Then the smoke started pouring out. A loud speaker came on and said that we should evacuate our building. I started putting things in my brief case and went down onto the street-Greenwich Street. Everyone was just standing around. I walked over to the Hudson River and looked down (toward the towers) and saw flames spreading up the Tower. We could see little pieces of things falling out of the building. I said to the man standing by me, 'Look at the things falling.' He answered, 'Those are people.' I didn't realize at the moment that they were jumping rather than burning. They were making that choice. We watched five or ten minutes.

Then an officer from Solomon Barney Smith came with an electronic bullhorn saying, 'You should go home. Leave the area. Don't go back up into the building. Get out of the area immediately.' That morning I had not ridden the train for the 53 mile commute but driven my car, which I did some days. So, I went to the garage where I parked, an open garage, and there was a long line of people. Because of what had happened, a lot of other buildings were clearing out. A lot of people were getting their cars, which was unusual at that hour. So, I was standing in line. The fellow behind me had a transistor radio and tapped me on the shoulder. I did not know him personally. He said, 'The Pentagon has been hit. I think we are under attack.' I was wondering if that was con­nected with what I was seeing here. We still didn't know what had happened.

While we were waiting to get our cars, the second tower was hit. Where we were standing, we could not see the tower for buildings between us. We heard a big SWOOSH and a SMASH, a sound I cannot describe. It was so unusual everybody said, 'What is that?' Eventually, I got up to the front of the line, gave them my ticket, and they brought my car down. I had two colleagues with me: both lived on Long Island. We were hearing on the radio that they were closing the tunnels for the trains, so they could not get home on Long Island. They asked if they could ride out with me. 'Yes.'

We drove out the block to West Side Drive north toward Manhattan. As we drove away, the north tower collapsed. We did not know what it was, but there was a gigantic cloud of smoke. The two guys were in the back seat. I thought it may be a nuclear bomb. I was driving 70 mph, thinking if this is a nuclear attack, I want to get home and see my family. Normally West Side Drive is packed with people getting off work. That day there was hardly anyone there. I cleared the bridges in North Manhattan just before they closed them. A half hour later, they were closed, and you couldn't go in or out. I got on the North State Freeway to Connecticut and got home in about an hour.

I left one guy off at the Long Island Station, but he could not get home. The other guy went home with me and stayed a couple of nights. He took a ferry from Connecticut over to Long Island and finally got home.

When we got home, we turned the TV on and saw the tower dropping, which is what the smoke was. Then we saw the other tower being hit. Of course, they showed the film over and over that day. We did not have an office in the towers, but I knew probably 100 people who worked there. I knew one fellow who got down the stairs and survived, but a lot of his colleagues didn't. He was so tom up afterwards, he had to go to counseling. I thought of what I saw when I walked down to the river seeing the people jump; it just made my stomach turn. I talked to a caterer who had a job that morning at the tower, delivering food on the ground floor; he did not know what happened, but he kept hearing those huge bumps of bodies.

(Pulling out a picture of the Trade Towers complex) I worked in Four (one of seven buildings) for three years. I had lunch (top of tower) there the week before. I had lunch many times at the Windows of the World. I have real history there. And I wanted revenge!

We couldn't go back into our offices for two weeks because the area was cordoned off. Our building was not damaged; however, all the water and phones were cut off. Just walking outside our building filled our hair and mouths with the residue of the billowing dust. Even a month later, you had to take a bath and shampoo your hair as soon as you got home.

We saw views of the hospitals, waiting for survivors, and nothing happened. In the financial world, everyone knew someone who was there in the towers. All banks have backups of their records in distant locations; so the information was easy accessible. Some employees went over to the New Jersey site, and I operated from home. When we went back to our offices, we had to go through police check points proving that we had a reason to go to lower Manhattan.

There was a funny thing: I was a volunteer fireman in my little town in Connecticut and had a volunteer fireman emblem on my car bumper. I was leaving work one day, and there were a bunch of people along West Side Highway applauding passing firemen. When I slowed, they began applauding me. I didn't know what I had done, not thinking about the bumper emblem. The heroism of the police and fireman was beyond brave!

About the people killed there, they were from countries around the globe. I'll tell you how it affected me. I still rode the trains and subways but often felt claustro­phobia phobia that I had never had. Walk down the stairs in a crowded subway, surrounded by masses of people, I thought, 'I've got to get out of here.' Or I got this feeling that I didn't want to go down those stairs. One morning I turned around and went back up the stairs and took a cab. That's how it affected me. I rode the trains for years, but then I got to thinking, 'If someone does something crazy, you can't get out of here.' But I got over it. I recalled having lunch on a top-floor restaurant; the building swaying, and what a grand occasion looking out with such a beautiful, panoramic view. Those memories are still there, but they are only memories. It is painful. '