For the twenty fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist assaults, The Actual Deal has compiled phrases from a number of of our sources about that day, its aftermath and the way it affected their lives.
The tales cowl close to misses and tragic losses. Larry Silverstein, whose firm owned the World Commerce Heart advanced, was absent from his scheduled assembly within the Twin Towers that morning for a scheduled physician’s appointment. Michael Liebowitz, the president and CEO of Douglas Elliman, negotiated insurance coverage on the World Commerce Heart advanced and suggested Silverstein to bump up protection in case of whole destruction. Howard Lutnick mirrored on changing into the “face” of Sept. 11 within the years after the assaults.
Numerous others in the true property business have tales of loss, tragedy and resilience stemming from these days. We have now chosen only a few.
Reminiscences of the Day
Lots of these nonetheless lively in actual property have been current in New York on Sept. 11, 2001, and keep in mind watching the day unfold.
Larry Silverstein, the founding father of Silverstein Properties, closed on a deal to personal the World Commerce Heart simply weeks earlier than Sept. 11. He would have sometimes been seated for a breakfast assembly on the Home windows on the World restaurant on the 107th flooring of the North Tower. However his spouse insisted he go to a scheduled dermatologist appointment as a substitute.
He recounted his recollections from the remainder of that day in his 2024 memoir, “The Rising: The Twenty-Yr Battle to Rebuild the World Commerce Heart.” An excerpt has been reprinted right here with permission.
What can I say about the remainder of that day? The exact particulars are buried deep in my thoughts; even a long time later they’re apparently too painful to relive absolutely. What I do recall is a collection of opaque photos, the occasions blurred like images that have been by no means absolutely developed. My reminiscence has at all times been certainly one of my prides, and I’d typically boast about it. However when I attempt to look again on that grim day, I’m overwhelmed. I can recall solely moments, intimations of what I’d lived by means of.
There I used to be nonetheless within the house, Klara and I watching the tv in shocked silence when the second airplane abruptly turned north and slammed into the South Tower. How can this be taking place? my thoughts screamed.
And what about my youngsters? Each Roger and Lisa labored within the Commerce Heart advanced. And the individuals who labored for me? We had momentary places of work on the eighty-ninth flooring; I hoped they hadn’t arrived earlier than 9. Once I tried to name their cells, the workplace—nothing. All of the telephones have been down in Decrease Manhattan and it will stay that exasperating means all day. I wished, I wanted to know that my youngsters, my staff, my tenants have been alive—and I couldn’t attain anybody.
Then the towers fell. They began to crumble—and identical to that they have been gone. One second they have been there, after which they weren’t. I used to be completely staggered. I couldn’t consider what I used to be seeing with my very own eyes. But within the subsequent prompt my bewilderment gave option to prayers. The place have been my youngsters? My staff?
Immediately I noticed I wanted to get to our workplace at 521 Fifth Avenue, on Forty-Fourth Road. It grew to become essential, the one factor that mattered. I wished to get some form of management over the speeding surge of occasions and I unreasonably determined that if I used to be within the workplace, seated at my desk, order could be restored. The world I as soon as knew could be reinstated.
All through the day, our convention room started to fill with individuals. They have been the wives and husbands of our staff. It was a neighborhood of strangers instantly linked by frequent prayers, by wishful hopes.
My youngsters, thank God, made it to the Fifth Avenue workplace. Each Roger and Lisa had tales to inform, tales of fortuitous escapes. Their arrivals created a surge of hope within the anxious family members of the lacking who have been crowded into the convention room.
Then at round three p.m. Invoice Dacunto, the person who was second in control of all our buildings, arrived. He was fully coated in ash, a grey, ghostlike presence. I couldn’t acknowledge him at first.
I led Invoice into the convention room so he may share what he knew, what he had seen with those that had been ready for hours and hours for some phrase from their family members. It was a mistake. After they noticed him—weary, saddened, blanketed within the thick white soot that was all that remained of the buildings the place their husbands and wives labored—they began to comprehend that every one wouldn’t be set proper, that the day wouldn’t have a miraculous ending.
Howard Lutnick, now the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, was the president and CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald on the time of the assaults. The corporate misplaced 658 staff, together with Lutnick’s brother Gary.
Lutnick recounted the occasions and aftermath for NPR’s Weekend Edition in 2016.
You weren’t there on that morning.
