Remembering 9/11
On Sunday morning, I rode my bike by the memorial in lower Manhattan where the twin towers used to stand.
They have done a wonderful job rebuilding that area and the memorial itself is inspiring in just the right way, somber and reflective and serious.
Seventeen years is a long time.
Children, like ours, who were just old enough to know what happened and why, are now adults, living their own lives, going to work every morning.
Life moves on, the wounds heal.
But the scars are still there, in our hearts, our minds, and on the ground where it happened.
I am taking some time today to remember that day and the people we lost.
This post is part of that.
Comments (Archived):
It is a day to remember those lost and those who lost people. We work with Cantor Gaming. Cantor lost so many. So did the NYFD and those brave souls went into the towers.What does amaze me though is the ability for the American Spirit to rebuild. I lived at 55 Liberty Street in the Liberty Towers in the late 80’s early 90’s. Two blocks from the Twin Towers. Next to the Fed and overlooking the Wall Street Bull.Back then it was desolate at night. Almost nothing. Maybe a restaurant or two in Battery Park and South Street Seaport would close up early. Now the neighborhood is absolutely bustling.
will never forget the look on the guys at the Cantor Fitz desk on the CME floor. Everyone on the other end of the line was gone. They heard it through the phone.
Was just there on Labour Day – that area is happening.
I am curious what those who now work in the tower next to ground zero feel. For example Silverstein Properties office is overlooking the memorial. He had an option to be anywhere and he choose [1] to locate there. Others, such as employees, not the same. Having only seen 9/11 on TV I can’t say I would do that. So I can’t imagine someone in NYC who actually experienced this (and in particular Silverstein) wanting that reminder. It seems super stressful to me. Now if you didn’t experience the event (say you weren’t of age) different story. Then it’s like Pearl Harbor. You are not going to feel the same with an office overlooking the memorial. Human nature. But I would not want it and I couldn’t deal with it I am pretty sure of that.It almost feels like you are located on the other side of a fence with a vicious dog. You know in theory that the dog can’t breech the fence (tower get hit again) however it must be lurking in your mind and cause some stress.The neighborhood is bustling because they are and have been stuffing things into every corner of NYC they can because of the demand and the cache is my take. Plenty of other areas have changed greatly since 2001. (And look at Philly as well..)[1] Or I should say he probably had to choose business wise.
The after effects of 9-11 are still with us and will undoubtedly linger forever. The world is not the same after 9-11.
We’re a long way from that feeling of camaraderie after 9/11. https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
I’m from Toronto was on a short vacation on a lake North of the city and was planing to thoroughly enjoy my day cannoing and what not; but I turned on the TV to catch the news during breakfast, and consequently had to abort the trip as I became an instant emotional zombie when I saw the two towers. The feeling lasted for days, if not weeks. I can only imagine the impact for New Yorkers.
No better way to remember 9/11 and honor the deaths, meaning the 2,996 deaths that occurred that day, the deaths of first responders that we’re told it was safe to go there when the EPA knew it would not be, and of course the deaths of all the Iraqi, Afghani, Syrian, and Libyan people — incluiding many children — that have resulted in the name of false wars borne in the aftermath of 9/11 than to remember the truth that 9/11 was obviously a false flag operation carried out by elements of the US govt. There is so much information to support this — at least for now, before Big Tech decides to shut it all down — but here is just one link to make the point. There are thousands more like this.https://abcnews.go.com/Prim…Don’t give in to fear, wave the flag, and use hashtag #neverforget while forgetting the truth. You are better than that and the future deserves better. 9/11 truth remains essential to truly making America, or whatever comes after it, great again.
“Obviously a false flag” nonsense. Why would an operation need to take out the twin towers, the building surrounding it, the pentagon and the whitehouse / capital? Any single one of these events would have been enough to elicit the response that it did.Where are the Tort Lawyers ? Preponderance of evidence? Not even close.
there are a number of legal endeavors under way. i recommend folks who want to get involved in supporting legal action look at the lawyers committee for 9/11. the pentagon was struck to target the office of naval intelligence, WTC was struck in large part for financial maneuvering — one could call it money laundering, i suppose. erasing financial transactions/obligations. this is a huge story that requires a lot of history to explain. if you are interested i recommend black 9/11, one of the best books on 9/11. for a shorter, free, and more convenient read, try this PDF. not nearly as good and not as clearly written, but something quick.
one other thing, crypto people should read black 9/11, as well as gold warriors by sterling and peggy seagrave. both books touch upon the hidden monetary system. if crypto can solve this problem, you won’t believe how big the winnings will be for everyone.
