my God. Melissa, please. You’re gonna be alright. You’re gonna be fine. You’re gonna talk to your mother yourself. But you gotta think positive. You gotta stay calm. Ok? You’re gonna talk to your mother yourself, alright? Melissa?
Scott Pelley: Palmer’s last radio transmission was Battalion 7 to Ladder 15, and there’s nothing after that. That’s when the tower collapses. He must have known that with every step he ascended, his chance of survival dropped.
Sal Cassano: Didn’t deter him one bit. The only thing that was in his mind was, “Let me get up there. Let me get as many people out as I can as quickly as I can.”
Joe Pfeiffer, next door in the North Tower, was 200 feet from the cascading twin.
Joe Pfeifer: And then the lobby goes pitch black… And in the darkness, I wondered if I was dead or alive… And I got on my radio. And I said, “Command to all units in Tower One…
Joe Pfeifer: Evacuate the building.
Peter Hayden: Joe Pfeifer was giving the order to evacuate. And one of the firefighters were calling my name… He says, “We have somebody down.”
Joe Pfeifer: I felt somebody at my feet. And I saw this was our fire department chaplain, Father Mychal Judge. I removed his white collar. I checked for his pulse and breathing. And he had none. And I knew he was gone.
Peter Hayden: Several of us picked him up and we carried him out. The EMTs that had taken him, actually took him, not to the morgue, but they took him to St. Peter Claver which is a Catholic church a little bit north of the Trade Center. And they laid him on the altar, and they called out the Franciscan priests to come down and get him.
Radio Transmission: Tower Two has had a major explosion and what appears to be a complete collapse!
Radio Transmission: Have them mobilize the Army! We need the Army in Manhattan.
John Sudnik
John Sudnik: There was a rush of dust with high pressure coming in, you know, with force that I’ve never experienced before.
Ganci’s streetside command post had been set up next to an underground garage in case shelter was needed. Captain John Sudnik, Ganci and the chiefs dove into the entrance.
John Sudnik: I just remember the dust that day, feeling like it was searing your lungs. Like it was, like, it felt like you were swallowing glass.
Sal Cassano: Pitch black, pitch black. But we heard voices, “Are you okay, are you okay?” And then that’s when we made our way back up.
Sal Cassano: And then, when we got up to where the command post was, Pete’s mind went into rescue mode.
Pete Ganci heard, on the radio, the cries of trapped and wounded firefighters.
Sal Cassano: And I remember him giving orders. “I need truck companies. I need rescue company. Tell ’em to come with me.”
As he had before, Ganci went into the debris to save his men himself. In the still standing North Tower, many firefighters refused the order to evacuate while they were still carrying the wounded and disabled. Ganci sent Sal Cassano to set up a new command post. Twenty-eight minutes later, Cassano was on his way back.
Sal Cassano: And then I look up and all I could see was the antennae from the North Tower imploding.
Radio Transmission: The other tower has just collapsed! Major collapse! Major collapse!
Regina Wilson: I, in my mind, had to be resolved with death.
Regina Wilson
Regina Wilson was on the street below the tower. She was with Engine 219, in her second year as a firefighter.
Regina Wilson: And I prayed, and then I just asked God to just protect me. And then, if he couldn’t, I knew that I would die doin’ what I love.
Inside the collapsing North Tower, the men of Engine 39 were caught in a stairwell.
Jeff Coniglio: And it started out slow, boom… boom… boom. Then it got quicker, where pretty soon it was just like, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, coming down.
Jeff Coniglio and Jamie Efthimiades were on the stairs near the ground floor with 110 floors above them.
Jeff Coniglio and Jamie Efthimiades
Jamie Efthimiades: It took ten seconds for it to come down, but it felt like ten minutes. I saw– I was in the background of a funeral: I saw my casket, I saw my parents, my wife sitting in the front. And as I’m watching this, I’m like, “All right, it’s gonna be quick.” I’m just waiting for something to tap my shoulder and figure, “I’ll feel a tap, and that’ll be it, we’ll be gone,” you know? “We’re not gonna suffer.”
James McGlynn and Bob Bacon were in the same stairwell.
Bob Bacon: You know, the wind actually came up the stairwell. You know, blew me into the air and the landing that I was on just disintegrated underneath me, and I kinda bounced, you know, back and forth and ended up hangin’ from like a pipe.
James McGlynn: I think I said a couple of prayers and said, “God, please get us outta here.”
Their fragment of an intact stairwell lay upon a mountain of misery — 16 acres of wreckage, 91 crushed FDNY vehicles, and quiet like the first heavy snow of winter.
Peter Hayden: Every once in a while, you’d hear the radio, the dispatcher on a radio trying to contact somebody.
Dispatch: Alright, Manhattan announcing, any division or any staff chief at the scene of the World Trade Center, K.
Silence spoke of unimaginable loss.
Dispatch: Any division chief or any staff chief at the scene of any of the World Trade Centers? K.
Joe Pfeifer: That day, 23 battalion chiefs responded. Only four of us survived.
Joe Pfeifer thought of the lieutenant of Engine 33, his brother, Kevin, who Pfeifer sent up the North Tower.
