Tower Stories

by Damon DiMarco

  Known by some as the fifty-first state, PANYNJ has its own police force (PAPD). The more than 2,200 officers of PAPD are sworn to protect the region’s ports, airports, bridges, and tunnels. By doing so, they protect America’s gateway to commerce and travel on the northeast coast.

  Under the terms of the 1921 compact, the governors of New York and New Jersey run the Port Authority cooperatively.

  Glenn Guzi, MBE, has worked for PANYNJ since 1998. He currently works on Major Capital Projects and GOCOR, the agency’s Government and Community Relations department. GOCOR’s primary mission is to represent the Port Authority’s interests and initiatives to its government, community, and commercial stakeholders.

  On September 11, 2001, Glenn, fifty-two, was the designated GOCOR representative for the World Trade Center. His office was on the 68th floor of Tower 1, where the Port Authority was headquartered. The agency lost eighty-seven employees in the terrorist attacks, including thirty-seven members of the PAPD.

  In the weeks, months, and years following 9/11, Glenn and his Port Authority colleagues became instrumental in rebuilding the World Trade Center site. The obvious work of clearing debris and putting up new structures was the least of their worries. As Glenn so ably points out, at the core of all rebuilding efforts was the ongoing, compassionate, and skillful attempt to harmonize hundreds if not thousands of conflicting interests and viewpoints.

  My interview with Glenn took place in late January 2021. Though it boggled my mind, he noted then that, nearly two decades after 9/11, certain aspects of rebuilding the World Trade Center were still underway.

  I NEVER TOOK much vacation back then. On September 11, 2001, I think I’d only taken four days off the whole year. But I had this personal commitment come up, which required me to be home on the afternoon of 9/11.

  Being me back then, I spent the better half of a week debating, “Should I take the whole day off? Or just take a half day? The whole day? A half day?” I couldn’t decide. Something never felt right when I thought about going in.

  At the time, our agency’s executive director was a man named Neil Levin. He’d only been on the job a few months. That morning, he was scheduled to be at a breakfast function at Windows on the World, forty floors above our offices at the top of Tower 1. It was normal for people like me—meaning government affairs people—to attend those functions, especially if outside entities were involved.

  Basically, I wasn’t sure if I’d be asked to attend or not. That was part of my back-and-forth about taking a vacation day.

  So now it’s Monday night, September 10. I live in Peekskill, right up the Hudson River in Westchester County, the northern suburbs of New York City. I was having a glass of wine with a friend and telling him how I was still on the fence.

  He said, “What’s wrong with you? Just take the day off!”

  “You’re right,” I said. “This makes no sense. I’ll do it.”

  As soon as I did that? This cloud of easiness came over me, and I felt completely comfortable. There was an energy taking place around this decision that I could not understand. Voices telling me not to go in. I felt an internal pull not to go into the office. That night, I felt completely safe. I’m not making that up.

  But the next morning rolled around. It’s Tuesday, September 11, 2001, and I second-guessed my decision. Immediately, the feelings of uneasiness came back.

  I thought, “Okay, I’ve got this personal commitment in the afternoon, and I know I have to be home for that. But I’ll just go into the office this morning in case something’s needed. Then I’ll come home.”

  I put my suit on. I was tying my tie when the phone rang. It was a volunteer for a local board I served on. Back then, I was on a bunch of boards—a historic foundation board, a parks conservation board, a performing arts center board, you name it. This volunteer was calling me because she was nervous about an upcoming function. I kept reassuring her. “Look, you’ve done this kind of work before. You’ll do the right thing.” Then I hung up the phone.

  That conversation made me late for my train. And I said, “You know what? This is crazy. Something’s intervening here again.” I took my tie off. “Forget it. I’m not going in.”

  Quite literally, I thought to myself, “What’s going to happen if I don’t go into the office one day?”

  Well, not much later, I got a call from my friend, Michael, who also lived in Peekskill. He was a commuter, like me, and that morning, he took the train to his office in SoHo, same as he always did.

  When I picked up the phone, he was frantic. Michael said, “You’ve got to get out of the building!”

  I was like, “What are you talking about?”

  Michael knew where I worked, and his office faced south. He’d said he was looking right at the Towers and he’d seen the plane coming toward them. He was watching it live, and he’s shouting, “Get out! You have to get out!”

  He didn’t know I hadn’t gone into work yet.

  I heard screaming in the background. That must have been his colleagues watching what happened.

  Once I heard the screaming, I hung up the phone and called my office. I got through for a couple of seconds before the lines went down. That was it.

  That day, tragedy struck. The unimaginable happened. Evil invaded our lives.

  Now, in the case of extreme emergencies, back then there were necessary steps one would take. The most immediate thing was to reach out to leadership who would reach out to the governor of New York, because the situation happened at the World Trade Center. I had to make sure leadership had their emergency protocols in place. But the communication lines were down. It looked like the plane had hit almost precisely where our offices were located. And, of course, Neil was at Windows on the World.

  All this was happening at a very quick pace. I mean, like, a matter of minutes.

