9/10: The day before

Last moments

The pilot grilled steaks. The WTC Borders clerk picked up a pushcart coffee. The mayoral
candidate prepped for the primaries. And the terrorists argued over a meat lover’s pizza.

2002

On Good Morning America, Diane Sawyer was talking about the deluge of reality TV on the
fall schedules. The news was thin. Israeli tank fire had killed a Palestinian (quel surprise)
near the town of Jenin on the West Bank. At the final of the U.S. Open the day before, a
young Australian tennis player, Lleyton Hewitt, had wiped the floor with Pete Sampras.
Even under usual circumstances, you would have been hard pressed to remember anything
about September 10 that was out of the ordinary, and yet it was the day that would come to
crystalize the quality and value of what had gone before, if only we had known it at the time.
In New York, it was a balmy 83 degrees with rain forecast in the afternoon—the kind of
unsettled day all too familiar at the tail end of summer.
What else might people have picked out from the daily torrent of ephemera and gossip?
That The Musketeer was the weekend winner of the new movie season; that Ben Stiller had
won a ratings battle for his forthcoming movie, Zoolander, over an orgy scene involving
Stiller, a Maori tribesman, and a midget. Most of that summer had been what journalists refer
to as a quiet news period, enlivened by the occasional shark attack off the U.S. coast and the
ongoing Gary Condit/Chandra Levy saga, but very little else. The country had gotten used to
its cardboard president. The economy was not great, but it was not terrible either. Life was,
on the whole, pretty good.

Sara Low arrived back in Boston on the red-eye from San Francisco. Barely 24 hours later,
she would be heading back to L.A. on American Airlines Flight 11. One of her passengers
would be Mohammed Atta.
It was one of the many pleasures of Low’s peripatetic lifestyle that she got to see cities in the
soft light of early morning that other people, in their slumber, missed. Her friends said that
travel became less exciting when you had to do it for a living, but Sarah was an exception to
the rule and looked forward to every flight with an enthusiasm undimmed by the years. On
Sunday afternoon she’d called her sister, Alison, with anecdotes about her previous evening
at the Red Room, a popular San Francisco nightclub, where she’d partied with the flight crew
into the small hours.
Two weeks earlier, Low had bought her first apartment, an old Victorian place in Boston’s
historic Beacon Hill neighborhood. It was tiny, but it was hers, and after three years of
slumming it with other flight attendants—more than 20 of them in total—she felt it was time.
Her mother had visited and helped her decorate, admiring the character of the place, the
cobblestones on the street outside, the old gas lamps that were still in use.
At 28, Sara felt that her life was falling into place in all the right ways. It hadn’t been so long
since she’d left Arkansas—“keen for adventure and the big city life,” as her father would say
—for her to forget why she’d left and what she’d come looking for. It might have been some
other city, if circumstances were different, but the circumstances had led to Boston, the
antithesis of the small-town world in which she’d grown up.
Sara had called her parents from San Francisco shortly before boarding the red-eye back to
Boston to say she’d be flying to Los Angeles on September 11. That would mean an
overnighter in L.A., which gave her an opportunity to do some shopping and arrange a dinner
date with a guy she knew. It was one of Sara’s qualities that she maintained friendships with
half a dozen men in various cities, any one of whom would have made a great boyfriend. She
wasn’t quite ready to settle down, but when she was there would be no shortage of suitors.

At the same time that Sara Low was touching down in Boston, Frank Peters navigated
the John F. Kennedy out of the ferry terminal at Staten Island. It had just turned 6 a.m., and
the sky stretched before him, a pale canvas on which the outline of Manhattan was etched
like a painting. There was little traffic on the river at that time of day, and a fragile silence still
hung over the city. Peters loved his route. His friends would sometimes ask if he ever grew
bored of the same short run, but he always shrugged them off. There was something
ineffably soothing about the river, lying so close to the chaos of the city without being sucked
into it.

