Sunday, October 17, 2010

"The smoke and the risk"

Art insurance in the aftermath of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center
 
By David D’Arcy

NEW YORK. Just days after the attacks, AXA Nordstern Art Insurance, the world's largest art insurer, estimated art losses from the World Trade Center attacks at more than $100 million. In preparation for the largest volume of art claims relating to a single event, the firm had already put aside some $20 million. "But this is in the towers only," said president and ceo Dietrich von Frank, "the question is how much art might be in other buildings or affected by the clean up".

Dr von Frank would not name his firm's clients in the World Trade Center, yet he did indicate that AXA was not the insurer of such collections as Salomon Smith Barney, Morgan Stanley, or Goldman Sachs.

The buildings had not been considered at high risk, even though 11 September was not the first attack on the structures.

After the bombing of the buildings in 1993, the administration of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani reduced crime in the city significantly. "The city was a safer place. We didn't have second thoughts about covering works of art in the World Trade Center," Dr von Frank said.

One of AXA's principal clients in the buildings was the brokerage house, Cantor Fitzgerald, whose offices contained 300 Rodin sculptures, among other works. The late Gerald Cantor and his wife had donated recent casts of Rodin works to many museums in the US.

In Europe many insurance companies will not cover losses that result from acts of terrorism.

In the US, where terrorism is infrequent enough not to be exempted in policies, acts of land war are not covered, and some firms have sought to interpret the attacks on the World Trade Center as acts of war to limit their own liability.

AXA would not be looking for any of those loopholes, Dr von Frank said: "I don't think anybody in their right mind would exclude these kinds of terrorist activities. It is covered."

Many art insurance policies have a "25% acquisition" clause, which presumes that art collections are fluid, and insures works of art from the time of purchase, from which the buyer has up to 90 or 120 days to notify the insurer.

The policies presuppose that a certain percentage of works in an active collection might be newly acquired, and insured automatically. That provision seems strangely generous and trusting, but in a competitive art insurance market, insurers who wanted business from influential collectors offered those clients many things.

Policies that cover entire collections provide insurance for objects that might be moved back and forth or, in the case of corporate collections, between offices. "You do not necessarily know all the time where the work of art is," said Dr von Frank.

A major corporate collector like Deutsche Bank (not an AXA client) may well have moved art from its offices near MoMA to its offices in the World Trade Center.

Dr von Frank expects art insurance costs to rise as a result of the losses suffered in the attacks, but he doubts whether those costs would deter either individuals or corporations from collecting. Museums might find those new costs burdensome, he said.
While works of art are damaged by fire and can be stolen, the real threat to these objects—and the strongest reason to insure them—is transport, which has become a fact of life for a growing number of museums that depend on temporary exhibitions for visitors and revenue. Those exhibitions could end up lacking certain loans, Dr von Frank said, not because of rising insurance costs, but because collectors have lingering fears associated with the attacks.

Thursday, October 7, 2010

"Turning the Missing Into the Legally Dead: Families apply for certificates at Pier 94," by Robert Ingrassia

September 27, 2001, New York Daily News, "Turning the Missing Into the Legally Dead: Families apply for certificates at Pier 94," by Robert Ingrassia,

Thursday, September 27th 2001, 2:23AM

John Costanza signed the papers but he still doesn't believe it. His wife is dead.

"I can't accept this," said Costanza, 35, walking alone on W. 55th St., his eyes red from crying. "I can't comprehend what's happened."

He and relatives of other people still missing after the Sept. 11 World Trade Center terrorist attacks let go of hope yesterday, signing documents asking that their loved ones be declared dead.

They formed a heavy-hearted procession into a victim assistance center at Pier 94 on Manhattan's West Side, where volunteer lawyers helped nearly 300 families apply for death certificates yesterday.

Many journeyed toward an emotional goal, not a legal one. They carried manila folders bearing birth certificates and marriage licenses not because they wanted to obtain a government document, but because they needed help accepting a terrible reality.

Jeff Davidson, 32, applied for a death certificate for his brother, Mike, a 27-year-old trader at the hard-hit brokerage firm Cantor Fitzgerald.

"He wasn't just my brother, he was my best friend," Davidson said. "I'll never be able to go out to a restaurant, have a cigar or watch a football game with my brother. That's gone forever. How can a piece of paper help?"

Process is streamlined

City and state officials have teamed up to speed the process of obtaining death certificates for missing World Trade Center victims. Usually, a missing person's kin must wait three years before seeking a death declaration, which allows access to insurance benefits and bank accounts.

More than two weeks after the attack, only 300 people have been confirmed dead. Another 6,347 remain missing in the Trade Center rubble.

As the possibility that some bodies may never be recovered grows, several family members said they were seeking some type of proof that their loved ones are dead.

"It's terrible, but it's something we've got to do," said Matthew Sellitto of Harding Township, N.J., whose 23-year-old son worked for Cantor Fitzgerald. "My hope now is that I can bring a body home for a proper burial."

Other relatives saw the task as a sad but necessary formality.

"Life goes on. It's hard to say that, but that's a fact of life," said Clive Sohan of Hazlet, N.J., whose daughter, Astrid Sohan, 32, worked on the 95th floor of Tower One.

"We'll never forget it, but we have to ease the pain as we go on."

Many family members carried a copy of the missing-person flyers they had created in the days after the attack. The notices became bittersweet symbols of the hope for rescue that is now gone.

Inside the aid center, counselors and other volunteers guided relatives to a waiting area, where they took seats and numbers. Some people petted specially trained therapy dogs brought in to soothe nerves.

Then the family members were escorted to one of many tables set up in a large conference room. Separated by dividers, each relative or group of family members met for about 30 minutes with volunteer lawyers who helped them complete a petition asking a court for a death certificate.

Family members also signed affidavits swearing that the missing person worked at the Trade Center and had gone to work on the morning of the attacks.

Seeing the black-and-white words - New York State Death Certificate Request Form - was too much for some to bear.

Little form's big meaning

"It's emptiness, that's all it is," said Warren Fiedel, 54, whose daughter, Kristen Fiedel, 27, worked in the finance department of a Trade Center firm. "I'll never see my daughter again."

Lawyers fought off tears, too, saying that they tried to keep their composure to help victims through the process.

"It was very emotional," said attorney Pete Danias. "There was a box of tissues on my desk, and it definitely needed to be replenished."

For some, obtaining a death certificate was a pressing matter of making ends meet.

Melenia Gil, 40, a part-time nursing home aide from Washington Heights, relied on payments from her ex-husband to feed her two children, ages 11 and 16.

"It's very difficult, because he was the one who gave all the support to the children," said Gil, whose ex-husband, David Rodriguez, worked at the Windows on the World restaurant at the top of Tower One.

Computer technician Alfredo Bordenabe, 33, of Old Bridge, N.J., said he can't survive financially without the salary of his wife, Krystine, 33, a missing sales assistant for a Trade Center firm.

"We were just making it as it was on two salaries," said Bordenabe, whose wife was eight months pregnant with their first child.

"For me to make it alone, with all the bills coming in, that would be tough."

Hope still remains

William Wilson, 54, left Pier 94 in a daze. He had sought a death certificate for his wife, Cynthia Motus-Wilson, 53, who was a receptionist at the Trade Center. They married five years ago, after his first wife died of breast cancer.

"In a legal way, it's closure," said Wilson, an MTA car maintenance worker. "But without any body, it's hard for me to go forward."

