Remembering Sept. 11 (spring 2002)
by Judith Jaeger
This is a story about near misses about missed trains and alarm clocks that failed to wake the sleeping. For some, this is also a story of close calls, of being at the wrong place at the wrong time and still surviving.
The following Clark alumni worked in or near the World Trade Center or were in flight on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. They are able to share their stories because chance circumstances worked in their favor.
"I usually arrive at work by 8:30 a.m. but overslept that day," says Taffy Lefkon '89, a marketing writer in the mutual funds division at Morgan Stanley. Lefkon's daily commute from New Jersey to the 70th floor of Two World Trade Center (WTC) involved part bus, part subway, part elevator.
"I was on the subway when the first plane crashed into One WTC. The underground world was unaware of the commotion a few stories above.' At 9:01 a.m., Lefkon and other commuters exited the subway at WTC. A minute later, the second plane crashed. Lefkon was still underground and able to quickly get an uptown subway.
Ed Moulin '72, executive director of government relations for Morgan Stanley, never made it to his office on the 65th floor of Two WTC on Sept. 11 either. New York's primary elections were held that day, and Moulin had told his staff to vote first that morning, since they were going to be working late that night.
The man in front of Moulin and his wife at the polls got into a heated argument with the voting staff, and the delay caused Moulin to miss his train. He arrived at Penn Station just before 9 a.m. and heard that there was police activity at the WTC. He walked his wife to her offices at the Empire State Building, which was being evacuated. On a television in the window of an electronics store across the street, Moulin saw the WTC spewing smoke into that clear September sky.
"Then I saw the other plane come around the corner and hit my building, right around my floor," he says. "One minute one way or the other on my way into work that day and I could have been trapped."
Sharon (Strauss) Heimowitz '88 is a technical recruiter for Speer, Leeds and Kellogg, located one street over from the WTC. She was already in her office when the first plane hit and was on the phone with her mother when the second plane crashed. The building shook, her windows bowed inward, and she knew it was time to leave. She got about two blocks uptown when she felt the earth shake again. The first tower had collapsed.
"The boom was like a bomb going off because you felt the ground rumbling," says Heimowitz, who then saw the dust cloud plowing through the streets. "It was like a massive blizzard coming at you."
Two men covered her with their jackets and the three huddled together on the ground. When the cloud settled, they got up, "looking like we all had aged 30 years from the gray dust," and continued to walk the 60 or 70 blocks to mid-town, where Heimowitz met her husband and took a train out of the city.
Adam Carne '96, an investment banking associate at Lehman Brothers, was in his 12th-floor office in the World Financial Center, across the street from the WTC, when a loud bang rang out. He and his coworkers left the building and saw the top of the tower on fire. After seeing the second plane crash and watching the catastrophe unfold for a little while, he and a friend started walking to Carne's apartment just a few blocks away. They didn't get far when the first tower fell.
"That smoke cloud was coming at us down all these narrow one-way streets," Carne says. "You couldn't see the sky when you looked up, and I really thought that if it caught you, you'd suffocate."
Carne ran across the Brooklyn Bridge, staying ahead of the cloud. When he made it to Brooklyn, he ran north to the Manhattan Bridge and crossed back over into Manhattan. The next day, Carne went to Boston to stay with his family.
When Jason Levin '96, M.B.A. '97, booked an 8 a.m. flight to San Francisco for Sept. 11, he could have departed from John F. Kennedy airport or Newark. He told his secretary that he preferred JFK because it was more convenient, but admits, "I could easily have been on the flight from Newark that was hijacked if she had been unable to accommodate my wishes."
Levin, a research analyst and consultant for Doubleclick who was traveling on business, was in flight when the WTC was attacked. He was trying to sleep when the pilot asked passengers to buckle their seatbelts. After landing in St. Louis, the pilot explained what had happened in New York.
"Just like everybody else, I was completely shocked. I had looked out the window at the World Trade Center when we took off that morning, all was peaceful," says Levin, who rented a car and drove home to New York City over the next two days.
Candice Workman Nonas '92, an associate analyst at Moody's Investors Service, was buying her breakfast in the basement cafeteria of her office building, located diagonally across from the WTC, when the first plane hit. She was on the phone with her mother when the second plane crashed.
"I went out of the building and heard the word Terrorist," says Nonas, who quickly gathered her things and started walking uptown. More fortunate than Heimowitz, she was well beyond the tidal wave of dust when the first tower collapsed. She walked 80 to 100 blocks to her apartment on 71st Street, where she found her husband watching the scene unfold on television.
"For people like me, who managed to leave the area, I think our families had a much more traumatic experience because the phone lines were down and they didn't know if we were O.K.," Nonas says. "Even people I knew from elementary school started calling my family, my parents and me, and that brought home exactly what was happening."
Life since then
These alumni escaped the attacks, but they have not escaped the aftermath.
"It has killed my love of the city," says Heimowitz, who has worked in lower Manhattan for several years. "The reasons that brought me to the city just aren't there anymore."
Her firm moved back into its offices only a few weeks after the attacks. On her first day back, Heimowitz faced the disturbing scene so many have described‹the acrid smoke of the smoldering debris, the memorials, the sounds of more pieces of the towers falling. Even the sun, once blocked by the towers, streaming into downtown is unsettling, she says.
For Heimowitz, the site is also a reminder of the friends she lost in the attacks. They worked on the 95th floor of one of the towers and, before they died, had used their pagers to communicate with friends.
Heimowitz says she used to love spending time in the seaport area and enjoyed working downtown. But her experiences on Sept. 11 and during the months since have changed her feelings toward the city. "It was a very charming place, but it's not home anymore."
Memories of home
Not long after the attacks, Carne decided he couldn't call lower Manhattan home anymore, either. The smell alone made his apartment unlivable. But Carne's memories of downtown New York were as overwhelming as the stench of the smoldering buildings.
"The World Trade Center neighborhood was my entire life for two-and-a-half years," Carne says. When he went to work every morning, Carne walked straight toward the WTC. His path went right between the towers, where he often paused to marvel at their height. "It's so strange that the entire place is gone," he says.
Carne returned to the site only once since Sept. 11‹and once is enough, he says. Now that his offices have moved to midtown and he has a new apartment, Carne avoids the downtown area altogether. He still jumps at loud noises, was anxious about Lehman relocating to another tall building and even felt his heart racing while recounting his story. Carne says he feels safe in the city now, but is seriously considering moving back to Boston, where he can be closer to his family. Finding a better balance between career and family was a goal even before the attacks, Carne says. Sept. 11 has just prompted him to take steps toward that goal a little sooner.
"When you see something like this happen and there's something you want to do, you realize that there's no reason to put it off," he says.
A small town in a big city
"That area for me was like a small town, like living and working in a small town," Moulin says. Having worked in lower Manhattan for more than 20 years, Moulin knew many people by name and continues to learn of those who were lost in the attacks: the Morgan Stanley security chief who ushered the firm's employees to safety; the janitor who cleaned his offices; the man who negotiated the lease for his temple; his brother-in-law's colleague.
"Everybody I know either knew somebody or was related to somebody who died," he says.
In the days after the attacks, Moulin says, bomb threats and evacuations throughout the city "were a constant reminder that we were still vulnerable." Although the threats have stopped, he still sees heightened security and a strong police presence throughout the city. More disturbing, he says, are the gaping holes in the buildings surrounding the World Trade Center.
Moulin's offices have moved to Rockefeller Center in midtown Manhattan, but he still goes to the financial district for his work. He sees the holes in those buildings and knows that his small town will never be the same.
"That area is a big chunk of my life, and it's changed forever," Moulin says.
Vibrant community
Like Moulin, Nonas mourns the loss of the financial district's vibrant community life. When she returned to her office building three months after the attacks, she found a "ghost town."
"It's very different now," she says. "There's no signs of normal life down here."
When describing "normal life" on the streets and avenues surrounding the World Trade Center, Nonas talks about the farmers' market, jazz in the World Trade Center courtyard at lunchtime, nice shops and good restaurants.
"There was always a good reason to come to this area. Now it's construction workers, and tourists stepping all over each other," she says.
While she feels "incredible sadness' for those who lost loved ones, Nonas says, "I never realized the gravity for myself." She knew one person who died in the tragedy, an acquaintance she always enjoyed seeing every year at a Fourth of July gathering.
"I have a very vivid memory of him," she says. "One thing Sept. 11 did is make us very reflective and grateful for the health and safety of our family and friends."
The changed skyline
When Levin arrived at his home in the Upper West Side two nights after the attacks, he was relieved to find his neighborhood maintaining a sense of normalcy. Stores and restaurants were open, he says, and people were shopping, eating and going about their daily routines.
"It was somewhat comforting. People did what they knew how to do," he says.
Fearful of what might happen next, Levin took the bus instead of the subway for several weeks after the attacks. He says he was "looking for loopholes everywhere and looking over my shoulder for fear of another attack." He had a constant yearning for news and information and felt cut off from the world, for instance, if his cell phone was turned off. He also noticed that people were generally nicer to each other, being more polite and giving each other knowing looks and nods.
Levin, who knew one person who died in the attacks, visited the site for the first time a few months ago. His offices are located farther uptown, so he isn't forced to face the devastation every day. Even still, Levin says, his office has a great view of downtown, and he often takes note of the changed skyline.
"You can't help but look downtown and hope that those towers are there. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about it," he says.
Clark connections
Lefkon immediately thought of her coworkers, wondering if they were safe, if any of them had also overslept that morning. The long hours passed before she learned that all 22 of her coworkers were safe and accounted for. The temporary offices they've been working from in New Jersey aren't the best arrangement, but considering what the alternatives could have been, Lefkon says, "we're quite pleased."
Lefkon is also happy to have Clark and her fellow alumni. The voice mail and e-mail messages from alumni "on the East Coast, the West Coast and various places in between remind me of how very special the Clark community is. And I cannot forget the Clarkie in Japan who added my name to various survivor Web sites before I even knew that there were any such sites." Lefkon recalls how quickly word spread on the Clark campus when she was a student. "It's still true today of Clark's global alumni community, thanks to Alumni Affairs Director Bill Bennett."
An active Clark Bar alumna and Alumni Admissions Program and Alumni Council member, Lefkon has done her own part to keep the Clark network alive. She connected with all of the alumni featured here and many others who also work in New York's financial district, including Michael Wald '89, who lost his Clark diploma, which was proudly displayed in his office on the 90th floor of One WTC. His diploma has since been replaced.
When her office moved back to mid-town Manhattan, Lefkon says she brought "six months' worth of work, a big American flag and, of course, my pea pod poster."
Dan Trant '84 and Jason Jacobs, husband of Jennifer (Traiger) Jacobs '91, died in the World Trade Center attacks.
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Taffy Lefkon '89 with former New York City Mayor Rudolf Guiliani at a Morgan Stanley Funds conference in January
Jason Levin '96, M.B.A. '97 with his wife Leslie
Candace Workman Nonas '92