Frank Peters was softly chugging across New York harbor when David Kasmire left his
apartment in Chelsea to catch the E train downtown, where he worked the morning shift at a
branch of Borders Books at 5 World Trade Center. As was his habit, Kasmire picked up a
coffee from the pushcart at the corner of Fulton and Church, and hit the store shortly after 6.
It was an unpopular shift that few of his co-workers freely volunteered for, but Kasmire liked
it. He was 70, and the early mornings didn’t bother him.
Kasmire had a copy of The New York Times with him, and he grabbed 10 minutes to read the
Metropolitan Diary while waiting for the rest of the crew. Shortly before the store opened at 7,
Lars, the manager, gathered the staff for a briefing on promotions and new releases. With the
fall publishing season in high gear, they were anticipating a busy week.
Borders had opened by the time Luc (last name withheld at her request) arrived for work.
Each morning she passed the store on her way to the World Trade Center, where she had
found a job in the kitchens at Windows on the World, the restaurant at the top of the North
Tower. An illegal immigrant from Colombia, she had arrived in New York three years earlier
hoping, but largely failing, to improve her life. Since she didn’t speak English and had no
Social Security number, what work she could find was poorly paid and part time. That is, until
she met a manager of Windows on the World at her local church. Out of Christian charity, or
plain goodwill, he gave her a job, and they agreed she should borrow someone else’s Social
Security number, which is how Luc became Martha.

Father Mychal Judge, the chaplain for New York’s fire department, began his day shortly
after 8 a.m. with a public morning prayer services at the Church of St. Francis of Assisi,
which stood just opposite his firehouse, Engine Co. 1/Ladder Co. 24.

At 8:45 a.m. on September 10, Frank Peters looked at his watch and wondered about his
daughters, who were now back at school. David Kasmire was at the cash register on the top
floor of Borders. Martha was in the middle of the breakfast shift, making omelets. Father
Mychal was kneeling in his pew offering private prayers. Sara Low was asleep.

Jeremy Glick woke up feeling pissed. He was flying to San Francisco that afternoon for a few
days of business meetings and hated leaving his wife, Lyzbeth, and 11-week old daughter,
Emerson. He half-seriously suggested Lyzbeth make up some excuse that would enable him
to stay home. Maybe she could call up and say he was sick. They had decided Lyzbeth
would take Emerson to her parents in the Catskills while he was away, and he delayed
working so that he could play with her before they parted ways. Since he worked from home,
he was in no rush and took the time to change Emerson’s diaper and prepare her bottle
before strapping her into the baby seat in Lyzbeth’s car. After settling the two dogs in on
either side, he kissed his wife goodbye. It was 10 a.m. Glick had kissed his wife for the last
time.

John Schiumo was pissed, too. He’d woken up at 3:45 a.m. as usual, but instead of going
into the office he’d gone to Cathedral High School on the East Side to report on a teacher’s
strike. It was the first time in five years that the New York One TV news reporter had not
gone to the office first, and he was regretting it. The crew was nowhere to be seen, so he
hung around with a bagel and coffee waiting. He didn’t have a high opinion of the strikers,
either. It seemed to him they were also sitting around waiting for his crew to turn up. Sure
enough, as soon as the cameras were rolling, the protesters were rolling too. Schiumo
thought the whole thing was phony, predictable, irrelevant.

At about the same time, Mark Green, the Democratic hopeful to replace Rudy Giuliani as
mayor of New York City, was striding confidently down Manhattan’s Upper West Side. It was
the last day of the primaries, and he was enjoying the novelty of saying “Please vote
tomorrow,” stressing the word “tomorrow” with theatrical relish. Reporters traipsing around
with Green joked that he’d let them down, not providing the sparks in the campaign they’d
anticipated. There was too much consensus, they complained. Where were the slurs? Where
was the drama? Green, a thorn in Mayor Giuliani’s side during his tenure as New York public
advocate, was not living up to his reputation.
Green maintained his Cheshire Cat-like composure, refusing to take the bait. From
experience, he knew that an election was never over until it was over. There were still 24
hours before the polling stations opened.

Over in Brooklyn, the Rev. Al Sharpton was having coffee at the beginning of a heavy day
campaigning for Green’s opponent, Fernando Ferrer. He was certain the tide had turned and
that Ferrer, a no hoper at the start of the campaign, was on the cusp of victory. It would be
“world famous” upset, Sharpton told supporters, his customary hyperbole kicking in.
Tomorrow, when the polls closed, the world’s eyes would be on New York, he promised.

Lt. Col. Tim McGreer, an F-16 fighter pilot who in a day would find himself patrolling the
capital’s skies on attack-alert, had just returned from a two-week training deployment in
Nevada. It had been a grueling exercise, in which McGreer had been forced to draw on every
lesson he’d learned to avoid being shot down during air combat simulations. He’d not always
succeeded.
As a favor to his wife, McGreer had dropped the kids off at school and was wondering what
to do with his day off. Ordinarily he would have been out in his motorboat on Chesapeake
Bay, where his wife’s family has a remote cottage near the mouth of the bay. On September
10, however, the boat wasn’t working. Instead he mowed the lawn.