So it was my son Kyle’s first day of kindergarten. After which as I stroll him upstairs, an administrator grabs me and says, you already know, your workplace is searching for you. A airplane has hit the constructing. So I jumped within the automotive. And clearly, as I acquired down there, I noticed that vast, black, billowing smoke.
And the man that was driving my automotive began crying. I used to be like, let’s simply — we acquired to get there. We simply acquired to get there. And so I drove proper to the constructing and acquired to the door of the constructing and began grabbing individuals as they got here out.
Did you see anybody you knew?
I didn’t. You already know, I used to be grabbing individuals as they got here out. After which I heard this sound. It was the loudest sound I’d ever heard. What it was was Two World Commerce Heart collapsed. So I simply begin working. I am simply working.
And I look over my shoulder. And there is this large, large, black twister of smoke chasing me. So I dive underneath a automotive. And the black smoke simply went “foosh.” You already know, I used to be saying, don’t breathe, don’t breathe, don’t breathe. After which take a deep breath.
After which, you already know, all this form of particles and soot and mud begins filling my lungs. I understood straight away that if I used to be suffocating and I used to be exterior, how may they presumably have survived inside?
Steve Witkoff, now a U.S. particular envoy, based the industrial actual property agency Witkoff Group. He was in New York on Sept. 11. His story was recounted in TRD’s e book “The New Kings of New York,” by Adam Piore, excerpted below:
Steve Witkoff was in his workplace on the previous Every day Information build up on forty second Road, and will see the smoke coming from the towers by means of his home windows. At 9:59 am, he watched in horror because the South Tower got here crashing down, adopted 29 minutes later by its twin subsequent door.
Witkoff rushed as much as the Bronx to gather his youngsters from the Riverdale College. Quickly after returning residence, he acquired a name from Bo Dietl and Mike Ciravolo, two previous pals who have been retired NYPD detectives. They urged heading Downtown to assist, which is how Witkoff ended up standing on a chunk of mangled metal, on a rope line till 5 a.m. the subsequent morning, holding the top of an extended twine tied across the stomach of a firefighter with a flesh-sniffing canine digging by means of the rubble of the large pile of particles, trying to find survivors.
After that exhausting night time on the pile, Witkoff walked into the ornate foyer of his $146 million trophy [the Woolworth Building], with its cathedral-like ceilings, bronze fixtures and elaborate glass mosaics, and was stunned to search out exhausted firefighters, cops and different first responders stretched out on nearly each inch of accessible flooring house. Their garments have been coated in ash, and their fingers have been uncooked from digging by means of the rubble, he recalled, which made for a surprising tableau set in opposition to the marble flooring and wealthy purple carpeting of the tower.
Witkoff was so moved, he walked an American flag as much as the highest of the skyscraper — the elevators have been out — and raised it. He moved a generator in, vowing to maintain the constructing open it doesn’t matter what. For the subsequent 30 days, the constructing served as a staging space, and slept a lot of the tenth Precinct and first responders from different areas.
Angela Aman, now CEO of Kilroy Realty, was contemporary off a bachelor’s on the College of Pennsylvania and dealing throughout from the World Commerce Heart at Deutsche Financial institution when the towers have been hit. In a 2025 Closing interview, Aman stated the expertise gave her a “difficult” relationship with New York the primary time she lived there.
Had been you at work on 9/11?
I used to be there… It was so way back at this level, however I hadn’t gotten to work simply but. I acquired off the subway that morning on the World Commerce Heart exit after the primary airplane hit, however earlier than the second airplane, so I used to be standing proper exterior, beneath the South Tower when it was hit. Our constructing was destroyed. They’d a catastrophe restoration location in New Jersey for some time, after which we had a brief location in Midtown.
Mary Ann Tighe, present CEO of CBRE’s New York and Tri-state area and an influential participant within the post-Sept. 11 rehabilitation of Downtown, told TRD she noticed Larry Silverstein by probability the night of the assaults, strengthening her resolve.
I believed, from the horrible second of 9/11 on, that it was a singular second of alternative for town after this immense tragedy. … I bumped into [Silverstein] — he was about to enter a spot to have dinner, and I bumped into him on the road on the Higher East Facet. We have been standing in entrance of one another and I started to cry. And he put his arms round me and stated, “Sweetheart, we’re gonna rebuild.” That is 6 o’clock on the night time of 9/11… I’d prefer to assume a lot of my optimistic response to it has been as a consequence of that second.