To the hammer everything looks like a nail. Every conspiratory believer I’ve run across seems to have dozens that they strongly believe in. On a serious note, I would seek professional help with this. Which other conspiracy theories do you spend your time on?
Lol, I appreciate your concern 🙂 two surefire ways to strengthen a kook’s passion:1. Refuse to provide any evidence, resorting only to calling them kooks, conspiracy theorists, crazy, etc2. Tell them certain information cannot be provided (bonus points if the reason is “national security”)But today is a holy day not for lamenting the plight of kooks, for we are already in the process of winning; the censorship by Big Tech is paving a path, however unintentional and perilous, to victory. Instead, today is a day to remember. Do it as you wish, though I assure you the path less taken is better in every way.
https://www.amazon.com/Gold…”In 1945, US intelligence officers in Manila discovered that the Japanese had hidden large quantities of gold bullion and other looted treasure in the Philippines. President Truman decided to recover the gold but to keep its riches secret. These, combined with Japanese treasure recovered during the US occupation, and with recovered Nazi loot, would create a worldwide American political action fund to fight communism. This ‘Black Gold’ gave Washington virtually limitless, unaccountable funds, providing an asset base to reinforce the treasuries of America’s allies, to bribe political and military leaders, and to manipulate elections in foreign countries for more than fifty years.”…and that large parts of the modern global drugs industry is supervised by western government agencies to access dark money, off the books funding, to finance unsanctioned covert policy objectives. The ‘War on Drugs’ is a sham.
yes. yamashita’s gold is such a huge story, and relates very much to the drug war, iran/contra affair, and basically all sorts of things related to “black budget” and unaccounted money. here’s dr mark skidmore noting the the federal government’s budget cannot account for a missing $21 trillion USD….how do we get to an amount that large in the first place…..it ties very much into 9/11 and the documents and financial documents that were destroyed when WTC 7 was blown up. the SEC used its emergency powers for the first time ever on 9/11 to ease regulatory restrictions regarding identification of buyers and sellers on financial transactions. a great way to move lots of money around without people knowing where the money came from and where it is going.
well said
It’s important for all of us- especially those of us in NYC Metro area- that 9/11 remains a day of mourning. Mourning is a way of turning our grief into love for those we’ve lost. Are we a more loving people now since that horrible event? I won’t answer that question because I think the answer is self-evident. Where have we gone astray in our mourning of that horrible day and the events leading up to that day? What’s missing in our national capability of being able to mourn and ultimately, incredibly enough, to forgive? These to me are the bigger, tougher and more troubling questions which I think continue to haunt us.
why is the US calendar date format month/day/year?
I believe it is agrarian in nature like many things here. Memorial Day the last Monday in May starts summer and Labor Day the first Monday in September marks the end of summer. In many states it is explicitly illegal to hold school between those days. It was to get in crops and harvest crops with kids. The reason why elections are the first Tuesday of November is because crops were totally in and you went to church on Sunday and could get to voting by Tuesday. Meaning that day first is logical but Months are most important.
the military is not, day/month/year
Same in the software industry. And we use the 24 clock using GMT time.Sits at the top of my computer. Know it by heart though. We are 13:52GMT right now.
.The military uses day/month/year because when you write correspondence you save a comma.11 September 2001September 11, 2001When you write to civilians – such as an RBE (reply by endorsement) to a Congressman asking why Little Johnny was in the stockade — you use the civilian format.Believe it or not, this is a big deal in the Army. You have to know this stuff when you are a General’s aide-de-camp.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
Same in CAN.
I went to visit the memorial yesterday in the rain as well.Realized how important it is to have these memorials and how telling this one is with the generous giving of land, as the fountains are the exact size of the two towers, almost one third of the park itself.17 years, and almost 10 since I wrote this post to memorialize my thoughts on the day of.September 11th…stopping to remember http://arnoldwaldstein.com/…
https://youtu.be/IM7IIBQyro0
Thank you .
.Terror struck a mighty blow, but New York showed its toughness and rebounded with courage and grit.Bravo, New York.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
Just saw the memorial on Labour Day weekend. Agree, very appropriate.Very happy to hear Bloomberg / ESPN radio networks observing moments of silence today.My wife shocked my daughter by suggesting that her 2002 class size – which has always been the smallest class in her schools, in Alberta, Ontario and even here in Texas – was affected by 9/11.While the metro area took a horrendous blow, the entire continent was affected too. No one wanted to think about babies afterwards.Saw Come From Away over the Labour Day weekend. Highly recommended.