On Prospect Avenue in the South Bronx, Thomas Von Essen, the commissioner of the New
York Fire Department, was attending the official rededication of his old firehouse, Ladder 42.
Rudy Giuliani was in attendance, as was Father Mychal. In his Franciscan robes, Father
Mike, as he was affectionately known among the firefighters, used his Mass to remind those
present of the brevity of life. You had to live and appreciate each day, he said, for you never
knew what the next day might bring.

Charles Burlingame III, better known as Chic among his family and friends, was flying his
usual route, from L.A. to Dulles. He’d be flying the same route in reverse on September 11,
but that flight would be his last. On September 10 Chic was due to make Dulles by 4:24 p.m.
but anticipated arriving earlier. So did his flight crew. It was why they liked flying with Chic.
Among American Airlines crew his name stood for flying fast. Flight attendants would say,
“Pull a Chic and get us home early.”
Burlingame was not an obsessive man, but he believed in certain routines. He would, for
example, have a big breakfast so that he wouldn’t have to eat on the plane. And the way he
dressed reflected an almost military approach to his appearance. He was flawlessly neat,
pressing his shirts on layovers and remembering to polish his shoes in the mornings.
Boarding the plane, Chic had smiled at spotting one of his flight attendants reading a copy
of Bailey by My Side, a small book of inspirational thoughts about life, death, and golden
retrievers; Chic had given it to her on a previous run. Hell, he’d given a copy to just about
everyone he knew, he loved that book so much. He’d originally bought it for his wife, Sheri,
since they had two retrievers of their own, Maggie and Molly. Whenever they could they
would take the dogs up to Smith Mountain Lake near Roanoke, Va., where they were
planning to build a second home. It was why Chic was doing back-to-back flights, so that he
could spend more time at his mountain retreat.

Rodney Williams was also in the air that afternoon, flying to Denver. The athlete was feeling
nervous, anxious that his first NFL game with the New York Giants would be a success.
Monday Night Football: Fans would be watching his every move, and every mistake. If he
slipped up, folks would be talking about it for weeks.

That day, New York City was finding its pace again, now that Labor Day had passed. It was
the start of New York Fashion Week; celebrities were rolling into town. Kenneth Cole had just
finished showing his new collection in Bryant Park, using the opportunity to launch an attack
on the lack of handgun control. “People need to be aware that there are more regulations on
toy guns than handguns,” he said.

By 1 p.m., John Schiumo, the TV reporter, was on his way home. Since it was the primaries
the following day, he knew he’d have to spend the morning hanging around polling stations
and talking to voters. Even a teacher’s picket was a more exciting prospect. “Let’s hope for
some major breaking news so that I don’t have to stand at a polling location all day,” he said
as he left the office. (“You got what you wished for,” someone told him at 9 the next morning.)

At their new home in Connecticut, Amy King and Michael Tarrou were packing for their three-
day trip to the West Coast. The two flight attendants were working the Boston–Los Angeles
route on United Airlines Flight 175 the next day and planned to take a short break in San
Antonio before heading back. They had met some years earlier, but it had taken all of
Michael’s charm to win Amy over. He’d written her songs and then played them to her on his
guitar, and her reservations about his child from a previous marriage slowly evaporated. Now
they were living together and planning to get engaged. Michael had even recorded an album
of his own music, taking his inspiration from his idols, Neil Young and Bob Dylan.
A week earlier Michael had been talking with another flight attendant, Jennifer, who said that
Neil Young’s song “Comes a Time” made her think of him and Amy. “That’s your song,” she
said, quoting the first few lyrics, “Comes a time when you’re drifting / Comes a time when you
settle down,” but Michael wasn’t so sure. He said it sent shivers up his spine. (After
September 11, Jennifer took another look at the song, and different lyrics jumped out at her
that time: “You and I were captured / We took our souls and flew away.”)

For lunch that day, Mark Green ate a salad. Al Sharpton ate chicken at an old folks’ home.
David Kasmire had sushi from the plaza of the World Trade Center, as he did every day.
Timmy Burke, a firefighter with Engine 202 in Red Hook, Brooklyn, arrived at Brian’s house
with a fridge on the back of his Ford Explorer. He’d picked it up from a construction site
where it was being thrown out. “Brand new,” he told Brian, a buddy from Ladder 101. Brian
didn’t want it, but they made arrangements to get together that evening to watch the Giants
play the Broncos, and Timmy headed back home to play with his daughter, Elizabeth. He
figured he’d take the fridge to the fire station in the morning.
At 3:30 p.m. Lt. Col. Tim McGreer turned up at his oldest daughter’s school to watch her play
soccer. He had the family Springer spaniel in tow and was training it to fetch in time for
hunting season.

Father Mychal was a passionate walker, known for his treks from the friary at 31st Street to
Coney Island, a distance of some 20 miles. On Monday afternoon, while McGreer was
cheering his daughter on the field, Father Mychal joined a friend on a rather more modest
stroll to St. Patrick’s Cathedral, where the two men admired the saints and symbols carved
around the doors and identified empty spaces where future saints could be honored.
Chic got home that day some time before 5 p.m. and threw on a pair of old jeans and a U.S.
Navy T-shirt. Sheri had picked up some steaks, and Chic got the grill ready. It was one of the
things he loved making himself, right down to his own special marinade. Truth to tell, he liked
his steaks rare enough they hardly required cooking at all. Although the couple didn’t usually
watch horror videos, Chic had bought Hannibal, and they ate their steaks in the media room
—just a family room, really, but somehow they’d gotten used to calling it the media room on
account of the huge TV screen and sound system Chic had rigged up.
Sheri hated Hannibal. Too much cutting, she complained. It wasn’t for Chic either. “God, what
a heck of a way die,” he said.

At 5:30 p.m., Mohammed Atta and Abdulaziz Alomari checked in to the Comfort Inn on a
bland strip of stores and fast-food joints in South Portland, Maine. At reception Atta asked if
he could have 15 copies of USA Today, intending perhaps to bulk up his luggage, but had to
make do with four copies instead.
Dan Rather led the CBS Evening News with a report on the Senate Special Committee on
Aging and the makers of dietary supplements. In Lubbock, Texas, a four-day Buddy Holly
symposium concluded with 49,000 people simultaneously singing along to the 1950s hit
“Peggy Sue.”

Lyzbeth Glick was with her parents in the Catskills when Jeremy called. There had been a
fire at Newark airport; his flight had been rerouted. He would have to catch a plane from JFK
if he wanted to make San Francisco that day. Instead, he’d decided to catch United Airlines
flight 93 from Newark in the morning and take the red-eye back home Tuesday night. He was
still talking about canceling the trip altogether. Lyzbeth couldn’t remember a time when he’d
been so adamant about not wanting to travel.

Around the time that Jeremy Glick was returning home, Mark Green was hitting his last
campaign stop, the subway on the Upper East Side at 86th Street. It was his own
neighborhood, as well as that of Gracie Mansion, the official residence of the mayor. That
seemed like a good omen to Green, and he arrived home feeling buoyant. His wife was
making chicken cutlets, one of her specialties, and they talked about the following day’s
elections and the speech Green would give when the results came through. He was
expecting a run-off with Ferrer, nothing he couldn’t handle. It was amazing, he said, that
nothing had gone wrong during the primaries. His wife gave him a look as if to say, it’s not
over yet, but Green dismissed it. The polls were opening in less than 12 hours. What could
possibly go wrong?
A few blocks away, John Schiumo was doing some last-minute research on the primaries
before turning in early. He was getting up at 3 a.m. the next day, and he wanted to read up
on Green and Ferrer to avoid making any obvious gaffes.
Luc got home that night to find a message from her manager at Windows on the World,
telling her not to come in until 11 a.m. on Tuesday. There was no explanation for the
scheduling change. Luc shrugged it off and reset her alarm clock.
David Kasmire, of Borders Books, made himself a gin and tonic, watched the Antiques
Roadshow on PBS, and went to bed.
At 8:15 p.m., Mohammed Atta and Abdulaziz Alomari were in the Pizza Hut a short distance
from their hotel, arguing about whether to order a meat lover’s pizza or a plain. (They settled
for plain.) Then they asked the waitress to turn up the lights. And could they have the lettuce
without the house dressing? At one point the waitress noticed that they seemed to be
laughing at the movie posters across the street. Naturally her gaze followed theirs, but all she
could see was an ad for the upcoming Arnold Schwarzenegger film Collateral Damage.
At a pier on the Hudson River in New York City, 1,200 people and Monica Lewinsky were
trying to cram into 900 seats for Marc Jacob’s much-hyped spring collection. The rain had
stopped, the skies were clearing. There had even been something of a sunset.
In Staten Island, Timmy Burke was cutting the pepperoni pizza and passing out beers. Brian
from Ladder 101 had called to say he was going to spend the evening with his wife instead,
but Kevin from Ladder 235 was there, and so was Matt from 101. The game started well, but
the Giants were now getting spanked in spite of an amazing 90-yard kick from the new kid,
Rodney Williams. At some point in the evening, Matt called into the station and was asked if
he’d switch his Tuesday shift to Wednesday. That was fine by Matt, who could be more
cavalier with the beers now that he knew wasn’t working the next morning.
In Denver, Rodney Williams was on a high. His 90-yard punt was the longest in team history.
It felt like everything he’d ever worked for, and now the rest of the guys were crowding
around him, telling him that his kick would be all anyone would be talking about for weeks.
In South Portland, Atta and Alomari had found a Walmart and were on a spending spree.
They blew about $200 on T-shirts alone, and Atta was so impressed with one of the sports
shirts he’d bought that he put it on before he left the store.
The sky was exceptionally clear that night, and the forecast was for more of the same. On TV
Jay Leno was interviewing Keanu Reeves. Anne Robinson was hosting the Weakest Link on
NBC. Big Brother 2 was debuting on CBS.
At Madison Square Garden, Michael Jackson was performing his 30th Anniversary
Celebration. An emaciated Whitney Houston sang “Wanna Be Startin’ Something” to the
crowd.
At 1 a.m. Father Mychal finished writing in his journal and, as he was known to do, cast a
final look out his window at the firehouse on the opposite side of the street before switching
off the lights and saying his final prayers of the day.
Nine hours later Father Mychal would be recorded on his death certificate as Victim No.
00001—the first official casualty of America’s new war.