John Santora, now CEO of WeWork, was the top of worldwide building administration at Cushman & Wakefield on the time of the assaults. He had had a key position in arranging the World Commerce Heart sale to Silverstein Properties. At a TRD Salon Series in 2025, Santora defined that many individuals he labored with on the towers have been inside them that day.
It’s a narrative I haven’t informed a lot, however Arthur Moranti known as me — I used to be on a convention name, Arthur was our CEO then — and he stated, “A airplane simply hit the Commerce Heart, name Larry and see should you might help.” … Clearly I can’t get anyone from Larry’s workplace on the telephone. So we then noticed what occurred and 10 or 12 of us jumped on the subway to go down to assist. And you already know, we have been in that subway considering like, “Alright so how can we rebuild this?” and all that, and all these conversations are happening. And after we got here out the primary tower had fallen.
Instant aftermath
Within the aftermath of the assaults, those that at the moment are actual property figures needed to choose up the items of their corporations, households and neighborhoods.
Michael Liebowitz is at the moment the CEO and president of Douglas Elliman, however he beforehand labored within the insurance coverage business, constructing a danger administration empire. He had suggested Larry Silverstein to take out further insurance coverage protection on the World Commerce Heart. He recounted that have in an interview for TRD’s Closing interview in January.
Once I labored on [insurance coverage for the World Trade Center], I used to be perhaps 32. It was a whole lot of strain. The rationale I wished that protection was I contemplated each buildings being destroyed, which all people thought I used to be completely loopy for. How may each towers be destroyed? However while you’re evaluating danger, you consider each potential danger. The Silverstein individuals wished to insure the buildings for a lot much less, clearly, due to the premium, and I’ll always remember, they stated, “Effectively, we have now an engineering report that was completed that may present $600 million value of injury if the buildings have been destroyed.” And I stated, “Effectively, what occurs if a airplane hits the constructing?”
… The morning of 9/11 I used to be driving to my workplace. I acquired a name from somebody who informed me a airplane hit the constructing. I didn’t really assume terrorism, regardless that I set this system up in order that they needed to have terrorism insurance coverage, which was a novel factor. They couldn’t have an exclusion for terrorism. Nobody did that earlier than. That was by no means required in an insurance coverage coverage closing earlier than.
We took Silverstein’s premium from like $4 million to $15 million, and again then, that was a fortune. It affected the numbers of their transaction, they usually have been very upset about it. However finally, the World Commerce Heart acquired rebuilt due to the work that we did. I testified within the trials. I used to be busy working post-9/11 on this declare, and it actually took my enterprise to a complete different degree. However it was such a horrible occasion that made that occur.
Take into account, it was the Port Authority who was doing the lease [with Silverstein]. Their places of work have been within the World Commerce Heart. So there have been folks that I handled that didn’t make it. It was a tricky time.
Sharif El-Gamal is the founding father of Soho Properties. He gained notoriety within the years after the assaults for his position in proposing an Islamic neighborhood middle and mosque blocks from the place the towers had stood. The “Floor Zero mosque,” because it was popularly known as, generated controversy, and the plan was finally scrapped. He recounted his expertise within the Muslim neighborhood post-Sept. 11 for Frontline in 2011.
After 9/11, on the time I used to be residing and dealing in Decrease Manhattan, and I lived on Canal Road, Canal and Broadway, and I began going to a mosque on Warren Road. We have now our congregation prayers on Friday, that are the equal of a Sabbath for Jews on Saturday or a Christian mass or sermon on Sunday. … Typically it felt that God was speaking to me instantly.
… Some unimaginable students would come into that venue, and it was packed. There have been a number of thousand individuals throughout [Friday] prayers, and should you acquired there late, you have been praying down [on] the sidewalk or on the steps. … We have been packed like sardines, and it didn’t really feel proper that, one, that it’s so crowded. And you already know, I used to be in the true property enterprise, and I virtually made a direct dedication. I made a promise to God and I made a promise to myself that I used to be going to assist this neighborhood with no matter abilities I’ve.
… And on the similar time, I felt the brotherhood. You felt this unconditional love, no judgments. You felt a camaraderie, and also you noticed that is your identification, and that was the factor that you just all seemed for. All of us as human beings are searching for neighborhood. We’re pack individuals. I don’t even know what that’s known as, however we should be collectively. … I stated: “Guys, we have to personal a constructing right here.”
