9/11: Events of the Day

THE MEMORIAL MUSEUM will bear witness to the 9/11 attacks through authentic objects and first-person accounts from survivors, family members, first responders, area residents. Visitors will recognize the indefensibility of terrorism and the capacity of hateful ideologies to lead to extreme acts of violence and inhumanity. The response to these terrorist acts resulted in terrible tragedy and the revelation of the profound human capacity for courage and selflessness.

Stories of Loss

Parents of WTC Victim Donate Son's Clothing and Missing Posters

These personal items were part of the favorite casual wardrobe sported by 34-year old Richard Caproni, whose promising life ended on September 11, 2001 when hijacked American Airlines Flight 11 plunged into the North Tower of the World Trade Center.

An avid football fan, Rich had packed the Giant’s shirt and Penn State cap for a trip to visit his parents over Labor Day weekend, 2001. Richard (Dick) and Dolores (Dee) Caproni, who had only recently retired to Ocean Pines, Maryland from Long Island, NY, spent a relaxing vacation together with their eldest son at the Assateague National Seashore. With humor, they recalled some family refreshment stops made at local bars where their son’s choice of New York football shirt drew some barbed remarks from the Baltimore-area Ravens fans, who greatly outnumbered them.  Richie had stood his ground.  As it often was, the Penn State “Nittany Lion’s” cap was perched on Richie’s head when his father dropped him off at the Wilmington, DE station to catch his train back to Manhattan. That proved to be his last sight of his son.

After September 11th, when Dee Caproni was cleaning out the condo her son had newly purchased in Lynbrook, Long Island, she came across this shirt and cap, which had been such a mainstay of Rich’s weekend athlete’s “look” and persona and which still carried his scent.  They have been treasured by his parents until entrusted to the National September 11 Memorial Museum’s permanent collection.  

So familiar was the cap and shirt to Rich Caproni’s couture that his siblings decided to release a photo of him shown wearing them, hoping to aid the recognition profile they assembled for one of his Missing Person fliers. Within a day or two of the attacks, they had posted these images of their brother around New York City including at the Lexington Avenue Armory, designated to serve as an interim family assistance center until larger facilities could be prepared to receive the scores of grief stricken relatives looking for information about their loved ones.  

Marisa DiNardo's Story
On September 11, 2001, Ester DiNardo lost her daughter, Marisa.  Ester remembers how on her last night, Marisa brought her to Windows on the World on top of the World Trade Center to celebrate her birthday.
Click here to listen to Ester's StoryCorp interview

On September 11, 2001, Marisa DiNardo had been working as a bond trader at Cantor Fitzgerald for approximately one year. The night before, Marisa celebrated her mother Ester’s birthday with family and friends at Windows on the World.  Marisa had already arrived to work at World Trade Center 1 when the plane hit the building and did not survive the attack.  A year later, Marisa’s heavily damaged and charred pocketbook was returned to her family.  Until the morning of their StoryCorps remembrance, the family had found it much too painful a task to rifle through the contents of Marisa’s bag, but after doing so, decided to gift the pocketbook to the Memorial Museum.  The contents within her recovered bag included various credit cards, a Blockbuster card, ID cards, and the receipt from the celebratory dinner at Windows on the World from the evening before in honor of Ester’s birthday.




9/11 Victim’s Item Returned by NYPD WTC Property Recovery Unit


As they did every workday, sisters Eileen and Patricia Fagan rose early in Toms River, New Jersey, on the crystal clear morning of September 11, 2001, to board a commuting bus together, each heading for jobs in Lower Manhattan. Upon arrival Eileen proceeded to the Bank of New York; Patricia entered the South Tower of the World Trade Center, exiting the elevator at floor 98 where she worked as an insurance claims adjuster for AON. A "classic gabber," Patricia, age 55, loved her work, her colleagues, her clients and the unparalleled views afforded by her office windows on high. At 8:46 am, Eileen Fagan felt a jolt, soon explained as the brute force of an airplane slamming into the Tower 1 of the World Trade Center. Immediately, she tried to contact Patricia by phone but the line was busy. Thereafter, Eileen was instructed to evacuate her workplace. Eileen assumed that her older sister, too, was descending to safety and that the two would reunite later. However, Patricia was never again heard from or seen.

Although Patricia's physical disappearance baffled her grieving family and friends, many months after the attacks the NYPD's World Trade Center Property Recovery Unit informed Eileen Fagan that her sister's black zipped pocketbook had been found. Returned to Eileen all its contents intact, that same bruised purse with its personalized belongings has been donated to the Memorial Museum’s permanent collection. On a recent visit with Museum staff, Eileen share details of Pat's richly layered life, rhythms of spirit and habit tokened by some of the ubiquitous items that survived in her pocketbook: extra coins carried for the homeless and poor, rosary beads and saint prayer cards evoking her devout faith, scribbled notes referencing co-workers' upcoming birthdays and self-reminders to call a plumber for her elderly father, cheerful spring-toned lipsticks bought at Macy's, a daily calcium pill to fortify her slender frame, a monthly bus pass, and a supplementary pair of eyeglasses. Despite the traumatic circumstances and pressures endured by the bag, when Eileen gently opened the eyeglass case she was amazed to see that only one lens had been jostled loose from its frame.