Joe Pfeifer: I got on my radio, and I said, “Battalion one to Engine 33.” And I repeated it several times. And I didn’t get an answer.
Kevin Pfeifer was gone and so was the crew of Ladder 105, which rolled from Regina Wilson’s firehouse.
Regina Wilson: We found the truck. We didn’t find the members.
Scott Pelley: What happened to them?
Regina Wilson: They all died.
Among them was John Chipura, her mentor and her savior. Regina Wilson was assigned to the doomed Ladder 105, but early that morning, before the attack, John Chipura asked to switch jobs, which put her among the survivors of Engine 219.
John Chipura and Regina Wilson
Regina Wilson: I try to honor him by talking his name. And that’s how it is in the African American culture. When you speak the name of an ancestor or you speak the name of a loved one, then they live. And so, every time I say John’s name, he lives. And that gives me comfort.
Jeff Coniglio: It was very hot.
Jamie Efthimiades: Oh, yeah.
The men of Engine 39 were trapped in the wreckage near the North Tower lobby. They could hear, only a few feet away, Battalion Chief Richard Prunty, who was pinned and calling for help.
Jeff Coniglio: We couldn’t get to him and he was passing out.
Jamie Efthimiades: Yeah he was coming in and out
Scott Pelley: Did you hear his radio transmissions?
Jeff Coniglio: The last thing that he said was, of course, about his wife, and saying that–
Jamie Efthimiades: “Tell my wife and children I love ’em.”
Jeff Coniglio: Yeah, that they were the most– “my wife– that she was the most important thing in the world to me.”
Those words were among Richard Prunty’s last. The men of Engine 39 were rescued, but 343 members of the FDNY were gone. In a tradition where the job is handed down in families, many lost fathers, sons and brothers.
Peter Hayden: Guys I had worked with both retired and active, saying to me, “Petey–” you know, “Have you seen my son?” And– you know, firefighter– young firefighter coming up, you know, “Chief, have you seen my father?” Who I knew and– I– I just said, “No.” I didn’t have the courage to tell him what I knew to be true.
Among the fallen were Peter Ganci and 71-year-old Deputy Fire Commissioner William Feehan, who had gone with Ganci to rescue the trapped. Pete Hayden climbed atop an engine to address the living.
Peter Hayden: I yelled out, you know, “We just lost a lot of guys here today. Let’s have a moment of silence.” And well– I took my helmet off. And we held it. I held it. And after a while, I put my helmet back on. They put their helmets back on. I said, “Okay, we have a job to do. (CLAP) Let’s do it.”
Scott Pelley: Do you look back and wonder, “How did I survive, and 343 members did not?”
Sal Cassano: Yeah. I didn’t think about it as much. We were crazy busy. I was working 18 hours a day, and then it hit me. I says, “I’m here.” You know, I mean, I get home and I’m tired, and there was always food on the table waiting for me when I came home, no matter what time I came home. And… I’m lying in bed. And I ask my wife, “Why me?” And she said, “Did you ever think there was a job for you to do?”
There was a job for Cassano and others, to do — rebuilding the FDNY.
Volunteers started fighting fire in Manhattan in 1648. Nearly 200 years later, during the Civil War, an entire New York regiment was manned by firefighters. Their commander is quoted, “I want New York firemen, for there are no more effective men in the country…” As those veterans returned home in 1865, the modern FDNY was created. The department’s traditions are handed down in families. And so, it remains, especially for the children of 9/11’s fallen.
The late chief of department, Peter Ganci, had three children. His daughter married a firefighter. His son Captain Peter Ganci III was 27 on 9/11. His other son, Battalion Chief Chris Ganci, was 25.
Scott Pelley: How did you learn your father died?
Chris Ganci: I ran home, and I got in the door right when Steve Moseillo, who was my dad’s driver, Al Turi, who was the Chief of Safety… I just remember them telling my mom that he’s gone. And she said, “Gone where?” Like that. Like, innocently. And they’re like, “He’s dead.” And I remember the scream that she– that she let out. I can still hear it– my ears and it pains me to hear it. The pain of the realization that he’s never walking back in the door.
Peter Ganci III and Chris Ganci
Scott Pelley: Pete, what kind of man was he?
Peter Ganci III: He loved being around family. But his family was also the fire department. We knew it. My mom knew it. Sometimes to his dismay. But we understood the type of person that he was and why he chose our chosen career.
Scott Pelley: Chris, you were in business and on your way to an MBA. Did 9/11 make you a fireman?
Chris Ganci: Absolutely. Had 9/11 not happened, I would not have been a New York City firefighter.
Scott Pelley: You’ve quoted your dad as telling new graduates from the Fire Academy, “You will never, ever be rich. But you will always be happy.”
Chris Ganci: “You’ll always be happy.” It’s hard to explain to people, how, like, you could get injured or you could get killed but yet, somehow, you come home with a smile on your face. Like, I enjoy being part of the organization, it makes…gives me a sense of pride that I never felt anywhere else. And maybe that’s what had driven my father for so many years.
