LOWER MANHATTAN — Joanne Capestro is a frequent visitor to the National 9/11 Memorial & Museum, and whenever she goes there, she is always drawn to a particular exhibit. There, in a glass case, is a pair of Nine West high heels — the shoes she was wearing when she walked down 87 flights of stairs to escape the North Tower on 9/11.
Capestro, who lives in Bay Ridge, donated her shoes to the museum about 10 years ago. The heels were originally black, but the color faded over time, she explained.
Capestro allowed The Tablet to accompany her on Aug. 21 during one of her visits to the museum. She shared her memories of that horrific day 25 years ago and talked about her Catholic faith.
“With the faith in God, I keep it close to my heart. I’m just so happy I’m still here to tell my story,” said Capestro, who grew up in Canarsie and attended Holy Family Church. “I know that God is looking out for me every single day, every moment.”
On Sep. 11, 2001, she was a 39-year-old sales assistant at May Davis Group, an investment bank with offices on the 87th floor of the North Tower.
When American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the building at 8:46 a.m., “there was an explosion behind me,” she recalled.
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Capestro smelled burning plane fuel, then saw office ceiling tiles crashing to the floor, followed by the conference room’s glass walls shattering, she recalled.
“I really thought that the building was going over in the river because the building rocked,” she said. “Then it went forward and backward. And then I was going backward.”
With debris falling all around and the room filled with smoke, Capestro, still wearing her high heels, and her coworkers made their way to a staircase and started walking down.
“Looking at my shoes now, it seems like a lifetime ago,” she said.
One coworker, head trader Harry Ramos, stayed behind to help people who needed assistance. He never made it out. Whenever Capestro visits the memorial’s reflecting pool — which stands in the footprint of the North Tower and contains panels listing the names of those who died — she makes sure to touch his name.
Another memory that will stay with her forever is seeing firefighters walking up the stairs as she and others were walking down.
“You saw the fear on their faces,” she recalled. “They knew what was going on.”
Capestro reached the concourse level, but the sight of bodies and debris caused her to faint. A police officer revived her with smelling salts and carried her to an escalator.
From there, she made her way outside, but her ordeal wasn’t over. Just as she got to the street, the South Tower, which had also been struck by a plane, collapsed into a pile of rubble. Capestro was covered head to toe in white dust as she ran for her life.
Capestro continued running and reached St. Paul’s Chapel, an Episcopal church on Broadway, about two blocks from the World Trade Center.
At that moment, a priest pushed her under a parked car in front of the church, shielding her as debris cascaded from the collapsed building.
She lost consciousness for a few seconds, and when she came to, the priest was standing over her, praying the “Hail Mary.”
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Photographer Phil Penman was at the scene and snapped what became an iconic photo of her. The photo shows her and a coworker walking down the street, both of them covered in dust. Years later, Capestro was reunited with Penman when she hired him to photograph her wedding in 2018.
Capestro, who had to remove small bits of debris from her mouth, made her way on foot to the Williamsburg Bridge and walked across to Brooklyn. She eventually made her way home.
Capestro admitted that she suffers from survivor’s guilt and was diagnosed with mouth cancer two years ago, but she continues to work and is currently a director at Oppenheimer & Co. Inc., a financial services company located on Broad Street, a few blocks from the World Trade Center.
She attends the 9/11 memorial service every year on the anniversary of the attack and visits the museum several times a year.
“I come to reflect,” she explained. “Some people don’t like to come down to the 9/11 museum because they don’t want to see it. They don’t want to be reminded of it.
“To me, this is a place of serenity.”
Capestro said that while 9/11 was the worst day of her life, she believes it also gave her a reason to keep telling her story.
“It took many years for me to find my purpose in life,” she said. “But my purpose now is to spread the word. My purpose is to educate the children who are being born now, who weren’t around when 9/11 happened. My purpose is to keep the 9/11 memory alive.”