Today marks 12 years since two airplanes smashed into the World Trade Center. Twelve years since another plane crashed into the Pentagon and a fourth crashed in a Pennsylvania field. Twelve years since thousands of innocent U.S. citizens died in the worst terror attack in the nation’s history.
The nation will never forget 9/11
Today loved ones of 9/11 victims gathered at ground zero as the names of the almost 3,000 people who died that day were read off one at a time. Moments of silence were observed as the nation grieved these senseless deaths.
CNBC reports that President Obama, Vice President Biden and their wives observed a moment of silence at the White House South Lawn while wreaths were laid and other tributes were going on at the Pentagon and the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville, Penn.
Moving forward after 9/11
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg decided last year that no politicians would speak on this day, and the new tradition continued this year. His administration started focusing last year on keeping the remembrances of this day focused on the victims and their families rather than allowing politicians to create an image for themselves.
Organizers of the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum will be taking over the primary responsibilities for remembrance activities next year. Also officials gathered today at the Shanksville memorial ahead of construction on a new visitor center at the site.
Cantor Fitzgerald’s 9/11 story
On The New York Times’ DealBook blog Susanne Craig reviews the new film Out of the Clear Blue Sky, which focuses on Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick. On 9/11, the firm lost 658 employees in the attacks on the World Trade Center. Then just four days after that attack, he cut off paychecks to the families of the employees who were in the attacks, some of whom had been declared dead and others who were still missing at the time.
Of course most within the financial industry know about Cantor Fitzgerald’s side of the 9/11 story, but the new film includes interviews with Lutnick himself as well as with family members of those who died in the attacks. It also includes home videos and some rarely seen footage of executives at the firm during the months after the attacks.