John and Tommy Palombo
Josephine Smith: My name is Josephine Smith, and I work in Engine 39.
Josephine Smith’s late father, 47-year-old Kevin Smith, was with Hazmat One on 9/11.
Josephine Smith: I always wanted to be like my father. I always wanted to be brave like him, and strong and willing.
Josephine Smith: It really just runs through our blood, generation to generation. I just think it’s just who we are. It’s our passion. It’s our upbringing.
Scott Pelley: Somebody else might have thought, with such grievous loss, I don’t want to have anything to do with that.
Josephine Smith: It’s not the job that took my father, it was an act of terrorism that took my father. And that made me want to fight even more to protect the City of New York and the citizens, “You may have taken my father from me, but the passion in the blood is still there.”
John Palombo: I’m John Palombo. I work in 92 Engine in South Bronx.
Tommy Palombo: I’m Tommy Palombo. I work in 69 Engine in Harlem.
Scott Pelley: John, how old were you on 9/11?
John Palombo: I was a week away from being 8 years old.
Tommy Palombo: And I was 9.
Scott Pelley: How many kids in the Palombo family?
John Palombo: There’s ten of us. Eight boys and two girls.
The Palombo brothers’ dad, Frank Palombo, was 46 when he died—Ladder 105. In a sense, it wasn’t 9/11 that made the Palombo boys firefighters, it was September the 12th —and all the days that followed.
John Palombo: My dad’s brothers and sisters in the firehouse, they cooked for us. They drove us places. They took us to Six Flags. I remember going on their shoulders and, you know, they’d take us by the arms and spin us in circles.
The firehouse turned out for birthdays and games.
Tommy Palombo: The stands were filled at the hockey games, you know. It wasn’t the same because you are missing the one person that you want there, but they do everything they can to fill it. They never will, but they did everything they could to fill it as hard as it was for them, taking time away from their own families.
The firehouse cooked dinner for the 10 Palombos and their mother, every Monday, for five years, until the family moved away.
Mike Florio: I’m a firefighter in Engine 214, Ladder 111 in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. My name is Michael Florio.
Mike Florio’s dad, John Florio, was 33 years old on 9/11 — Engine 214, the same house where his son works today.
Mike Florio: Every day I walk in, my father’s picture is on the wall. There’s a lot of memorials of him and the other four guys that passed on 9/11. I do have a lot of memories from the firehouse being a young boy. And just walking in there every day and seeing his pictures it brings back those memories. It makes me feel closer to him being there every day.
More than 60 children of 9/11’s fallen have been through the training academy, on Randall’s Island in the East River, and are now ‘on the job.’ To join, they took a written exam that’s given only once every four years. About 60,000 applicants take it. And only those in the top 10% earn a place in the rank and file.
Dan Nigro: I’m very proud of them. I feel that their– their fathers would have been very proud of them.
Dan Nigro, Chief Ganci’s number two on 9/11, was promoted to chief of department and became the city fire commissioner. Among the others in our story, John Sudnik, a captain on 9/11, rose to chief of department, and so did Peter Hayden. Sal Cassano became fire commissioner.
Battalion Chief Joe Pfeifer became chief of counterterrorism and now teaches crisis leadership. Regina Wilson was studying for the lieutenant’s exam.
And Orio Palmer’s name lives on the FDNY’s award for the most physically fit firefighters.
Dan Nigro: A lot of bravery. A lot of bravery was displayed that day. And– followed by a lot of sadness.
Scott Pelley: Commissioner, it seems to be a sad day for you 20 years later.
Dan Nigro: I think for everyone that was there that day, it just stayed with them, the sadness. We have plenty of good days, plenty to be thankful for, those of us who survived, but it’s a day that’ll never leave, never leave you.
Scott Pelley: Sadness becomes part of your life.
Dan Nigro: Absolutely.
Scott Pelley: Your father survived the collapse of the first tower. And instead of moving to safety, he went to answer the mayday calls from his trapped firefighters.
Radio Transmission: Receiving reports of firefighters trapped and down.
Scott Pelley: He knew that the other building was in imminent danger of collapsing. He had decided in that moment that he was not going home.
Chris Ganci: Yeah, I mean, He chose his guys. And, you know, we can get angry about it. And I know my sister and my mother, we sometimes– we hit our head against the wall. But when the smoke clears and you think about it, it was the only decision. I knew the way he felt about his men and his job and the FDNY and he was going to stay and see the job through. And…
Peter Ganci III: He wouldn’t have been able to live with himself if he left and, you know, one more guy was killed. It’s just the way he was. It was, I have to be there until the last guy is out.
Today’s recruits were children then. And so, they muster. Before memories–three columns of the World Trade Center—and 343 lives—which are, here, indelible in time.
Regina Wilson: So many of us sacrificed so much that this story can’t get lost. Because the world is changing fast. And I don’t want this to be something that’s in a history book that a page is turned, and we’re forgotten.
Produced by Maria Gavrilovic. Associate producers, Tadd J. Lascari and Alex Ortiz. Broadcast associate, Michelle Karim. Edited by Peter M. Berman and April Wilson.