Elizabeth Rivas, whose husband is missing, and her son, Alex Barragan, signed the forms, but didn't give up hope that Moises Rivas will be found alive.

"We want him to come home," said Barragan, Rivas' stepson, who wore a T-shirt printed with a "Wanted" poster for terror suspect Osama Bin Laden.

Hoping against hope, Barragan said that if Rivas were to be found alive, "I'm definitely going to the court to get rid of those papers."

The assistance center, located at W. 55th St. and the West Side Highway, is open daily from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. for consultations with the volunteer attorneys.

Too Big Too Understand, Mine: Gut wrenching story about Cantor-Fitzgerald," by Jim Reeve,

September 23, 2002, Fort Worth Star Telegram, "Too Big Too Understand, Mine: Gut wrenching story about Cantor-Fitzgerald," by Jim Reeve,

Reposted at Free Republic http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/530383/posts

It's "The Wall" that Stuart Fraser can't face right now.

Located in the company's crisis center in a conference room in New York's Pierre Hotel on Central Park, the wall is covered with photos. Each one represents a father, a mother, a friend, a brother, a sister, a son, a daughter.

They are people Fraser knew, people he loved, partners, people he hired, people he worked alongside of, some for almost 20 years.

More than 700 of them.

And they are gone.

Fraser, 40, is the majority owner of the Fort Worth Brahmas minor-league hockey team. More importantly, he is the co-chairman of Cantor Fitzgerald, the bond-market brokerage firm that was, for all intents and purposes, wiped out in last Tuesday's stunning terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.

"I can't look at that wall," Fraser said by phone late Saturday night. "It's too much to take in, with all those photos. But every now and then I'll accidentally glance up and see someone's picture I hadn't thought of, and realize that they perished, too."

Fraser had phoned in the middle of the night---it was almost 1 in the morning in New York---and he talked for the next hour-and-a-half. Time stopped having any meaning to him shortly before 9 Tuesday morning. Days and nights run together now.

He sleeps no more than two hours a night, exhausted emotionally and physically, but to stay in bed longer might be to dream, and he cannot face that possibility yet.

"My 10-year-old daughter, Samantha, came up to me the other day," he said. "She had tears in her eyes, and she said, 'Daddy, this is too big for me to understand.'"

"I told her, 'Honey, it's too big for me to understand, too.'"

So Fraser simply deals with life moment by moment, tick by tick, because everything changed forever last Tuesday morning when the television program he, his wife Elise and their three children were watching over breakfast suddenly switched to a special report. Horrified, Fraser heard for the first time that a plane had smashed into the 110-story north tower of the World Trade Center.

Cantor Fitzgerald, the company founded in 1945 by Fraser's uncle, Bernie Cantor, occupied five floors, 101-105, in that building.

"I don't even know what was on TV, maybe traffic reports or something, but whatever was on switched to the report, and suddenly I see the Trade Center and they're saying a plane flew into it," Fraser said. "I start looking...and I'm in shock.

"Little planes fly up and down the river all the time. Helicopters come pretty close. I've been up there for seven hurricanes. I wasn't there for the '93 bombing, but I was there the next day. But this...I knew almost instantly this was no accident."

Fraser should have been there that day. Normally he spent Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays in the Trade Center offices. But because of a business meeting scheduled in Westchester County, near his home, Tuesday morning, he'd gone into the office on Monday instead.

His partner and Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick, seen breaking down in multiple television interviews over the weekend, also survived. Lutnick was late arriving at the office because he took his 5-year-old son to his first day of school that morning.

"On Monday, for some reason, I walked around the whole office, all five floors," Fraser said. "I just wanted to talk to people, to see everyone."

It was a routine he'd once urged his Uncle Bernie, who died in 1996, to take up.

"I always encouraged him to walk around, because it gave people a charge," Fraser said. "He was a big guy and stood out and people enjoyed seeing him."

Cantor was a visionary who revolutionized the bond-market business and became a legend in the financial district. In 1945, when he wanted to open his own brokerage, the business was dominated by the Irish. There was serious doubt that a young Jewish businessman would be accepted.

Cantor persuaded an insurance company president named John Fitzgerald---he just happened to be Irish---to take 10 percent of the business and put his name alongside Cantor's on the company letterhead.

"On Monday I just enjoyed touching base with everybody," Fraser said. "It was a good day. Everyone was working hard."

Working hard meant making money at Cantor Fitzgerald, which did $40 trillion in business last year.

As Fraser helplessly watched the drama play out on TV---by now the second plane had hit the south tower---he realized that the first jet had crashed into the north tower somewhere beneath Cantor Fitzgerald's offices.

"I'm watching this thing and my cell phone beeped," he said. "It didn't ring, but it beeped. I wondered why I had a message.

"It was my secretary Lourdes. The time of the message was 8:55 a.m. She was almost whispering, her voice was husky and I could hear things in the background.

"She said in this raspy voice, 'Stuart, [it's] Lourdes...something hit the building. We can't get out. Please help us.'"

Goose bumps prickled Fraser's arms and the back of his neck.

"She'd worked for me for just over two years," he said. "Just a wonderful person. She didn't really have the qualifications when I hired her, but she had a personality I liked and she just got better, and better and better.

"I didn't know what to do. I was calling every number I knew at the offices and no one was answering. They'd shut down the tunnels and bridges into New York. I couldn't get there."

Lutnick did, racing to the entrance to the building and grabbing survivors as they emerged, asking them what floors they'd evacuated. The highest he got to was 91. Then the south tower came down and the force of the collapse blew him under a nearby truck.

"I knew when the first building fell, it was just a matter of time before ours would go, too," Fraser said. "I just hoped our people were getting out. It never occurred to me that the stairwells were compromised by the [first] plane.

"Then No. 1 came down and my life changed forever. I knew then that we'd lost considerable people. I had no idea it would be more than 700. We lost three of every four who worked for us in the World Trade Center."

None of those who were working that day and were in the company offices escaped. Among those lost was 37-year-old Eric Sand, brother to Fraser's wife Elise.

"He had phoned his house and his mother-in-law answered," Fraser said. "He told her, 'You'll see it tonight on the news. I'm on the way down.'

"Another partner had talked to his dad and told him 'I'm all right, we're evacuating.' People knew where the exits were. They knew how to get out. Some even had gas masks in their desks after the '93 bombing."

Twenty sets of brothers worked for Cantor Fitzgerald. They all died. More than 1,300 children lost a father or a mother.

"We've adopted more than 700 families and those children are ours now," Fraser said. "That's why this company has to survive. We have to take care of our family."

The Pierre Hotel offered the company free space for its crisis center. It has also provided food and others have rushed to help.

"Bellevue sent over counselors, rabbis, priests," Fraser said. "I've had employees who worked for us 10 years ago who have come back and said, 'Stuart, what can I do? I want to help. I want to work for you. I'll wash your car. Anything.' "We fired 20 people on Monday, just changing things. It saved 19 lives. One guy came back Tuesday morning for his check. He died. The other 19 have all come back saying they want to work for us again. We'll probably hire them back."

Fraser's main focus has been the families. The wives, the husbands, the children, the parents, all have come to him, asking what they should do next.

"I've sat with so many wives...it's the same concerns. Do I have to move? Do I have enough money? Do my kids have to go to a different school?

"We lost 700 leaders, good people," he said. "I'm in a tough business and these people worked hard and long hours. You're right there with them. You know more about these people than you want to know. You know when their wife is mad at them and when their kids are in trouble.

