On September 11, 2001, I was working on the 46th floor of an office building on Sixth Avenue, which offered a panoramic view of Lower Manhattan. The familiar silhouette of the Twin Towers stood out clearly in the distance on that bright, crisp morning. Just a year earlier, I had worked at 7 World Trade Center before moving uptown to join a startup with friends.
Around 8:45AM, someone shouted, “Look! There’s smoke coming from the Trade Center!” We gathered at the windows, struggling to comprehend what we were seeing. I tuned my radio to WNYC and caught the initial reports of a plane striking the building. We were shocked that such a catastrophic accident could occur in modern times, but our immediate concern was for the people inside—having worked downtown for years, we knew countless colleagues in the North Tower.
As we listened to the breaking news, we watched in horror as the second plane struck the South Tower. In an instant, disbelief turned into the chilling realization that our city was under terrorist attack.
I rushed to call my wife, who was at home in New Jersey with our seven-week-old daughter, along with my parents and aunt, who had flown in from the Netherlands to see the baby. I told her to turn on the TV, reassured her that I was safe, and told her not to worry. Later, the regional phone network collapsed.
Recognizing that Manhattan was under attack and unsure what other targets might follow, we immediately sent our staff home.
Because transit across the Hudson River had shut down, I had no way to get back to Jersey and stayed in the office. From our windows and over the airwaves, I absorbed the horror: reports of trapped workers, desperate people jumping from the flames, and the extraordinary rescue operations mounted by first responders. Then, in less than an hour, I watched both towers collapse, and later that day, 7 WTC, a building I had spent years working in, collapsed.
I remained in the office for roughly ten hours before finally walking up to a friend’s apartment on the Upper East Side. The avenues were eerily deserted, broken only by the wail of distant sirens and emergency vehicles racing downtown. Ash and burnt office papers occasionally fluttered down through the night sky, carried on the wind from four miles away. We stayed awake most of the night, flipping between news broadcasts, trying to process the scale of the devastation.
Early the following morning, I managed to board one of the few buses running back to Jersey and reunited with my family. While profoundly grateful to be with them, I was shattered by the climbing casualty counts and terrified for former colleagues. I spent the day frantically calling friends, coworkers, and their families to piece together who had made it out. Thankfully, my immediate circle survived, but a number of familiar names did not.
Looking back a quarter-century later, I mourn the thousands of people who lost their lives simply for showing up to work on a Tuesday morning. May their memories endure as a blessing, and may we never forget the profound cost of that day.
I remain eternally indebted to the first responders who gave their lives or sacrificed their long-term health to save strangers. They are true heroes, national treasures who, together with the survivors, deserve not just our solemn remembrance and thanks, but an enduring guarantee of healthcare, benefits, and support.
May we eventually build a world free from hate and the scourge of terrorism.
Dave Bloom
CEO SnackSafely.com
