A Personal Note

On the morning of September 11, 2001, like hundreds of thousands of other New Yorkers, I watched from my window and from a nearby street corner as both towers of the World Trade Center were struck by jetliners filled with passengers and fuel. Like something out of a preposterous Hollywood horror movie the towers turned into two towering infernos and then collapsed into a cloud of acrid smoke and debris many stories high, creating a surreal inferno of a ruin that would take months to burn itself out and months more to be cleared away. I watched as Manhattan was sealed off below 14th Street and police and fire vehicles, as well as commandeered buses and trucks streamed towards lower Manhattan.

When the towers collapsed I knew I had lost some friends and colleagues (although the actual death toll was much lower than I expected given the thousands of workers in those buildings and on those streets on a weekday morning) I watched in awe as police, firemen and rescue workers streamed into the area and into the buildings to save lives and, in many cases, to lose their own. I received a phone call from my brother that he had lost contact with his sister-in-law who was on the street attempting to leave the area when the first tower collapsed. I offered our apartment, about a mile and a half from the Trade Center, as a refuge if contact was reestablished. Miraculously it was and my brother's sister in law and several colleagues, covered in ash and severely traumatized appeared at our doorstep a few hours later. From them and later from others who had been at the site I learned that the scene was more grotesque, macabre and surreal than Dante's seven circles of Hell or the paintings that emerged from Hieronymus Bosch's bizarre imagination. I reached my wife by phone; she and other members of our immediate family in the area that day were safe.

As the head of human resources for a New York bank, my wife was busy implementing contingency plans for an emergency that, until this morning, was unimaginable. By late afternoon all of lower Manhattan was covered by ash and hidden in a huge cloud of debris; Manhattan below 14th Street was sealed off, a militarized zone patrolled by soldiers and police; emergency hospitals and morgues had been set up (the gym where I exercised had an ice rink which was to be used as a morgue) but it was becoming clear that there would be few dead and injured to be treated, those caught in the conflagration were effectively vaporized; the skies over the city were empty except for military planes.

I suppose most of my feelings on September 11th were the same as those of countless millions who had witnessed the events of the day on television -- shock and depression at the magnitude of such senseless destruction, surprise and bewilderment that anyone could hate enough to mount such an ultimately senseless attack, anger that the principles of a free and open society which we held dear were under physical attack, dismay that there were those in the world that wished to drag civilization back to a time of barbarism and intolerance, sorrow at the great loss of life and rending of the fabric of one of the world's great cities.

But, like most New Yorkers who witnessed the catastrophe first hand, I also had a very personal reaction to the events of the day. I had spent much of my adult life in downtown Manhattan. My wife and I raised our three children in Greenwich Village, not more than a good walk from the World Trade Center. Indeed, the Trade Center's towers were a part of the landscape our children grew up with; guests who arrived from uptown and had trouble navigating the Village's labyrinth streets were told to walk towards the towers, that was south, that was downtown. I had spent much of my working career in the financial and legal communities centered in lower Manhattan. I and my wife were active in civic, cultural and charitable affairs and local governance. Residents, merchants, businessmen, educators, artists, actors and musicians were our friends and neighbors. Among the things these communities within a community had in common was an openness, an energy and a creativity that looked to the future, that believed in keeping the best of what we had while striving to change, add and improve.

I frequently attended meetings, ate meals, participated in conferences, was a guest at charitable events and shopped at the World Trade Center. My youngest son, a musician, played at the nightspot at the top of the towers -- a spectacular venue floating over the city and a perfect venue to enjoy music, dining and dancing. A quarter of a century ago, when lower Manhattan was at one of its lower ebbs and about the time the World Trade Center was built, I was one of the founding directors of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. With support from business, government and the philanthropic world the council supported artists and the arts and sought to bring together the energy, creativity and intellectual capital of these different worlds.

On September 11, 2001 the Council's offices were located at the World Trade Center. One of its most important programs was a "residency" granted to emerging artists. Through an arrangement with the Port Authority, these artists were given studio space on two of the upper floors with a views out over the city, they could practice their art for a year and, at the end of the year, there was a show of the art produced. Over the years some extraordinary art was produced by the artists in this program. (In light of the motivation of the attackers of September 11th it is worth mentioning that the artists in this program during 2001 were from a diverse ethnic background, although etnicity was irrelevant in awarding the residencies; those ethnic backgrounds included, among others, Iranian and Israeli and the head of the program was a Lebanese American). On the early morning of September llth two of the artists already were in their studios, two staff members were at work in the Council offices and the Executive Director was at breakfast at Windows on the World, atop Tower # 2. The artist, Michael Richards was killed, the other artist, the staff members and the Executive Director barely escaped with their lives, all of the artists in the residency program lost much of the art they had created and their means of making art, the council's office and records were destroyed.

So, much of my reaction was personal. Our family's home and sense of sanctuary were shattered. My native city, my colleagues, friends and neighbors, my family and myself were placed in physical danger. People we knew where injured and killed and for what? We were attacked for who we were and what we stood for. I could not believe it. I still cannot believe it.

Yet, almost immediately, these horrible events brought out the best in us and our society. When a cataclysm of this proportion hits this quickly, without warning there is no time to think, only to act and those actions flow from instinct, from basic character and reveal true nature. The whole world, of course, was impressed by the instinctive, courageous and selfless actions of New York's firefighters, rescue workers and police. New Yorkers and, in the days that followed, Americans and foreigners from all walks of life, intuitively mobilized and selflessly joined the recovery effort.

The butcher on my street corner who began helping direct traffic as emergency vehicles and workers streamed towards the financial district, the doctors and medical professionals who set up and staffed facilities on a huge scale (most of which, sadly, were never needed), restaurants, including some of the best in the city, which immediately began preparing food and sending it downtown to feed rescue workers, my friend who ran a highly successful catering company who went to the site of the tragedy unbidden and began to organize food lines and kitchens, St. Paul's Chapel, a block from the World Trade Center where George Washington had worshipped, covered in ash and debris, became a refuge and a sanctuary for the rescue and recovery workers in the days and months ahead, the lawyers who began, on a voluntary basis without pay, to help the families of the victims and those who had lost businesses or home to negotiate the remedies available to them. Help, support and solace poured in from around the world. I received phone calls and e-mails from friends and colleagues across the Atlantic and Pacific as well as from across North America.

Artists began to produce works out of the trauma and sorrow and offered them to help raise funds for the victims and the recovery effort. The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, like so many of our institutions wounded that day, has continued to function and is playing an important role in the recovery and rebuilding process. Our mayor displayed depths of humanity and leadership that had not characterized his previous career and led the city through the crisis, inspiring the world in the process. Other political leaders -- the President, our governor, legislators lent immediate support and, by word and deed began to move us towards recovery. Our institutions functioned and provided the structure to allow individual initiative and effort to take hold.

It will not be easy to hold the cooperative and civil society that emerged after the tragedy but we will do it. It will be a long, difficult and complicated effort but we will rebuild better than before. Out of the flames and debris will come, with great effort, an even better city and a greater society.

Editor and Publisher