  I remember I was on the phone with Tim, the head of Battery Park City Authority—that’s the organization that runs Battery Park City, directly across the street from the Trade Center. Tim had been in the New York governor’s office before his appointment to Battery Park, and he told me his office had already had very quick communication with the governors of New York and New Jersey.

  So picture this. I’m trying to contact everyone, make sure all channels of communication are open. But suddenly, most of the phone lines are overloaded and I’m home in Peekskill, right? I had no idea what was going on—not with the governments, not with our partners, not with the people I worked with.

  When the second plane hit the South Tower, I was talking to Vinny, who was VP of the New York Power Authority. And I exclaimed right away, “This is terrorism, not an accident.” The second plane’s impact gave the whole event a different complexion.

  You know, I stay calm and focused in situations. But this was a disaster.

  Then, of course, it got worse.

  One of the people I got through to was Bob Boyle. He’d just retired as our executive director, the man Neil Levin replaced. Even though he’d retired, Bob was still patched into the New York State apparatus.

  I told Bob that Neil had been scheduled to attend a function that morning at Windows on the World and I couldn’t reach him. I was advised to go to a regional office for the governor of New York in Westchester County. Bob was going to meet me there along with the head of the Battery Park City Authority. The idea was to assemble people who could communicate our knowledge and needs to the governor, who of course has ultimate say in the state of New York.

  The office wasn’t a far drive for me. I got ready to go.

  I remember the South Tower collapsed before I left my house. At that point, I presumed every person in both towers, every person I worked with, was dead. I was devastated. My younger brother, Ed, was with me, and I told him, “They’re all gone!”

  My mom ended up driving, because I was too busy on the phone to steer.

  We drove past the local election polling station. It was primary day in New York State, and we pulled in. This
may seem corny but I said, “We have to vote now! I don’t know if I’ll have time to vote later!” In all seriousness, my thinking was, “We’re under attack. It is supremely important to make sure I still vote.”

  So we voted.

  By the time I arrived at the regional office, both towers were down. Basically, the whole World Trade Center campus had been destroyed. I presumed everyone was gone. I mean, what else could I think? Horrified.

  Listen, if I choke up a bit here … I’ve never talked about this before. I mean, the thought of being there that day is horrible, you know? But the fact that I wasn’t there is also bad, the weirdness of that. There were times in the past I’ve felt guilty.

  Neil Levin died that day. Other people I worked with died. The relatives of friends and … sorry. This is hard to talk about.

  At the regional office, the officials and I were trying to make some cohesive plan out of what was essentially the unthinkable. The mood was numb. I mean, total shock.

  Very quickly it became clear that Governor Pataki had control of the situation, which was a comfort. At that point, it was a national issue and I was in a holding pattern. Things were in play way above my pay grade. For the moment, there was nothing to do but go home and wait. But for what? I mean, what was tomorrow going to be? The place where I worked was totally destroyed.

  I remember walking out of the building and down the street to my car. I bumped into a married couple I knew, Eileen and Jorge. She was the chairman of the local Democratic Party; we were friends. He worked for a construction company that worked with the Port Authority, but mostly I knew him because we were both on the Paramount Center for the Arts board.

  When they saw me on the sidewalk, they stopped their car in the middle of the road and jumped out. Faces in shock. Trying not to cry. They knew I worked in the Trade Center. They ran right up to me, and … no words spoken. They grabbed me, held me, broke down.

  She whispered in my ear, “You’re alive … you’re alive.”

  I guess many people thought I was gone. Many people thought that. There were a lot of nervous calls and visits to my mom’s house throughout the rest of the day.

  Later that night, a guy we all knew and had nicknamed “Lucky” Chuck called me from California, where he had traveled for business. “I hear you’re the lucky one,” he said. He was all choked up.

  But back on the street, the next thing I remember, there were these people—strangers standing around, dumbfounded, watching us. I guess they were thinking, “What’s going on? Why are these people grabbing this person and crying in the middle of the road?”

  Everyone knew what had happened downtown. But Eileen and Jorge explained where I worked and that, normally, I would have been there. Suddenly, I had strangers comforting me, being human, being one. It was powerful, but I just needed to go home. My head, my being was elsewhere, with my colleagues.

  Later, I got together with friends. We had drinks. We had some ice cream at Ariane’s house with Michael, the one who’d called me in the morning from his office to warn me. We tried to find Cookie, a friend who worked in Battery Park City. We weren’t sure if she’d survived. It turns out she did, and so did our friend, Paulie. Still, I felt empty.

  That evening, it hurt too much to sleep. I was elsewhere, I don’t know where.

  Frankly? If I’d gone in that day? Assuming I’d survived, I don’t know if I’d have been mentally able to separate myself and do the work I had to do in the coming months and years. It was a very mind-numbing, body-numbing time.

  How to do this? How to find the strength to go all the way through and get the work done? Strength was needed, deep from within. Strength, patience, love, dedication. Love was needed to be able to do this.