"Your relationships are intense. It really is like another family. That's what it takes to be successful on Wall Street. These were the leaders of their families, the ones their brothers and sisters went to, the ones who helped the parents out, the leaders in their communities. That's the kind of people we hired.

"Sometimes they didn't know everything about the business, but they were teachable and they wanted to learn and they did."

And then, in the blink of an eye, they vanished.

"People have been wonderful, offering everything. But what I need now is my people back. That's what I need most of all. So many names. So many people. So many wives, so many mothers, so many kids.

"I'm driving home from the crisis center [Friday] night, and I'm thinking, 'Stuart, can anything be worse than this?' And I think, yes, it's what my in-laws are going through. They lost a son. I don't think I could take it."

He's not even sure how he gets through each day. He does it because it's all he can do. The numbers ring constantly in his head: 700 families, 1,300 children.

"I know the enormity of it is going to hit me one day soon," he said. "I know it's going to be like hitting a wall. Right now it's just too big for me to comprehend.

"I've cried. I've cried plenty of times but never for a long time. I haven't let it all out. I can't. That's not my purpose now. It's not about me. It was never about me anyway."

There are times when Fraser stops for a moment and reaches for his cell phone. He listens, again, to Lourdes' message, the raspy voice, the plea for help, and his eyes fill with tears of frustration, tears of anger, tears of loss.

"I don't know," he said, "if I'll ever erase that message."

Then he puts it down and goes back to work. There is so much to do, so many to care for, so many to love.

For education and discussion purposes only.

"Trade Center bond firm is hit hard; 700 workers perished in Cantor's lofty headquarters," by Greg Gordon,

September 15, 2001, Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN), "Trade Center bond firm is hit hard; 700 workers perished in Cantor's lofty headquarters," by Greg Gordon, Staff Writer,

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-78352738.html


The bond traders at Cantor Fitzgerald, LP, were proud of their innovations, of their influence in moving billions of dollars in U.S. Treasury securities each year and of their perch atop the gleaming, 110-story World Trade Center.

In the north tower, where the firm had offices between the 101st and 105th floors, only the restaurant Windows on the World stood higher. The company's late founder, Bernard Cantor, for years boasted of having the world's highest museum, exhibiting some of his collection of Rodin sculptures outside his 105th-floor office, including a copy of "The Thinker."

The setting, said Mike McManus, who worked at Cantor for 10 years, "was magnificent ... There were days when the cloud cover was actually below you. There would be an overcast day in New York, but working at Cantor ... [you] had sun streaming through the windows. It was like you were on top of the world."

But in less than an hour Tuesday, Cantor's lofty headquarters operation perished. And absent a miracle in the search for survivors, so did about 700 company employees - one of the most staggering losses to a single firm from the terrorist attack that imploded both towers and killed thousands.

About 300 headquarters employees survived because they were absent by chance. Christopher Pepe, an employee of Cantor's eSpeed division, left the building minutes before the impact to go to Starbucks because he did not want to drink the office's "garbage coffee," McManus said. And chief executive officer Howard Lutnick got to work late because he had taken his son to his first day of kindergarten.

Each day since the attack, employees, friends and family members have gathered at the Pierre Hotel off Central Park to console each other, some clinging to hope, others beginning to grieve. In a closely guarded meeting area, they have mounted pictures of the missing employees on a wall in a giant collage, had sessions with counselors and cried together.

On Friday, Richard Murach was in tears as he stood outside the hotel and contemplated the loss of his 45-year-old brother, Robert - a husband, father of two young children and the senior vice president of Cantor's prestigious treasury department.

"He was a great guy. He turned lemons into lemonade ... so talented and humble, a brilliant guy," he said. "But his death is no bigger than [that of] the hot-dog vendor on the ground. Everybody's death is important."

He said family members are "looking for closure ... When we feel that we're over it, we start crying again and it makes you feel better. And then there's some hope, and you hold hands and you hug and you talk about it. And then you feel worse. It's a roller coaster that's going to go on for the rest of our lives."

Not since 8:50 a.m. Tuesday, two minutes after terrorists slammed a hijacked jetliner into the north tower 15 floors below, has anyone heard from the traders, executives and support personnel who were in Cantor's offices. With smoke pouring in from below, numerous Cantor employees spent those two minutes frantically phoning family members to say goodbye and "I love you," said McManus and other friends.

Fran LaForte, who is eight months pregnant, told friends that she dropped her kids off at school and returned to her suburban New Jersey home Tuesday morning to a taped farewell message from her husband, Michael. Lutnick told ABC News that his brother, Gary, made a similar call to their sister.

"He was stuck in a corner office," Lutnick said, describing his brother's message. "There was no way out. And the smoke was coming in and it is - it's not good, and ... he's not going to make it. And he just wanted to say that he loved her and wanted to say goodbye ... And then the phone went - the phone went dead," he said.

Lutnick said he arrived to find the building on fire and stood at the bottom, frantically questioning fleeing occupants as to what floor they had come from. The highest he heard was the 91st. Lutnick said that when the second plane hit, people began screaming and he turned and ran, but was knocked to the ground amid smoke and debris. After the buildings collapsed, he told ABC, he "just walked north" for hours.

Richard Murach said he has since learned that his brother was on the phone with his counterpart in London when the plane hit. "He knew something had happened. Then the phones went dead."

"We don't know ... if it went quick, if it was a fireball, if they had time to pray," he said. But even if the stairwell wasn't cut off by the crash, he said, "My brother, the type of guy he was, he would have hung around and helped somebody who needed help getting out."

McManus and another former employee, though, said Cantor's employees had little chance of survival even if the stairwell was accessible, given that the building collapsed within an hour.

When a terrorist bomb went off in the building's basement in 1993, McManus said, the stairs were so crowded that it took him two hours and five minutes to get down 105 floors. "It was a step at a time," he said.

Gary Ekelund, a former Cantor employee who works with McManus at a competing firm, said it took him 3 1/2 hours to get out in 1993. "The building [was] a death trap. Always has been," he said.

Ekelund, ironically, may owe his life to Cantor's innovation. When the firm shifted from voice trading to electronic trading in recent years, it reduced its Treasury securities trading staff from 500 to 40. Ekelund was among those laid off.

Cantor Fitzgerald, which had backup systems at offices in London and New Jersey, managed to resume trading Thursday and Lutnick vowed that "we will not allow this tragedy to sway us from our path. While we grieve, we intend to persevere."

But he also declared in TV interviews that he now has 700 families to take care of, and he initiated a donation program for the victims' families with a $1 million personal contribution.

Star-Tribune.com, "Bond firm in Trade Center tower loses 700 employees," by Greg Gordon,

September 14, 2001, Star-Tribune.com, "Bond firm in Trade Center tower loses 700 employees," by Greg Gordon,


http://www.startribune.com/world/11616111.html

http://www.startribune.com/templates/Print_This_Story?sid=11616111

September 14, 2001

NEW YORK -- The bond traders at Cantor Fitzgerald, LP, were proud of their innovations, of their influence in moving billions of dollars in U.S. Treasury securities each year and of their perch atop the gleaming, 110-story World Trade Center.

In the north tower, where the firm had offices between the 101st and 105th floors, only the restaurant Windows on the World stood higher. The company's late founder, Bernard Cantor, for years boasted of having the world's highest museum, exhibiting some of his collection of Rodin sculptures outside his 105th-floor office, including a copy of "The Thinker."

