Sept. 11, 2001: A Day That Will Never Be Forgotten

Editor’s Note: This was first published on Sept. 11, 2011.

Tuesday, Sept. 11, wasn’t supposed to be a tragic day. But just like other mournful days in history, many of us will never forget what happened and where we were on Sept. 11.

At the time, I was covering the town of Belmont, Mass., for Community Newspaper Company (now Gannett) and also producing a freelance political radio program entitled “Audio Election Watch,” which was broadcast weekly on several non-commercial and Internet radio stations in the Boston area.

Over the summer, I broadcast numerous radio programs concerning municipal elections in Boston, Cambridge, and Somerville. I had also covered the 9th Congressional District special election race to succeed the late Rep. Joe Moakley, D-Boston, who had succumbed to cancer and passed away.

Sept. 11 was primary day for voters in the 9th, and I was headed to Jamaica Plain to get some audio clips of voters at the polls. My wife Christine, who worked on Boylston Street, was tagging along with me for the ride.

While waiting in traffic on Massachusetts Avenue, the two of us heard syndicated New York talk radio host Don Imus take a call from a listener who reported a plane had flown into the World Trade Center.

Christine, a native New Yorker, gasped, and I tightly gripped the steering wheel, thinking it was some joke Imus was pulling. Flipping the dial to the AM news station quickly proved it wasn’t a joke: A plane had flown into the building. As we sat in traffic, dumbfounded, another shocking event occurred: Another plane struck the second building. We both looked at each other.

“I wonder if this is the end of the world,” I remembered thinking out loud, completely stunned.

We pulled onto Boylston Street, where I parked the car, and we both ran into the Pour House to look at their televisions to obtain visual proof that this was all really happening. And it was. CNN was broadcasting the loops of the planes flying straight into the towers. It was true ... it was really happening. After a few minutes of staring at the TV, we decided to go about the day as if it were just another day. This would prove to be a futile exercise.

Standing outside a polling place on Centre Street in Jamaica Plain, I started talking to voters about the special election. Campaign workers holding signs outside were all talking about the tragedy, most, like me, in disbelief that it was happening. But strangely, there was a comforting feeling the tragedy didn’t keep them from the time-honored tradition of promoting their favorite candidates and talking politics with their neighbors.

After about an hour, with more than enough tape to put together the radio program, I called my wife to see how she was doing. By now, the Pentagon had been attacked, the towers had collapsed, and countless thousands were believed to have perished in the attacks.

Working across from the Prudential tower unnerved Christine, so I picked her up from work and drove her home. We attempted to call people we knew in New York City to see if they were OK, as well as family and friends around the country, just to tell them we were OK and that nothing disastrous was happening in Boston. But the long-distance phone lines were almost completely shut down, leaving me uneasy about the rest of the day ahead.

Arriving at work in Lexington, I found the CNC newsroom abuzz with activity. Reporters and editors were trying to comprehend what was going on while meeting our regular Tuesday newspaper deadlines.

Jen Martinage, the then-Burlington Union editor and the wife of a Boston firefighter, smartly brought in a small television so we could watch the updates. Interoffice emails began to circulate with all kinds of information.

During the day, three residents of Belmont would emerge as victims of the tragic attacks. I quickly scrambled to find out who they were and tell their stories while meeting the print deadline the next morning. Paul Friedman, Ted Hennessey, and Carlos Montoya were all passengers on Flight 11, and being the newspaper of record in the community, their friends, family members, and other town officials were gracious enough to talk to me about the men lost.

But the tragedy became very real for me when I heard a familiar name being broadcast on the television.

Richard Ross, a management consultant from Newton, had been on one of the flights and was presumed dead.

“Oh no,” I thought, “It can’t be the same Richard.”

But it was.

I met Ross in 1999 while selling Ricoh digital copiers in Downtown Boston. He had a consulting business in the Prudential Tower and purchased equipment from me. It was a good time to sell copiers because people were moving from analog technology to digital machines. As much as I hated aspects of sales, I was good at it, and it was fun talking about business solutions for customers, especially when you have a great product to share with them.

After the sale, we became good acquaintances after he realized I was also the same neighborhood person actively working to keep the Boston Red Sox from knocking down historic Fenway Park and building a massive $1 billion megaplex.

We had a long discussion about his property on Boylston Street, which the team was hoping to steal through eminent domain to build their massive, publicly funded project.

Over the next year or so, Ross and I would exchange occasional emails, share information about what was happening, and talk at community events.

Those of us involved in the fight to stop the megaplex were able to line up and secure five votes on the Boston City Council against eminent domain, killing the project and saving the historic ballpark that still, thankfully, stands today.

My wife and I moved out of the Boston area in 2003, and Ross and I didn’t keep in touch as much after that. But I always liked that he was a straight-ahead, decent man.

Although it has petered off for me a bit, I have spent a lot of time personally reflecting on that day. I was mystified that a near-$1 trillion a year military, national security, and intelligence industrial complex could be crippled by a bunch of guys with box cutters and threats.

And then, we watched the nation change and, unfortunately, not all for the better, in many ways. The unending wars, the Patriot Act, the torture of prisoners, the intolerance, and the debt involved with all of this … it’s dismaying.

When the 9-11 Commission Report was released, I bought it the first day it came out and devoured it. I also read several other books and watched documentaries challenging the official story. A decade later, more facts have trickled out, and many, even members of the commission themselves, are calling on a new, more thorough investigation into the events of that day.

Regardless of whether that happens, blessedly, there has not been an attack of that magnitude on our shores. And for that, we should all be thankful. Some normalcy has returned to our country.

But not unlike other times in history, most of us will never forget Sept. 11. And for many reasons, we never should.