9/11/01 I will never forget!

I remember waking up extra early to participate and present in a sales meeting in Carle Place Long Island. I was there at 6:30am. Just before the end of the meeting my wife AnnMarie called me at 9:01 on my Nokia cell phone. I remember thinking “why is she calling? She knows I’m in an important meeting.” She called again at 9:03 - I said “oh no it’s important.” She told me what had happened and that she was safe in her building in midtown Manhattan. I announced to my colleagues what was happening and we all got on our car radios to listen a moment. I was the District Manager in Manhattan, so immediately I needed to check on my team.

Starting downtown to uptown I called and told them to get to an Uptown store if they couldn’t make it home right away. (No subways and bridges were closed) Then I started driving to them, not knowing how I could get in. As I drove on the LIE going west to Manhattan, listening to Howard Stern and getting even angrier at whoever was responsible and thinking of all those people trapped. I noticed there was no one in the left lane. NOT ONE CAR even though there was traffic in the other lanes. Then I saw why - the Bravest firefighters from Long Island were zooming into the city in that lane.

As I approached Queens near flushing meadows and my beloved Shea, the highway is high enough to see the whole skyline. I saw the burning and the smoke and the people pulled over watching in horror. I kept going but only made it as far as my own exit Maurice Ave because next exit was the midtown tunnel and it was closed. My new home of just one year was there - that was home to my parents for even longer and I immediately went there still wondering how my wife was going to get home. I had my Dad turn on the TV and we watched and we asked each other questions about life and how could this happen?! And we hugged a lot - he had the best hugs. And the sorrow welled up in our eyes and chest and as I reflect now, with him being gone, it was a wonderful moment for me and him. We also both realized it’s Moms Birthday and she was at work and will have to come home to this instead of a celebration.

At this point there was no cell service anymore, lines too busy to reach AnnMarie. I couldn’t sit home - I went to my closest store in Elmhurst - on Queens Blvd which at its furthest west connects to the 59th Street bridge. The salesman there Joe had a daughter who was a cop and she was giving him updates on what she heard - we now had heard a plane had hit the pentagon- his daughter told him there were also as many as a dozen planes still in the air they weren’t able to identify and I thought - OMG what is next?!? I had a few sales people of mine who lived in Queens make a pit stop at Elmhurst for water on their long walk home. I was so happy to see the first one stop in, Jameel Jimmy since he was at the showroom furthest south in Chelsea and update me on everyone being OK. We sat on a bed and talked about the madness and what he saw.

Then I went home hoping to hear from my love AnnMarie. And I waited as so many waited - except she did thankfully return as many others did not. I received calls from my team and collegues and was happy for every voice I heard being OK. Like a Zombie I stared at the TV all day and all night until like 3am 9/12.

On 9/12 since the President said we should go to work and not let the terrorists win, I managed to get 8 of my team including myself to volunteer and come in and get stores open. I had to take the subway into Manhattan and as I ascended the stairs at Union Square, my heart sunk. There were barricades at 14th and only emergency vehicles were allowed below it. There was dust everywhere, there were no cars driving, at all! Everyone walking around in sadness and shock as I walked to my first store. It was so quiet. Creepy quiet very unusual for Manhattan and it made me uneasy. The dust was extra thick on the street at our 6th ave store. And we all realized it was buildings and it was people. There were “missing” signs and photos everywhere - from people that didn’t make it home.

On 9/18 a week later I had my first day off. I didn’t tell anyone but I went down to help at ground zero. I was there all day. I will never forget the sadness, the determination to find people, the feel of the buckets in your hand, the moments you had to stop and be still, the smell. The breaks at St Paul’s chapel. The signs and faces of the missing were posted on its fences and we had hope that we would find some of them and bring them home. I couldn’t go back again. I wanted to but I just could not. We helped in other ways. We had conversations with everyone that visited our stores about how it had impacted their lives. I was proud when someone called for cots for workers and when we told corporate, we just donated whatever we had in the warehouse. The sight of that truck being let through along with emergency vehicles was a proud moment that we were helping. The days after were long and hard and sad and angry and difficult. There were many visits down there for me in the years to come including a new store across from St Paul’s chapel, gave me a reason to return often.

I remember a few weeks later working a job fair in MSG for all the displaced workers from the World Trade Center. The lines wrapped around the block three times! We worked the job fair all weekend and hired many good people.

For a year later, then 3, then 5 and then not until 10 years later that we had an actual replacement- the freedom tower - which I felt important personally- to show we were wounded but not defeated. It’s 25 years later and the memories are as fresh as last week and so are the emotions. All of them. 🙏🏼❤️🇺🇸