The setting, said Mike McManus, who worked at Cantor for 10 years, "was magnificent ... There were days when the cloud cover was actually below you. There would be an overcast day in New York, but working at Cantor ... [you] had sun streaming through the windows. It was like you were on top of the world."

But in less than an hour Tuesday, Cantor's lofty headquarters operation perished. And absent a miracle in the search for survivors, so did about 700 company employees -- one of the most staggering losses to a single firm from the terrorist attack that imploded both towers and killed thousands.

About 300 headquarters employees survived because they were absent by chance. Christopher Pepe, an employee of Cantor's eSpeed division, left the building minutes before the impact to go to Starbucks because he did not want to drink the office's "garbage coffee," McManus said. And chief executive officer Howard Lutnick got to work late because he had taken his son to his first day of kindergarten.

Each day since the attack, employees, friends and family members have gathered at the Pierre Hotel off Central Park to console each other, some clinging to hope, others beginning to grieve. In a closely guarded meeting area, they have mounted pictures of the missing employees on a wall in a giant collage, had sessions with counselors and cried together.

On Friday, Richard Murach was in tears as he stood outside the hotel and contemplated the loss of his 45-year-old brother, Robert -- a husband, father of two young children and the senior vice president of Cantor's prestigious treasury department.

"He was a great guy. He turned lemons into lemonade ... so talented and humble, a brilliant guy," he said. "But his death is no bigger than [that of] the hot-dog vendor on the ground. Everybody's death is important."

He said family members are "looking for closure ... When we feel that we're over it, we start crying again and it makes you feel better. And then there's some hope, and you hold hands and you hug and you talk about it. And then you feel worse. It's a roller coaster that's going to go on for the rest of our lives."

Not since 8:50 a.m. Tuesday, two minutes after terrorists slammed a hijacked jetliner into the north tower 15 floors below, has anyone heard from the traders, executives and support personnel who were in Cantor's offices. With smoke pouring in from below, numerous Cantor employees spent those two minutes frantically phoning family members to say goodbye and "I love you," said McManus and other friends.

Fran LaForte, who is eight months pregnant, told friends that she dropped her kids off at school and returned to her suburban New Jersey home Tuesday morning to a taped farewell message from her husband, Michael. Lutnick told ABC News that his brother, Gary, made a similar call to their sister.

"He was stuck in a corner office," Lutnick said, describing his brother's message. "There was no way out. And the smoke was coming in and it is -- it's not good, and ... he's not going to make it. And he just wanted to say that he loved her and wanted to say goodbye ... And then the phone went -- the phone went dead," he said.

Lutnick said he arrived to find the building on fire and stood at the bottom, frantically questioning fleeing occupants as to what floor they had come from. The highest he heard was the 91st. Lutnick said that when the second plane hit, people began screaming and he turned and ran, but was knocked to the ground amid smoke and debris. After the buildings collapsed, he told ABC, he "just walked north" for hours.

Richard Murach said he has since learned that his brother was on the phone with his counterpart in London when the plane hit. "He knew something had happened. Then the phones went dead."

"We don't know ... if it went quick, if it was a fireball, if they had time to pray," he said. But even if the stairwell wasn't cut off by the crash, he said, "My brother, the type of guy he was, he would have hung around and helped somebody who needed help getting out."

McManus and another former employee, though, said Cantor's employees had little chance of survival even if the stairwell was accessible, given that the building collapsed within an hour.

When a terrorist bomb went off in the building's basement in 1993, McManus said, the stairs were so crowded that it took him two hours and five minutes to get down 105 floors. "It was a step at a time," he said.

Gary Ekelund, a former Cantor employee who works with McManus at a competing firm, said it took him 3½ hours to get out in 1993. "The building [was] a death trap. Always has been," he said.

Ekelund, ironically, may owe his life to Cantor's innovation. When the firm shifted from voice trading to electronic trading in recent years, it reduced its Treasury securities trading staff from 500 to 40. Ekelund was among those laid off.

Cantor Fitzgerald, which had backup systems at offices in London and New Jersey, managed to resume trading Thursday and Lutnick vowed that "we will not allow this tragedy to sway us from our path. While we grieve, we intend to persevere."

But he also declared in TV interviews that he now has 700 families to take care of, and he initiated a donation program for the victims' families with a $1 million personal contribution.

-- Greg Gordon is at ggordon@mcclatchydc.com .

"Take a Number: The Sept. 11 Fund Mediator, Putting a Dollar Sign on Death's Toll," by Lena H. Sun,

March 11 ,2002, Washington Post, "Take a Number: The Sept. 11 Fund Mediator, Putting a Dollar Sign on Death's Toll," by Lena H. Sun, Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 11, 2002; Page C01

I found this reposted at tampabaycoalition. The original Washington Post article is protected by a Robots.txt Query Exclusion.

We're sorry, access to http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5376-2002Mar10.html has been blocked by the site owner via robots.txt.

What the fuck is up with that? Was it Feinberg's role as an arbiter in deciding that the federal government should pay the heirs of Abraham Zapruder $16 million for his film of President Kennedy's assassination?



Patrick Cartier, wearing a dark blue windbreaker and jeans, stands up from his chair, clutching a sheaf of charts. His son, James, a 26-year-old electrician, died in the World Trade Center. The charts say the federal government would pay Cartier about $320,000, valuing his son's working life at $8,000 a year.

"How do you justify that?" Cartier asks, his voice quavering.

Moments later, his daughter, Jennie Farrell, chimes in. They are addressing a man at the front of this Manhattan auditorium, a man she accuses of reneging on his promise to help the families of Sept. 11.

"Obviously, you have not done a good job," she says. "This plan is hurtful to the families and insulting. It's like salt on an open wound."

The man under attack is Kenneth Feinberg, special master of the federal fund set up by Congress to compensate the injured and families of those killed in the terrorist attacks. Feinberg's job is to put a dollar value on the lives of the deceased, with the size of the awards based largely on lost earning power. His mathematics of loss also include a payment of $250,000 to cover the pain and suffering of those who perished.

That calculation infuriates Steve Campbell, a New York City police officer whose 31-year-old wife died.

"Your offer spits on my wife, spits on my son, on my father-in-law," shouts Campbell from the far side of the room. Jumping to his feet, jabbing his arm at Feinberg, he adds: "I gotta watch my mother-in-law and father-in-law pop pills. My son, who now I gotta rely on family stories to tell him about his mother -- and you say $250,000? You ain't even close."

Other angry voices chime in.

"Hold it, hold it," Feinberg says, raising both hands to signal for calm.

Near the front sits a woman in a black blouse. Her husband worked at the big bond-trading firm Cantor Fitzgerald LP, which lost 658 of its 1,000 employees when the twin towers collapsed. She becomes increasingly frustrated as the meeting goes on.

"I have a 14-year-old just out of the hospital for five days," she begins, before breaking down in tears. "I have a 3-year-old that cries every single night, and hits herself! How dare you stand up there and give ridiculous and insulting remarks -- and guidelines -- and put them to us. How dare you!"

Feinberg's face is solemn. He is wearing a black, pinstriped Brioni suit, white shirt with French cuffs and a gray tie. He is waiting for her to finish, arms by his side. This meeting of about 20 people is one of more than 30 sessions that he will have with families of victims in a dozen cities across the country. In each, he must convince the families to trust him and see that the plan he has devised is fair.

The meetings in the New York area have been the toughest. At gatherings like this one in mid-January, the family members express themselves more freely, and the emotions are particularly raw.

"I'm trying to do my best," he tells the woman. His voice is low, his tone respectful.

The woman is not done.

"I'd like to see you, and your family, and your children, in our situation," she says between sobs. In the audience, one person, then two or three more, start to clap.

Saturday Sanctuary

Glorious sounds flow from the seven speakers in Feinberg's music room. On Saturday afternoons, this custom-built chamber in his Bethesda house is where he retreats for the live radio broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera. It is the highlight of his week.

Feinberg, wearing khakis and a navy shirt, settles his six-foot frame into a comfortable armchair, legs outstretched over the ottoman. At 56, he is a supremely confident Washington lawyer whose line of work is resolving high-profile disputes. Feinberg believes his personality makes him a natural for the job.

"You have to be optimistic," explains Feinberg, who speaks in punchy sentences, and has a thick Boston accent. "You have to be on. You have to be assertive. You have to be convinced that there's a way to get it settled."

But in this room, with its acoustic wallpaper and surround-sound and thousands of indexed CDs in built-in wooden drawers, Feinberg doesn't have to be on. This is where he comes to indulge his passion for classical music and opera and tune everything else out. His wife and three grown children rarely venture into this sanctuary.

None of the victims' families can reach him here.

Today's opera is Rossini's light and frothy "Barber of Seville." The bass launches into "La calumnia," one of the opera's better-known arias. Feinberg joins in.

The aria is a catchy riff about the way a rumor grows, first soft, then louder, then out of control. The bass is singing higher and higher, and when he reaches the climax, the audience bursts into applause. Feinberg sits back in his chair, his shoulders relaxed.

For Feinberg, the pressures are enormous. Since Attorney General John Ashcroft appointed him special master of the Sept. 11 federal victims compensation fund -- a job he is doing without pay -- he has needed his music room more than ever. Since he first drafted the regulations in December, Feinberg has faced an endless barrage from victims' families, accusing him of being unfair and unfeeling.

Even after he released final rules last week that would substantially boost awards, many families are disappointed and still not sure what they will do.

Feinberg has broad authority to make decisions about the fund, estimated to cost taxpayers about $6 billion, but no power to change some of the ground rules established by Congress. The families hate some of those rules, such as the requirement that life insurance be deducted from final awards.

But their options aren't good. Those who elect to go with his plan give up their right to sue. Under his plan, families would receive awards ranging from several hundred thousand dollars up to $4 million, and in some very rare cases, more. If they sue, they must prove the airlines were at fault -- a process that could take years. The government also has capped the liability of the airlines, meaning the families have no guarantee they'll see more money down the road. And then there's the lawyers' fees.

To Feinberg, that uncertain future means the families have only one viable option -- the federal fund, for which he is the final arbiter. Whether they take the payouts could have as much to do with their trust in Ken Feinberg as with the final numbers.

He has mediated many complicated and emotional disputes, but this has been the most difficult. The trauma, so recent and visible, makes every step fraught with emotion. He has become the lightning rod for the families' anger and grief. After weeks of meetings, the pace and intensity are taking a toll.

At one session with about 700 people from Cantor Fitzgerald, his face drained and he became queasy. Cantor chief executive Howard Lutnick helped him sit down and drink a glass of water. He has told close friends how difficult it was for him to reply when a questioner at another meeting wanted to know whether to file one claim or two for his wife, who was eight months pregnant when she died.

His sleep, already at a minimum because of his longtime habit of rising at 4 a.m., is even less restful. Trying to relax, he read a novel for the first time in years. And at every spare moment, he turns to classical music. He tries to fit his work schedule around concerts in New York and Washington. When he is home, he closes himself in the music room, alone with Mahler, Bruckner and Wagner.

The Brockton Barrister

Feinberg likes a good fight. He's proud of being born in Brockton, Mass., a working-class town and the birthplace of boxing champ Rocky Marciano, and he travels frequently to see big fights in Las Vegas.

His father was a tire salesman. His mother worked as a bookkeeper. Kenny was a smart student who didn't apply himself until college. But from an early age, he loved to perform in front of a crowd. He did comedy skits for grammar school talent shows and starred in his high school plays.

Feinberg graduated from the University of Massachusetts in 1967 and received a deferment from his draft board to attend law school at New York University. After graduation, he became a federal prosecutor in Manhattan, where he met Diane Shaff, a stockbroker, on a blind date.

Feinberg did not make the best first impression on his date. He called to say he might be delayed because he would be in a meeting with then-Watergate special prosecutor Leon Jaworski. He showed up more than two hours late. But his charm and insistence won her over.

"I had never met anyone with that much personality," she says.

They married and moved to Washington. In 1975, Feinberg joined the staff of the Senate Judiciary Committee, then chaired by Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass). Dede, as Diane is known, raised their children -- Michael, 25, Leslie, 23, and Andrew, 19. Feinberg would often get home late, bearing jelly beans for the kids who were already in bed. Sometimes, he would wake them up early in the morning -- when he got up -- so he could play with them and tell them stories about make-believe relatives, such as their Native American grandfather, Blue Moon Feinberg.

As special counsel to the committee and administrative assistant to Kennedy, Feinberg was part of a group of bright, young lawyers that included future Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer and future hotshot litigator David Boies. He thrived in that atmosphere, earning bipartisan respect that would help him later in his career, and made lasting friendships with people like Breyer and Kennedy.

After five years on the Hill, Feinberg joined the New York law firm of Kaye, Scholastic, Fierman, Hays & Handler, eventually opening its Washington office. In 1984, a longtime mentor, U.S. District Court Judge Jack Weinstein, appointed Feinberg to be one of three mediators in the Agent Orange product liability case, forever changing Feinberg's career. In six weeks, the mediators hammered out a $180 million settlement between several manufacturers of the chemical defoliant and tens of thousands of eligible Vietnam veterans.

"I went from being a Washington lawyer who had opened a Washington office of Kaye, Scholer, to overnight, people calling me, 'Will you mediate my case? Will you mediate my case?' " Feinberg says. "And that was it."

In 1993, Feinberg opened his own alternative dispute resolution practice, the Feinberg Group, with offices in Washington and New York. There are five other lawyers, including his younger brother David.

Although he has lived in Washington for nearly three decades, some of his strongest ties are to Brockton and former classmates. Tony Dorn, a shoe business executive, goes with him to see professional boxing. Barry Koretz, who has known him since first grade, is the architect who designed Feinberg's music room and is building his summer house on Martha's Vineyard. In his will, Feinberg bequeaths his CD collection to the Brockton public library.

In the last several weeks, old friends from Brockton have received e-mails from Feinberg's office letting them know when he is appearing on television.

"Ken wants to know," says Koretz, "how is it playing in Brockton."

Seeking Solutions

A wall in Ken Feinberg's Washington office is a showcase of some of his high points. There are framed newspaper articles about the Agent Orange settlement, the nomination of Breyer to the Supreme Court, and his role as an arbiter in deciding that the federal government should pay the heirs of Abraham Zapruder $16 million for his film of President Kennedy's assassination.

The newest addition is a large silver frame that encloses news from his current assignment: editorials from The Washington Post, the New York Times and the New York Daily News, praising his plan to compensate the Sept. 11 victims.

In the small field of high-profile dispute resolution, Feinberg is one of the most prominent practitioners. He's handled hundreds of such cases in the last 15 years -- more than anyone else in the country, he claims -- and boasts a success rate of better than 90 percent. Lawyers who know his work praise his consummate political instincts, his ability to zero in on the nub of the issue, and his enormous energy.

Even when he has been hired by one party in a case, he has been able to win the trust of the other parties as someone they can work with to reach an overall settlement.

Feinberg is also admired by other mediators for the high fees he earns. Unlike most mediators, who charge by the hour, Feinberg typically receives monthly retainers and performance bonuses. In big cases, his fees are in the six and seven figures.

"It's for the value that he delivers in solving these large problems," says Eric Green, a Boston mediator who helped broker the deal between Microsoft and the Justice Department. Green charges up to $9,000 a day, but has been lectured by Feinberg about "how foolishly I charge."

Unlike some mediators, who do not want to express an opinion about what the outcome should be, Feinberg has no such hesitation. He has tremendous confidence in his ability to move people to where he thinks the zone of agreement should be.

"He has a quality of self-assurance that is formidable," says Judith Vladeck, an attorney who represented Suffolk County, N.Y., ratepayers in a controversial case involving the 1989 shutdown of the Long Island Lighting Co.'s Shoreham nuclear power plant.

"I would have liked to have punched him out a lot of times," Vladeck recalls. But in the end, she says, he was very effective.

Feinberg's approach has not always won unanimous praise. He was unsuccessful in settling asbestos cases in Baltimore in the early 1990s, and in the recent case involving Monsanto Co. and PCB dumping in Alabama.

As special master for the Sept. 11 victims fund, Feinberg is choosing to meet directly with the families, a strategy that more cautious mediators would have avoided. Given the emotions involved, others might have chosen to closet themselves in a courtroom and communicate only with lawyers representing victims.

"Here he's talking to individual claimants, and that's a very commendable act because they're not lawyers and there's a risk he will be misinterpreted," says Francis McGovern, a Duke University law professor who is an expert on accidents or injuries involving many victims.

But the same qualities that make Feinberg an effective mediator and a popular adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law School have a negative side. With the Sept. 11 families, his self-assurance and dispassionate analysis are sometimes perceived as arrogance and insensitivity.

"If you're hurting and you've lost a loved one and you've got all this personal grief, that same confidence and brass that sees him through a lot of cases may rub people the wrong way," says Green, who watched an emotional televised meeting in Staten Island between Feinberg and families.

The Next Meeting

Feinberg is driving his leased black Jaguar Vanden Plas through the evening rush hour. Next to him on the console are half a dozen of his prized Cuban cigars, Hoyo de Monterrey Double Coronas, which he is not allowed to smoke at home.

He has just returned to Washington after the emotional session in Manhattan. Now there's a meeting with Pentagon families at the Sheraton Crystal City. It will be his third today.

Feinberg knows the job is testing his emotional endurance. He knows his role as a lawyer is much less important than what he could offer as a rabbi or shrink. But he thinks expressions of sympathy from him may seem insincere and send a false and ultimately cruel message to the families: that he will award them a million dollars each for pain and suffering.

So he is trying to make the personal connections, without showing too much emotion.

"It's very important that you level with these people, and you tell them here's what I can do, and here's what I can't do," he says. "And I think they respect you for that."

With no time for dinner, he wolfs down handfuls of candy -- Swedish Fish and Good & Plenty. Less than an hour before the 7 p.m. meeting, he drives from Reagan National Airport to his downtown office to pick up office manager Camille Biros, who has the handouts for tonight's meeting.

That leaves him 15 minutes to get back to Virginia. As they speed along the George Washington Memorial Parkway, Feinberg muses out loud about which way to go. The last time he met with these families at the same hotel, he got lost.

Biros, a longtime aide, makes a suggestion. Feinberg drives in silence. Highway signs draw closer. "Now if we got out here . . ." he says to himself. He makes a turn, then a few more. Is he lost?

"Trust me," he replies, steering the car smoothly onto Crystal City's Eads Street. Looming ahead is the Sheraton, its name in big red neon letters on top of the building.

The Journal News and Poughkeepsie Journal archives: Sikorsky to Zuccala

September 11 remembrance

Sept. 11 remembrance coverage

Photo fd.sikorsky.jpg
Name Greg Sikorsky
County Rockland
Community Wesley Hills
Age 34
Employer NYC Fire Department
Position Firefighter
Background He also was a 16-year volunteer with the HiIllcrest Fire Co. After his death, family and friends from the Hillcrest Fire Department, where he volunteered, completed the restoration of a 1939 Mack fire truck, a job left unfinished when he died.
Where Died World Trade Center
Family Wife, Marie, and son Steve; father, George Sr., and brothers George Jr., Perry and Ken.
Story Sikorsky.pdf
Details
Sept. 11 remembrance coverage

Photo cv.silver.jpg
Name David Silver
County Westchester
Community New Rochelle
Age 35
Employer Cantor Fitzgerald
Position Vice President, eSpeed division
Background His wife, Holli, was expecting the couple's second child in Oct.
Where Died Tower 1
Family Wife Holli, daughter Rachel.
Story Silver.pdf
Details
Sept. 11 remembrance coverage

Photo west.memorial.jpg
Name Michael John Simon
County Westchester
Community Harrington Park, N.J.
Age 40
Employer Cantor Fitzgerald
Position Energies Futures Trader
Background He attended the Resurrection Church in Rye and graduated from Rye County Day School in 1979. An athlete, he excelled in ice hockey, lacrosse, tennis and gold. He also completed a cross-country bicycling trip from Seattle to Geneva.
Where Died 105th floor, Tower 1
Family Wife, Eileen; three children, Brittany Radcliffe, Michael John Jr., and Tyler Ingram; brother Scott Simon; parents Charles and Peggyann Simon of Rye.
Story Simon.pdf
Details
Sept. 11 remembrance coverage

Photo rockmemorial.jpg
Name Arthur Simon
County Rockland
Community Thiells
Age 57
Employer Fred Alger Management
Position Vice President and equities trader
Background His son, Kenneth Simon, worked 11 floors below his father and also died in the attack.
Where Died 93rd floor, North Tower
Family Wife, Susan and children, Jennifer, Mandy and Todd.
Story ASimon.pdf
Details
Sept. 11 remembrance coverage

Photo rockmemorial.jpg
Name Kenneth Simon
County Rockland
Community New Jersey
Age 34
Employer Cantor Fitzgerald
Position Equities Trader
Background His father, Arthur Simon, also died in the attack.
Where Died 104th floor, North Tower
Family Wife, Karen, daughter Maya Rose, his mother, Susan and siblings, Jennifer, Mandy and Todd.
Story KSimon.pdf
Details
Sept. 11 remembrance coverage

Photo cv.sinton.jpg
Name Thomas Sinton III
County Westchester
Community Croton
Age 44
Employer Cantor Fitzgerald
Position Senior Vice President, Government Bond Options
Background His wife described her husband as a down-to-earth man who loved hiking and boating with her and his daughter.
Where Died 105th floor, Tower 1
Family Wife Cathy Carilli, daughter Alexandra.
Story Sinton.pdf
Details

September 11 remembrance

Sept. 11 remembrance coverage

Photo cv.smith.cathy.jpg
Name Cathy Smith
County Rockland
Community West Haverstraw
Age 44
Employer Marsh & McLennan
Position Divisional Vice President
Background She was planning to take the first steps to turn her lifetime hobby of collecting baseball cards into a business, which she eventually hoped to do full-time.
Where Died 96th floor, Tower 1
Family Mother Annette, brother Vincent, sister Barbara Schielzo and life partner Elba Cedeno.
Story Smith.pdf
Details
Sept. 11 remembrance coverage

Photo cv.snell.jpg
Name Rochelle Monique Snell
County Westchester
Community Mount Vernon
Age 24
Employer The Regus Co.
Position Administrative Assistant
Background Snell was of Jamaican descent. Her family moved to Mount Vernon when she was young.
Where Died 93rd floor, Tower 2
Family Sister Shala D'Aguilar.
Story Snell.pdf
Details
Sept. 11 remembrance coverage

Photo fd.spear.jpg
Name Robert W. Spear Jr.
County Rockland
Community Valley Cottage
Age 30
Employer NYC Fire Department
Position Firefighter, Engine Co. 50, Ladder Co, 19
Background He served in the Army’s 82nd Airborne as a paratrooper. At 29, he fulfilled a dream of becoming a New York City firefighter.
Where Died World Trade Center
Family Wife, Lorraine, mother Irene and his sisters Amy Haviland, Barbara Keane and Christine Vollkommer. His brother-in-law, Timothy Haviland, also died at the Trade Center.
Story Spear.pdf
Details
Sept. 11 remembrance coverage

Photo west.memorial.jpg
Name Robert Speisman
County Westchester
Community Irvington
Age 47
Employer Lazar Kaplan International
Position Executive Vice President
Background He was on board American Airlines Boeing 757 when it crashed into the Pentagon at 9:45 a.m. setting a portion of the building on fire.
Where Died American Airlines Flight 77
Family
Story Speisman.pdf
Details
Sept. 11 remembrance coverage

Photo west.memorial.jpg
Name Frank Spinelli
County Westchester
Community Short Hills, N.J.
Age 44
Employer Cantor Fitzgerald
Position Foreign Exchange Broker
Background His wife Michelle, a dental hygienist, grew up in Hastings-on-Hudson, and lived with her husband in Hartsdale for a short time after they married in 1979.
Where Died World Trade Center
Family Wife Michelle Mitrione Spinelli; sister-in-law Patricia Bova of Dobbs Ferry; children.
Story Spinelli.pdf
Details
Sept. 11 remembrance coverage

Photo fd.spor.jpg
Name Joseph P. Spor
County Westchester
Community Somers
Age 35
Employer NYC Fire Department
Position Firefighter, Rescue 3
Background Joseph Spor was one of the first firefighters to respond to the disaster.
Where Died World Trade Center
Family Wife, four children, sister Catherine Vandrew.
Story Spor.pdf
Details

September 11 remembrance

Sept. 11 remembrance coverage

Photo cv.staub.jpg
Name Craig Staub
County Rockland
Community Basking Ridge, N.J.
Age 30
Employer Keefe, Bruyette & Woods
Position Senior Vice President
Background Staub's wife is is a graduate of Clarkstown South High School.
Where Died 89th, Tower 2
Family Wife Stacey, daugter Juliette. His wife is originally from Bardonia, where her parents, Leslie and Barry Bransky, still live.
Story Staub.pdf
Details
Sept. 11 remembrance coverage

Photo west.memorial.jpg
Name Stanford Stoller
County Westchester
Community Brooklyn
Age 53
Employer Accenture Corp.
Position
Background
Where Died 94th floor, Tower 1
Family He is survived by a cousin, Robin Kanter of Yorktown.
Story Stoller.pdf
Details
Sept. 11 remembrance coverage

Photo west.memorial.jpg
Name Timothy Stout
County Westchester
Community Dobbs Ferry
Age 42
Employer Cantor Fitzgerald
Position Quality Assurance Analyst
Background He lived in Irvington for 10 years before moving to Dobbs Ferry. He held a masters degree from Manhattanville College.
e was a graduate of the University of New Hampshire, held a masters degree from Manhattanville College, and was an avid runner

Where Died World Trade Center
Family Wife Maryellen Fanelli Stout and children Timothy Jr., Matthew and Shannon.
Story Stout.pdf
Details
Sept. 11 remembrance coverage

Photo west.memorial.jpg
Name Robert Sutcliffe Jr.
County Westchester
Community Huntington
Age 39
Employer Harvey Young Yurman Inc.
Position Broker
Background Robert Sutcliff was the son-in-law of Thomas and Mary Murtagh of Scarsdale.
Where Died World Trade Center
Family Wife Margaret, daughter Kara Patricia.
Story Sutcliffe.pdf
Details
Sept. 11 remembrance coverage

Photo cv.swaine.jpg
Name John F. Swaine
County Westchester
Community Larchmont
Age 35
Employer Cantor Fitzgerald
Position Corporate Bond Broker
Background He was a communicant at Saints John and Paul Church and enjoyed spending time at Orienta Beach Club. His brother-in-law, John Reo of Larchmont, also died in the attack.
Where Died Tower 1
Family Wife Suzanne; three daughters Sarah, Emily, and Hannah.
Story Swaine.pdf
Details
Sept. 11 remembrance coverage

Photo fd.tallon.jpg
Name Sean Patrick Tallon
County Westchester
Community Yonkers
Age 26
Employer NYC Fire Department
Position Firefighter
Background A former U.S. Marine, he had recently come back from a nine-day vacation in Ireland with his Irish-born parents, where he drove 1,500 miles across the country visiting family
Where Died World Trade Center
Family Sister Rosaleen DaRos of Riverdale.
Story Tallon.pdf
Details

September 11 remembrance

Sept. 11 remembrance coverage

Photo west.memorial.jpg
Name Michael Andrew Tamuccio
County Westchester
Community Pelham Manor
Age 37
Employer Fred Alger Management
Position Vice President/Equities Trading
Background Tamuccio, who grew up on Long Island, loved sports, and played softball and ice hockey. He was a wrestler in high school and a Yankees fan.
Where Died 93rd floor, Tower 1
Family Wife Kathleen Horner, a native of Mamaroneck.
Story Tamuccio.pdf
Details
Sept. 11 remembrance coverage

Photo west.memorial.jpg
Name Kenichiro Tanaka
County Westchester
Community Rye Brook
Age 57
Employer Fuju Bank
Position General Manager/Corporate Banking Division
Background Born in Tokyo, Tanaka worked for Fuji Bank for 29 years, coming to New York City two years ago after serving two-year stays in both Toronto and Chicago.
Where Died 78th floor, Tower 2
Family Wife Noriko Tanaka; three children: Sumika, Mizuki, and Eugene, 12.
Story Tanaka.pdf
Details
Sept. 11 remembrance coverage

Photo poughmemorial.jpg
Name Paul Tegtimeier
County Dutchess
Community Hyde Park
Age 41
Employer NYC Fire Department
Position Firefighter
Background A life-long native of Hyde Park, he volunteered for the Roosevelt Fire District.
Where Died World Trade Center
Family Wife, Cathi, and their two children, Aric and Andrea, mother, brother, two sisters.
Story Tegtmeier.pdf
Details
Sept. 11 remembrance coverage

Photo rockmemorial.jpg
Name Joseph Trombino
County Rockland
Community Brooklyn
Age 68
Employer Brinks
Position Guard
Background He lost the use of one arm when he was wounded in the 1981 Brinks robbery in Nanuet. On Sept. 11, still on the job, he was waiting for other Brinks guards in the basement of one of the WTC towers at the time of the attacks.
Where Died World Trade Center
Family Although he never lived in Rockland and has no known relatives here, he is inexorably part of the county’s history.
Story Trombino.pdf
Details
Sept. 11 remembrance coverage