Within the wake of profound loss, Howard Lutnick, head of Cantor Fitzgerald, ended up shutting down a number of departments on the agency, which was hemorrhaging cash. He informed NPR:
The night time of September 11, I didn’t actually know who was alive and who wasn’t alive. So we had a convention name. It was about 10 o’clock at night time. And my staff known as in. And I stated, look, we have now two decisions.
We are able to shut the agency down and go to our pals’ funerals. Bear in mind, that will be 20 funerals a day daily for 35 straight days. And I’ve acquired to let you know, I’m probably not fascinated about going to work. All I need to do is climb underneath the covers and hug my household.
But when we’re going to go to work, we’re going to do it to deal with our pals’ households. So what do you need to do? You guys need to shut it down? Or do you need to work tougher than you’ve ever labored earlier than in your life? And that was the second the place the corporate survived.
… So that you had a enterprise to run amidst overwhelming grief. How did you start to place these items collectively?
Effectively, choices I made have been they wanted to have a boss for the enterprise. If I didn’t have a pacesetter, I shut it. And I had a division of 86 individuals the place 4 individuals survived. And you may’t actually construct a enterprise again with 4 individuals.
Principally, we went from being a terrific firm that was making 1,000,000 {dollars} a day to an organization that was dropping 1,000,000 {dollars} a day. However all of them have mortgages to pay, and they should put meals on their desk.
So one of many issues I did is I’d name the leaders of different corporations and say, right here, this man’s John. He sells this many merchandise. He’s extremely profitable. You’ll’ve by no means been capable of rent him. He was by no means going to come back be just right for you.
However right here’s what I want. I want you to match what he made with me. And if not, in a single hour, I’m going to name your different competitor. And he’s going to be working there. And I acquired all my individuals jobs.
Lutnick additional mirrored on his emotions concerning the day, and on changing into a “face” of the tragedy, for a Closing interview in 2018.
What’s it prefer to be the face of Sept. 11?
If I am going out to dinner, somebody will come as much as me and say they know a widow or a household. It’s actually unimaginable.
Isn’t that arduous?
To those that have had loss, reminiscence is essentially the most lovely of your senses. So reminiscence and time takes out the ache.
Do you have got regrets?
Certain. I want we have been by no means within the World Commerce Heart. I want my brother by no means got here to work for me. I want I by no means employed all my pals.
Do you get uninterested in individuals asking you about 9/11?
By no means. Each Sept. 11 … our staff waive their day’s pay and we donate all the income that comes within the door. We attempt to make the worst day one thing extraordinary.
Aftereffects
The assaults and their aftermath had profound lingering results, altering how individuals approached their lives, companies and efforts to rebuild town.
Dan Doctoroff served underneath New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and led town’s restoration and rebuilding efforts after the assaults. On the time, there was widespread nervousness that the destruction would ship New York right into a interval of decline. With effort, that worry did not come to pass, as he defined in a TRD Salon Series in 2024.
The primary catalyst was 9/11. Folks wished to rebuild town and make it higher than ever. … After we got here in after 9/11, individuals feared that town was going to say no the identical means it had within the Nineteen Seventies. We misplaced 800,000 individuals within the ’70s. It took us 25 years to get them again. Twenty-five years. … Over time as we acquired issues completed, the enterprise neighborhood and folks from all by means of the world had confidence in New York.
Maryanne Gilmartin, CEO of developer MAG Companions, informed TRD that her husband started staying residence with the couple’s youngsters after the assaults. She known as the association “the key to my success in so some ways,” in a 2010 interview for the Closing.
He went into the police division after which acquired his regulation diploma. After 9/11, we checked out our life and stated we wished to take part in as significant a means doable in elevating our kids. I had the higher gig, so he was prepared to offer it a whirl. I prefer to say he couldn’t pack a diaper bag in 2001. Now he’s fairly good.
Steve Witkoff equally stated the assaults modified his perspective on work.
I made a decision it was beneath me to fret about my enterprise… I keep in mind considering this may’t be about enterprise. And I used to be deeply impressed. It was, “What can I do?” Guys who had uniforms on are strolling up these staircases to rescue individuals, they usually all died. They didn’t go residence to their households. That’s after I keep in mind considering: “I can’t do sufficient.”
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