Stories of Survival

PS 234 Teachers and Administrators Remember Evacuating School Children on 9/11
PS 234 is a public elementary school located in the community of Tribeca, only a few blocks north of the World Trade Center.  Students, teachers, and other school personnel were just beginning one of the first days of school when the World Trade Center was attacked on September 11, 2001.  As the disaster worsened, they were forced to evacuate from the school, holding hands and running for their lives as the dust and debris released with the collapse of the South Tower chased them up Greenwich Street.  All made it safely to PS 41 in Greenwich Village—a long walk for the students.  Listen to teachers and administrators from the school recall their day.

Three Lower Manhattan Evacuees Donate Footage from 9/11
While 9/11 is often referred to as one of the most photographed events in recent history, rarer documentation of it comes in the form of amateur video, providing real-time accounts of the disastrous events of the day, unique to the experience of the individual behind the camera.
Recently, three lower Manhattan evacuees donated their unique footage from the day, which documents their personal sagas of eyewitness and evacuation from their respective homes. Carolyn Campora, Susanna Kopchains and Richard Helfer have each donated videos to the Museum’s permanent collection, representative of what so many lower Manhattan residents were forced to contend with on and after 9/11. >>Continued 

Frank Razzano

Situated between the North and South Towers of the World Trade Center, the 22-story Marriott Hotel was destroyed on September 11, 2001, first struck by flaming debris from the hijacked Flight 11 and then by the collapsing South Tower. Located at 3 World Trade Center and serving as a link connecting the twin towers, the hotel was at capacity on September 11, with about 1,000 registered guests. Washington DC-based attorney Frank Razzano was among them. He had arrived in New York on September 10 for a multi-day stay to prepare for a trial in federal court a few blocks north of the hotel. Razzano, who frequently traveled to New York for business, liked staying at the Marriott, enjoying its location on the World Trade Center plaza, the views from its windows, and the surrounding hum of activity. >>Continued

Dan & Jean Potter FDNY Bunker Gear and Uniform Shirt  Gift of Dan Potter

These boots, bunker pants, and uniform shirt were worn by Dan Potter on September 11, 2001.  Then a 19-year veteran of the Fire Department of New York, Potter was in a training class on Staten Island when he received news of the attack on the World Trade Center from a fellow firefighter. Knowing that his wife of two years, Jean, worked high in the north tower, Potter sped across the Verrazano Bridge and through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel to the 10-10 Fire House on Liberty Street, where he’d been assigned merely two days earlier.  In a photograph that captured the devastating emotions of the day, Potter may be seen sitting on a bench, covered in dust, overwhelmed with anxiety for his wife.  He and Jean were reunited later that day at Ladder 6 in Chinatown, where she had sought safety and tried to wield phone calls from other distraught family members calling for information. Click here to listen to their story.  

Photo Credit: Matt Moyer/AP

Bruno Dellinger
A Survivor’s Escape from the North Tower

A World Trade Center survivor, Bruno Dellinger managed his small company from an office on the 47th floor of the north tower, providing art consultation services and developing commercial and cultural ties between New York and various regions in France, his home country.   Thrown off balance when the hijacked American Airlines Flight 11 struck the building, Dellinger insisted that his employees evacuate at once, but remained behind to put things in order before he left.  Listen as he recalls the first stages of his journey to safety, describing fellow survivors making way for injured civilians in the stairwell and the collapse of the south tower moments after he arrived at street level. >>Listen

Julia Frey

Julia Frey lived on the 26th floor of Liberty Court on the far eastern side of 200 Rector Street. On the morning of September 11th, 2001, Frey and her husband Ron Sukenick were going about their morning routine when they heard loud noises which she thought might have been fireworks. As she looked out her window Julia realized that the sounds came from windows at the WTC exploding from the heat.  Fearing that the towers might fall onto their home, Julia and Ron decided that they would be safer outside.  Julia describes their decision to leave, knowing that health problems made it difficult for Ron to walk without assistance.  Walking south on the esplanade along the Hudson River, Julia describes the collapse of the Twin Towers and the dust cloud that enveloped the area, watching people evacuate by boat, and the dozens of individuals who stopped to offer help.  Hours later, the couple returned home.  The electricity was out, but their telephone still worked.  With the hot water still running, they were able to wash off the film of dust that covered them.  Exhausted but unable to sleep, Julia recalls looking out onto the devastation below and seeing candles placed in the windows of other residents like them who had returned home.  Although the couple wished to remain in their own home, they and their other remaining neighbors were evacuated the next day. >>Listen