Photo rockmemorial.jpg
Name Loretta A. Vero
County Rockland
Community Nanuet
Age 51
Employer American Express
Position Travel Agent
Background Vero grew up in the Bronx, but had lived in Rockland since 1986.
Where Died World Trade Center
Family Mother, Marion Paolo, sisters Catherine Pederson of Midland Park, N.J. and Susan Ballestero of New Jersey and fiance Stephen Anthony of New Jersey. The wedding was planned for Dec. 14, 2001.
Story Vero.pdf
Details
Sept. 11 remembrance coverage

Photo west.memorial.jpg
Name Joanna Vidal
County Westchester
Community Yonkers
Age 26
Employer Risk Waters Group
Position Event Coordinator
Background Vidal was attending a conference at the Windows on the World restaurant when one of the hijacked planes hit Tower 1.
Where Died Tower 1
Family Parents Enrique and Lesbia of Yonkers.
Story Vidal.pdf
Details

September 11 remembrance

Sept. 11 remembrance coverage

Photo rockmemorial.jpg
Name Benjamin Walker
County Rockland
Community Airmont
Age 41
Employer Marsh & McLennan
Position Worked for the Guy Carpenter subsidiary
Background He coached baseball and soccer, which he learned in his native England. He coached players for both Hal Block Soccer and Ramapo Little League.
Where Died 94th floor, Tower 1
Family Wife Laura, children, Henry, Christopher and Samantha; parents, Mary and David Walker of England, and sisters, Jane, Ruth and Ann Marie.
Story Walker.pdf
Details
Sept. 11 remembrance coverage

Photo fd.walz.jpg
Name Jeffrey Patrick Walz
County Westchester
Community Tuckahoe
Age 37
Employer NYC Fire Department
Position Firefighter, Ladder 9, East Village
Background Walz grew up in Staten Island, along with many of his firefighter friends.
Where Died World Trade Center
Family Wife Rani; son Bradley; parents, Raymond, a former New York City firefighter, and Jennie Walz.
Story Walz.pdf
Details
Sept. 11 remembrance coverage

Photo rockmemorial.jpg
Name Weibin Wang
County Rockland
Community Orangeburg
Age 41
Employer Cantor Fitzgerald
Position Financial analyst
Background He was born in Guilin in southwest China and immigrated to the United States in 1987. He also was a geophysicist and earned his Ph.D. in seismology at Lamont Doherty.
Where Died 103rd floor, Tower 1
Family Wife Wen Shi, and their children Raymond, Richard and Marina; father Zhengjie Wang.
Story Wang.pdf
Details
Sept. 11 remembrance coverage

Photo rockmemorial.jpg
Name Steven Weinberg
County Rockland
Community New City
Age 41
Employer Baseline (Thomson Financial)
Position Accounting Manager
Background Weinberg grew up in the Long Island community of North Bellmore and moved to New City eigh years before his death.
Where Died 78th floor, Tower 2
Family Wife, Laurie, and children, Lindsay, Samuel and Jason.
Story Weinberg.pdf
Details
Sept. 11 remembrance coverage

Photo fd.welty.jpg
Name Timothy Matthew Welty
County Westchester
Community Yonkers
Age 34
Employer NYC Fire Department
Position Firefighter, Squad 288, Queens
Background Timothy Welty was studying mechanical engineering before joining the Fire Department in 1993.
Where Died Tower 2
Family Wife Delia, son Jake, daughter Julia born a month after her father's death.
Story Welty.pdf
Details
Sept. 11 remembrance coverage

Photo cv.wholey.jpg
Name Michael Wholey
County Rockland
Community Westwood, N.J.
Age 34
Employer Port Authority of NY-NJ
Position Police Officer
Background He graduated from both Clarkstown South High School and SUNY Albany. He grew up in Clarkstown and his parents live in Stony Point. His name is on the Rockland County memorial dedicated to officers killed in the line of duty.
Where Died World Trade Center
Family Wife, Jennifer; their three children, Meagan, Erin and Patrick; his parents, Michael and Margaret Wholey of Stony Point; three sisters; and a brother.
Story Wholey.pdf
Details

September 11 remembrance

Sept. 11 remembrance coverage

Photo west.memorial.jpg
Name William J. Wik
County Westchester
Community Crestwood
Age 44
Employer Aon Risk Management
Position Assistant Director and insurance broker
Background He was apparently helping evacuate Tower 2, said his wife, Kathleen Wik.
Where Died Tower 2
Family Wife Kathleen, children Tricia, Katie and Danny; parents Carol and the late Raphael J. Wik Jr.
Story Wik.pdf
Details
Sept. 11 remembrance coverage

Photo west.memorial.jpg
Name Cynthia Motus Wilson
County Westchester
Community Bronx
Age 43
Employer International Office Centers
Position Head receptionist
Background The couple had been regular worshippers at Holy Trinity Church in Mamaroneck since 1998.
Where Died World Trade Center
Family Husband William.
Story Wilson.pdf
Details
Sept. 11 remembrance coverage

Photo cv.woods.jpg
Name James Woods
County Rockland
Community Manhattan
Age 26
Employer Cantor Fitzgerald
Position
Background Woods was a graduate of Nanuet High School. His parents live in Pearl River and his sister Eileen teaches English at Suffern High School
Where Died 104th floor, Tower 1
Family Parents John and Joyce Woods and sister Eileen.
Story Woods.pdf
Details
Sept. 11 remembrance coverage

Photo fd.wooley.jpg
Name David Wooley
County Rockland
Community Nanuet
Age 53
Employer NYC Fire Department
Position Captain, Ladder 4, Midtown
Background Wooley also operated a part-time wallpaper and painting business called The Perfect Match.
Where Died Tower 1
Family Wife, Linda, and children, David and Stacy.
Story Wooley.pdf
Details
Sept. 11 remembrance coverage

Photo cv.yambem.jpg
Name Jupiter Yambem
County Dutchess
Community Beacon
Age 41
Employer Windows on the World
Position Banquet Manager
Background His wife, Nancy, worked for eight years at the Rockland Taylor House at the Rockland Psychiatric Center in Orangeburg.
Where Died World Trade Center
Family Wife Nancy and son Santi.
Story Yambem.pdf
Details
Sept. 11 remembrance coverage

Photo west.memorial.jpg
Name Marc Scott Zeplin
County Westchester
Community West Harrison
Age 33
Employer Cantor Fitzgerald
Position Sales Equity Tader
Background He moved his young family from a cramped, two-bedroom apartment in New York City to a home they built in West Harrison in late June.
Where Died 104th floor, Tower 1
Family Wife Debra, children Ryan and Ethan.
Story Zeplin.pdf
Details

September 11 remembrance

Sept. 11 remembrance coverage

Photo west.memorial.jpg
Name Ivelin Ziminski
County Westchester
Community Tarrytown
Age 40
Employer Marsh & McLennan
Position
Background
Where Died World Trade Center
Family
Story
Details
Sept. 11 remembrance coverage

Photo peekskill.mem.jpg
Name Joseph Zuccala
County Westchester
Community Croton
Age 52
Employer
Position Banking Consultant
Background
Where Died World Trade Center
Family
Story Zuccala.pdf
Details