  There was a lot happening all at once. We dove into our immediate response with laser focus and held engineering consultations to stabilize the site. Because, where the Towers had stood, there was now this big pile of rubble that burned while firefighters tried to stop it for something like forty days. That was going on even below street level. Depending on which part of the campus you stood on, we had ten to twelve stories of sub-level structure.

  We also had to deal with the two PATH train tunnels that run under the Hudson, connecting the World Trade Center with Exchange Place in Jersey City. When the Towers collapsed, those tunnels filled with water. Not from the Hudson, but from the fire fighters working to extinguish the blaze. We had to figure out a way to plug the tunnels so Exchange Place wouldn’t be flooded. Site stabilization, slurry wall stability.110 Those were the first big pieces.

  But of course, we didn’t stop there. Moving forward, the number of players the agency had to deal with was … I’d call it voluminous.

  The World Trade Center has always been a complex place. The Port Authority designed, engineered, built, and operated the complex. The agency owns the land, the buildings, and so on. But, technically, the Port Authority is a separate entity from the city and state of New York. So we had to meet with local, city, and state elected officials. We met with our neighbors, meaning Battery Park City Authority. We met with Manhattan Community Board 1, which represents residents who live near the World Trade Center. We met with representatives from the federal government.

  To further complicate matters, shortly before 9/11, the Port Authority had entered into a ninety-nine-year net lease on roughly ten million square feet of commercial space throughout the World Trade Center campus. This was a long, drawn-out negotiation between many interested parties. Eventually the lease went to Silverstein Properties.111

  The agreement included office space in Towers 1 and 2, plus the low-rise buildings we had on campus, World Trade 4 and 5. Silverstein’s lease did not include retail space, like the mall beneath the Towers. It also didn’t include the PATH systems or the parks that were designated for PATH.112 That all remained separate.

  When I say we entered the lease “shortly before 9/11,” I mean we’d literally held the signing ceremony out on the World Trade Center plaza something like six to eight weeks prior. We handed Larry Silverstein a ceremonial big set of keys. The governor was there. The ink wasn’t totally dry on the papers, but the agreement was fully executed. Officially, Silverstein Properties was the prime tenant and operator of this vast commercial space for the next ninety-nine years. This gave them certain legal rights.

  When 9/11 happened, SPI had moved some of their people into their new offices. They also lost people in the attacks.

  I’m trying to say there were a lot of cooks in the kitchen, and nobody really knew what was going to be made once the stove got fired up.

  Early on, I remember talking with some of our commissioners—our vice chairman and some other people. Our position was that our agency had to be present in the local community more than ever. We couldn’t shut the door, close ranks, and disappear. We had to be there and talk to people even when—plenty of times, especially early on—we didn’t have new information to share.

  I was the representative for the World Trade Center, and that’s how I saw my job.

  To this day, I tell people, “I don’t work at an agency and then, at the end of the day, shut off the light and go to sleep under my desk. No, I go home to a community. And I know that, in my community, we have things that are very important to us.”

  So I understand there are things that are important to, for instance, the community of Lower Manhattan.

  Some time after the towers came down, I was at a meeting with Community Board 1. Their members had come to discuss what they thought should happen with the site at some point down the road. And people got very upset.

  We heard things like, “Those buildings wouldn’t have collapsed if you’d built them better!”

  Not true. In retrospect, those buildings did precisely what they were engineered to do in the case of a catastrophic breach. Instead of toppling over and taking out large swaths of the city, they pancaked down. That behavior was engineered. And the fact is, that outcome saved thousands and thousands
of lives as well as countless properties.

  9/11 was also the most successful evacuation ever conducted. For instance, PATH trains were used to move people out to the safety of New Jersey. And the wedge of light that cut through the cloud of darkness on the east side of the plaza helped guide people to safety.

  But there was an individual present at this meeting whose son had been a firefighter killed on 9/11. He was very emotional. Very upset, angry. Rightfully so. There were others present who picked up on his emotion and shouted, “You guys are murderers!”

  That term was thrown at us multiple times.

  Our chief engineer was with me that day, a true gentleman named Frank Lombardi. He’s since retired, but Frank had been with us forever and he was very upset by that accusation. I mean, he’s an engineer. This was a direct affront to him.

  I remember touching his arm and telling him, “Frank, it’s okay. It’s not personal.”

  They weren’t really shouting at us. These people were just so upset, devastated and angry. We needed to let them show their emotions.

  Personally, I was getting, you know … I was getting barraged quite a bit. The man whose son had died was very upset and confronting us.

  When it was our time to respond, people turned to me, like, “Okay, what’s he gonna do now? How’s he gonna respond to that?”

  There was nothing an organization, a government, an elected official … nothing anyone, really, could say that was appropriate. So I got up, walked over to this man, and I hugged him. We cried together in front of everybody.

  The room was quiet. Totally quiet. And the tide began to shift.

  What I think is that a lot of people needed someone tangible to blame. The idea of Osama bin Laden or al-Qaeda—that was something very foreign, not understood by people. But the Port Authority owned the World Trade Center. And owners? Well, that was something people could understand.