I witnessed 9/11 and the aftermath up close. I will never forget the bravery and resilience shown by all New Yorkers in the aftermath, nor will I ever forgive the perverted response of the US Government, who used the Shock Doctrine to lie us into war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and into the so-called Global War on Terror, promote rendition, torture, illegal wars, extrajudicial killing by drone, and limitless electronic surveillance. 17 years of war later, ironically, the US is actively supporting Al Qaeda and ISIS in Syria and threatening war with Iran and Russia, showing how far the supposed mission has crept. Some crappy commercial memorial downtown sure doesn’t make me feel any better.I support the dead and injured of 9/11 who were long ago used and abused by the Propaganda Machine. I take this day to ask people to say ‘Enough!’ and recognize what was stolen from Us on 9/11.
Took this photo in the days following 9/11. Someone had hung Martin Luther King Jr.’s beautiful quote at Union Square among the thousands of photos of missing friends & loved ones and pleas for info on their whereabouts….to give us hope. https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
We memorialize 9/11 every year, as we should. There are thousands of families whose lives have been irreparably damaged from the events of that day. Tuesday’s Children is an organization that was founded to provide support, assistance and guidance to the many children who lost a family member on 9/11. Its mission has evolved and grown to help families all over the world affected by terrorism, including first responders. These folks re-live the horror of 9/11 and other attrcocities everyday. I’ve done some volunteer work for this org. Their cause is noble and the org is run by very caring and passionate people. Check it out if you’re not familiar.www.tuesdayschildren.org
We memorialize 9/11 every year, as we should.I am not 100% onboard with that thinking for a simple reason. It only makes it more likely for another group at another time to want to have their day in the sun. This is similar to all the attention given when there is a mass shooting at a school. I don’t mean to not report it on the news but it’s pretty clear that the attention ends up being an encouragement and inspiration ironically to others later down the line. There probably is a way to balance the interests of various people. But honestly the way it is done now is not the way. And there is a big big difference between memorializing an event done by a nation (Pearl Harbor) vs. something that a group of individual or an individual pulls off. Lionizing the latter definitely will lead to more destruction down the line (and has I think that is pretty clear).This dovetails with my thinking about companies being killed as a result of the actions of one individual. Just read that the reason the Cosby actor was working at Trader Joe’s was as a result of not getting residuals because the re-runs were cancelled as a result of Bill Cosby’s actions. What Cosby did was obviously wrong and he should be punished. But I think the impact on others has to be taken into consideration as well because the only people hurt are not the obvious people hurt.
When we don’t acknowledge and remember these heinous acts they lose their meaning over time. To igonore out of fear of another means we’ve capitulated to these so called “martyrs” and their cause(s). Not sure you can say one incident where lives are lost is more important than another, or that there’s “a big difference.” These innocent folks went to work on a sunny Tuesday morning (9/11), Pearl Harbor victims signed up to defend our country. Not sure you can or should prioritize, differentiate or equate. Respect for and honoring the dead is the ultimate common denominator that trumps all.
they lose their meaning over timeLet’s agree they do lose meaning over time. So my question is what is the benefit of that meaning over time if it causes more problems for more people in the future? In other words there is a very clear downside. That is my point.To igonore out of fear of another means we’ve capitulated to these so called “martyrs”No it means we are not giving them a parade to encourage them and to inspire them to do more acts. That is why they picked in part such symbolic things. Because they knew the attention would be intense. Copycat crimes are well known.Does anybody care anywhere near as much about what happened in the field in Pennsylvania or even for that matter at the Pentagon (the attention is nowhere near what it is in NYC). Even Fred’s post does not address that at all (which is fine I am not faulting him for that to be clear but mentioning it to make a point).Pearl Harbor victims signed up to defend our countryPearl Harbor was only used to illustrate people of our generations lack of understanding because they didn’t live through it. And to make the point that anyone who lives through something is going to have a harder time than someone who did not. Not to compare the events in any way.Also I want to again make a clear distinction between an act that is war with a country and something that individuals do. A war act is, in general, not done for the same reasons by a country as a group (or person) trying to make their mark. Different motivating factors (sure some are shared though).Look individuals and small groups can do what they want to remember an incident no issue there. What I don’t like is the media circus where people overseas planning the next attack can see and say ‘wow this really shook them look every year they mark this event!!!’. Look at that memorial they built! Wow look what we were able to achieve! My point is the attention is counter production to future safety.That said I know this will never change and that others don’t see it the same way as I do.
When I visited the memorial the first time I was really impressed. The water flows from right under the plates with the names of the people that died that day, down along the walls to fall into the pond. Then the water falls again into the pit at the center. I thought – it is still falling!.. made me sad. I guess that the rays of light that emerge from the pit at night take them back to the skies where they belong, but didn’t had the chance to see those. The tree that survived the disaster was the part I liked most. It think it represents hope. I read it that way.We Chileans do remember another sad and dramatic event today 9/11, “el once”, the collapse of our democracy and the following coup by Pinochet and the armed forces in 1973. It was a long and dark period of our history.
as a Brit looking in from afar it seems to me that the great shock of 9/11 to the American psyche was that it happened on its contiguous sovereign territory. i can think of nothing on that scale ever having happened there before. it must have shattered previously immutable beliefs about security and invulnerability, and the ability of the government to protect the citizenry.
I was an intern at Marsh & McLennan the summer before 9/11, working on the 97th floor of the North Tower until about a month before the tragedy. Having only been there a few months, there weren’t too many people that I had gotten to know well that perished, but I remember one person- Vincent Gallucci. I remember him because he spoke to my group of interns about his job and about the company, and he had an energy that made his face and his name stick with me through the years. I found out he died when I saw his “Missing” poster on the wall of St. Vincent’s Hospital when I returned to the city from college shortly afterward. Rest in peace Vinnie, and everyone else who perished that day.
Peace would be nice. Alas, there are a lot of forces for pushing and shoving. So, too often peace is not the lack of those forces but just apparently a current balance of those forces.Plenty of people look for issues and try to become leaders of those issues, thus, get power and, often, convert the power to money and forces.So, to try better to understand 9/11 and related events, and for a simple, even simplistic view, but still maybe appropriate, I concentrate on issues, leaders using those issues to get political power, money, and forces that result in the, often deadly, pushing and shoving we see. So, I concentrate on issues and … forces.Some of the biggest such issues and efforts at political power, money, and forces come from the Islamic areas, especially the ones with oil money.E.g., for a little history, omitting a lot of similar prior history, Saddam used whatever, partly Islamic, issues to grab political power and used Iraqi oil money to get forces to push against the forces from the oil-money from the political power of Kockamamie from more Islamic issues. So, there was pushing and shoving. They fired lots of weapons, killed lots of their people, but didn’t really change the balance.Then, claiming issues about oil money, the Saddam forces went for Kuwait with an eye on Saudi Arabia. Then the US forces of the political power and issues about “world order”, Bush 41, Schwarzkopf, etc., pushed back against Saddam, brilliantly, liberated Kuwait, and restored a rough balance.Then, to many in Sunni Islam, that the US had been in Saudi Arabia raised a new issue, that there were unholy, unbeliever, infidels on the sacred sands of the holy tombs of the Sunni ancestors or some such. That issue let UBL get some political power. With his oil-money, he created some forces and attacked the US on 9/11, in NYC, from a base in Islamic Akrapistan and later escaped to neighboring, welcoming Pukistan.Well, there are lots of issues, old, new, or just made up and new, and lots of would be leaders who from such issues want to get political power, money, and forces and apply those forces for more power, money, etc.To avoid more pushing and shoving, like 9/11, Gulf War I, … along with many more just domestically, we have to watch carefully about issues … forces.Or, day by day we can’t see them, but apparently always there are would be leaders back in the woodwork, and as soon as they think they see a good issue they will come out, screaming, seeking political power, …, forces.To the would be leader seeking power, …, forces, the issues can be just made up, whatever can lead to political power. So we have a lot of unscrupulous, would be leaders screaming about whatever, i.e., mostly total nonsense, just hoping to get some political power, …. Credibility, rationality, solid information, etc. are commonly just irrelevant. Then others, seeing some political power being accumulated, can join in and get some power, money, …, for themselves. It’s a little like a surfer just riding a wave.Surprising, disconcerting parts are the screaming, irrationality, and various threats. So, as above, a first step is just to understand the situation. E.g., expect a lot of screaming, ….
This snuck up on me. For the first time since 9/11, I wasn’t anticipating the date, the mourning, the memory of 9/11. Not sure that this is significant, but it is interesting how far we have come since that day. Wishing America strength on a tough date.