EPILOGUE:
Sara Low was on American Airlines flight 11, which flew into the north tower of the World
Trade Center at 8:46 a.m. on September 11. On July 18, 2002, her father flew from Arkansas
to New York to identify her remains. Two of Low’s rings were found in the debris and are now
worn by her mother and sister.

Frank Peters was docking the John F. Kennedy at the Battery Park terminal on the morning
of September 11 when the second plane flew overhead, sparking panic among commuters
who crowded back on to the boat. It was the last passenger ferry to leave Manhattan that
day.
On September 11, David Kasmire was having his morning coffee when he noticed what
appeared to be ticker tape falling from the sky. Shortly after, he and the rest of the staff were
evacuated. He was relocated to another branch of Borders in the city.
Luc watched on TV that morning as the towers collapsed. Everyone who worked her regular
shift that morning, including the manager who gave her the job, perished. As an illegal
immigrant without proof of employment, she has been unable to receive relief benefits.

Jeremy Glick was among the passengers who led the revolt against the hijackers on United
Airlines flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania.

John Schiumo covered the attacks of September 11 for New York One every day for the
next two months and was appointed host of a special nightly news show, New York Tonight.
Mark Green cast his vote at 7:40 a.m. the next morning. Just over an hour later the first
plane hit the north tower of the World Trade Center, and the primaries were postponed soon
after. Green narrowly won his primary but lost the election to Republican Mike Bloomberg,
whose surprise victory was aided by the endorsement of the newly lionized Rudy Giuliani.

Amy King and Michael Tarrou were on United Airlines flight 175, which crashed into the
south tower of the World Trade Centre at 9:05 a.m. on September 11.
Charles Burlingame III (Chic) was the pilot of American Airlines flight 77, which crashed into
the Pentagon on September 11. His wife has still not washed the clothes he was wearing on
his last evening at home.

Rodney Williams was cashing his check from his first NFL game when the teller told him a
plane had just hit the north tower of the World Trade Center.
Timmy Burke was sitting in his firehouse on September 11 when he heard the call over his
radio for ambulances. He thought it was a replay of the ’93 bombing but would soon find
himself battling the flames at ground zero. Of the seven men who went with Ladder 101 from
Burke’s firehouse that morning, none survived. They included Burke’s buddy Brian, who had
opted to stay in with his wife the night before. Matt, who had switched his shift, was off duty
but has been plagued ever since by the guilt common to all firefighters who lived through that
day. Burke himself survived, as did all the men on Engine 202.
Thomas Von Essen, the commissioner of the New York Fire Department, survived on
September 11, but Father Mychal Judge did not. He was killed by a falling body at 1 World
Trade Center while administering last rites.
Lt. Col Tim McGreer was getting a wart removed by his podiatrist when American Airlines
flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon. Over the next three months he would fly more than 40
combat missions over Washington, D.C., including on Thanksgiving and Christmas.