Rita Calvo

Rita Calvo, a downtown resident, was in class at her Upper West Side high school when the news broke that the towers at the World Trade Center had been hit.  She remembers anxiously trying to phone her parents to see if her home had been damaged by the collapse of the buildings.  After finally reaching her father, she left school to go home.  Among other memories of that day, Rita describes her father’s attempts to maintain a sense of normalcy for the family in the midst of the unfolding emergency and how the Twin Towers were very much the anchor for downtown. Listen >>

Dianne DeFontes
North Tower Survivor

Dianne DeFontes in front of Koening Sohere on July 17, 2001
A receptionist at a law firm on the 89th floor of the North Tower, Dianne DeFontes felt the impact of Flight 11 strike the building a few floors above her desk.  As she and her colleagues prepared to evacuate, taking time to make phone calls to loved ones, a long-time employee of the Port Authority familiar with the inner workings of the World Trade Center quickly ushered the group to a distant stairwell, where he and a co-worker had broken through a jammed door.  In her oral history, Dianne recalls the vital assistance provided by Frank DiMartini and Pablo Ortiz, who lost their lives helping others, and her long descent through stairwells that were at times dark, smoky, and wet. 

Unbeknownst to Dianne, Matthew Farley, partner in charge of the office, had been trying to track the fate of all of the firm’s employees presumed to be at the WTC that morning, frantically communicating with others via BlackBerry.   Eventually learning that Dianne had survived and arrived home much later that evening, he e-mailed his staff with relief: “Dianne is ok.  We’re 16 for 16.”  Dianne donated the flashlight that she had in her purse and the smoke and water stained clothing she wore to the office on that September morning to the Memorial Museum.   Matthew Farley gave the BlackBerry and its associated e-mail trail to the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.
Listen >>

Kathy Gupta
Damaged Personal Property
This chair, its upholstered seat cratered and singed by a fireball on September 11, 2001, was a wedding gift to Kathy and Udayan Gupta and had long occupied a place of honor in the couple's Battery Park City home overlooking the World Trade Center.  Despite its condition, the Guptas couldn't part with this sentimental keepsake when faced with the daunting task of cleaning their apartment, damaged by flaming debris and ash which shattered the windows when the South Tower fell.  Instead, they stored it as a reminder of that fateful day and their prolonged effort to return to the home where their family roots began shortly after Battery Park City was created in the early 1980s.  Listen to Kathy Gupta speak about residential life in lower Manhattan before and after September 11 and why the Guptas decided to donate the chair to the NS11MM.
Listen >>




Lieutenant Mickey Kross
FDNY Lt. Kross was with Engine 16, responding to the fires at the World Trade Center, on September 11, 2001. Listen to his harrowing and uplifting account of surviving the collapse of the North Tower. Listen >>

 

Leather FDNY helmet worn by Lt. Mickey Kross on September 11, 2001.

Tom Canavan
Tom Canavan was a securities specialist working in a bank on the 47th floor of the North Tower. While trying to evacuate the building, he became trapped in the WTC underground shopping mall as the South Tower collapsed. Canavan escaped to safety via a stairwell that has come to be known as the “Survivors’ Stairs.” Listen >>

Adrienne Walsh
Off duty on the morning of September 11, 2001, firefighter Adrienne Walsh responded to the WTC with the second wave of fire fighters to leave FDNY’s Ladder Company 20 on Lafayette Street in Soho. In this interview, Walsh, now a lieutenant, recalls the fall of the North Tower. Listen >>

Photo by Joe McNally

Stories of Response

John Stiastny
One of nearly 2,000 members of the New York City Police Department dispatched to the World Trade Center site on September 11, 2001, John Stiastny arrived at the disaster site at about 1:00 that afternoon. A 12-year veteran of the NYPD then assigned to the Auto Crime Division in Queens, Stiastny was hit by falling debris and taken to Bellevue Hospital where he was treated for a broken leg and injuries to his neck. Although his efforts to participate fully in the rescue and recovery effort were cut short by his injuries, Stiastny nonetheless carefully preserved the mud-encrusted boots and gloves he wore that day, along with the handcuffs that he carried, and recently donated them to the 9/11 Memorial Museum. These components of Stiastny’s police uniform signify all the officers who responded to the emergency that day, and will enable the Museum to document the vital roles of all first responders. Through such artifacts and stories, the Museum hopes to be able to fully inform future visitors about the NYPD’s presence at the World Trade Center throughout the entire rescue and recovery.


Brian Van Flandern
On September 11, 2001, Brian Van Flandern witnessed the attack on the World Trade Center on television from his girlfriend’s home in Queens. Trained as an EMT, he made his way to the disaster site on that day, seeking to help in any way he could. Listen >>

Matt Higgins
In the minutes following the attacks on the World Trade Center, New York City Mayor Giuliani called for a press conference to disseminate information to the public about the unfolding disaster. Matt Higgins, the Mayor’s Press Secretary, and his colleagues organized a press conference on a street corner near the Trade Center where the Mayor was being briefed by the Fire and Police Departments. With the burning towers only a couple blocks away, Higgins and his colleagues decided to move the press conference from this potentially vulnerable location. Listen >>