NYSE Commemorates 9/11

[♥ COVID-19♥]

This past spring, I changed jobs and went to work for The New York Stock Exchange. It's been quite an experience -- the level of security that employees have to endure just to get to their office is akin to going to the airport every day due to the fact that I have to walk through a metal detector (and sometimes get wanded) as well as put my shoulder bag through an x-ray machine. All of this, of course, is due to the fact that they're downtown on Wall Street, just a couple of blocks from what was The World Trade Center.

Last week, we were sent an e - mail regarding special ceremonies that would be held on the last trading day prior to the decade anniversary of the terrorist attacks on 9/11.

Dignitaries, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Senator Charles Schumer, who helped reopen the market on September 17, 2001 will return to mark the occasion by observing a moment of silence at 9:25am followed by the Opening Bell.

...

For the closing bell, families of the NYSE and NYSE AMEX members who were lost will close the market along with representatives from Tuesday’s Children (www. tuesdayschildren.org), a non-profit organization providing support and services for children impacted by 9/11.

Here was the opening bell ceremony on that day:



Additionally, we were informed of the following:

In New York, American flag pins will be placed at all entrances as a way for employees to honor those lost.

This is the pin I was given:

After 9/11 occurred, I purchased a collection of commemorative pins which I have worn every day I go to work as a way of reminding myself of what happened. People went to work at an office that morning just like me -- except they never made it home at the end of the day.

I now have a new pin in my collection. I will be wearing it tomorrow and on many more days thereafter.

[Tex]

9/11 affected all Americans, but the New Yorkers lived it. I turned off the television and listened to music today because I didn't want to see all of the pictures again.

[Exildo Wonsetler Briggs III]

Really hard to believe it's been 10 years. Rhonda was in California for a medical meeting and had just left a voice message on our home phone, "Out walking on the beach at sunrise! Beautiful morning!" She got back to the hotel to see everyone crammed around the TV.

Of all the decades I've been alive, this past one is truly the "Forgotten" one.

What could have been if JFK had not been killed?? What could have been if Bush had milked the rest of the World's compassion for us rather than starting a useless war.

Hindsight is 20/20, isn't it??

..............Bob

[Exildo Wonsetler Briggs III]

Sept 11, 2011 20:48:07 GMT -6 Tex said:

9/11 affected all Americans, but the New Yorkers lived it. I turned off the television and listened to music today because I didn't want to see all of the pictures again.

I taped about 6 hours of live TV starting about 10AM on 9/11. I've never watched that tape and not sure I ever will. Fox News had a replay of their TV coverage of 9/11 on their web site today. I watched a few minutes . . . very eery.

..............Bob

[Merlot Joe]

Beeb first of all congrats on the new job. I watched about 10 minutes of 9/11 programming today and then turned it off. I have seen those building collapse enough times over the past ten years without watching it again.

[Irish Stu]

I'd just eaten my lunch at my desk and was getting annoyed because the Internet was frozen. A guy from another company in the building came into our office and asked if we could watch television on our Macs as his wife had just called to say she'd just seen the World Trade Centre collapse on a news bulletin. She was obviously confused because that would have been insane. We happened to have a set top aerial in the office so rigged it up and sure enough on the poor quality snowy signal we got we saw that was exactly what the BBC were reporting. We watched horrified for an hour or so then decided to go home early as there wasn't a lot of work being done anywhere and our customers in London were sending their staff home in case of attacks here. I stopped at a large supermarket on the way to pick up some milk. It was eerily quiet, and out of less then a dozen customers most were standing in front of the TVs on display watching the appalling events unfold. I joined them.

That weekend I took my family on the three hour drive up to Lincolnshire and stopped by my dad's house unannounced. We hadn't spoken for three years due to a falling out but after the way the world had changed that day I didn't want to spend another week with him not in my life.

I grew up in a military town under the spectre of the IRA. I've seen with my own eyes the destruction they have caused in London with their bombs and their callous disregard for human life, but 9/11 was on an unimaginable scale. I have visited New York several times since that day and each time I am there I visit Ground Zero. It's important to me to do that.