It’s hard to believe that it’s been 16 years already since 9/11. The name of the attack is now referenced as a noun and every year I think about the events of that day – getting emails from out of state friends and colleagues asking if I was ok, with one asking if I was still alive; Watching the second tower fall; walking to Fifth Avenue and then to Sixth Avenue to see the towers in flames; No cell service; losing all access to public transportation; literally walking northward out of Midtown with throngs of others; getting a lift from my friend’s mom to Westchester county, then borrowing the car to get home to my family in CT; Debriefing with my neighbors who were standing outside like everyone else trying to learn what happened; learning that a parent of my of my son’s classmates was in the tower; hearing stories from neighbors who were talking to someone on the phone in the towers when a plane hit and the line went dead.
It seemed that everything I knew was going away and never coming back. Yet NYC showed me it never quits and I’m proud to be part of it.
Here is my interview with Tom Keene on Bloomberg TV this morning on the resurgence of downtown over the past 16 years.
UPDATE Immediately following the television spot, I walked over to their radio studios and spoke with Tom again as well as David Gura. My interview with Tom Keene and David Gura on Bloomberg Surveillance Radio so click on the graphic below and go to the 10-minute spot: