Joanne Capestro is a frequent visitor to the National 9/11 Memorial & Museum, and whenever she goes there, she is always drawn to one 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.
As thousands of people were running out of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, FDNY Lt. Kenneth Phelan was running in. On July 22, his family gathered with FDNY members and City Council representatives to unveil a new red street sign bearing his name on the Maspeth block where he lived.
It took over two months for the music industry to address the horrific attacks that occurred on 9/11. People were confused, angry, and still in shock over what occurred on that fateful day, until a country singer from Newnan, Ga., helped put it all into perspective for us with a song that resonated throughout the country and the world.
Chris Sorrentino still has a hard time thinking about that day. But Sept. 11 never goes away for another reason: the toxic dust at ground zero that he breathed in over the next several months and the bladder cancer he developed years later.
Sept. 11, 2001, was the worst day I ever spent in The Tablet office. As I approached 310 Prospect Park West where our offices were located, I heard the news on the “Imus in the Morning” radio show. Bulletin — a plane has crashed into the World Trade Center.
New Yorkers still remember where they were and what they were doing on the morning of Sept. 11 two decades ago. Susan Fiorentino was sitting in her classroom at St. Ann School in Dongan Hills, S.I., that day. Her father was a retired officer from the New York Police Department at the time, but he went down to ground zero following the attacks.
