Dear New Yorkers,
Today, we remember the victims and first responders who lost their lives on September 11, 2001.
We have eternal gratitude to the firefighters and officers who rushed into those burning towers — knowing very clearly that they were unlikely to come out again — to save their neighbors. May we remember every life lost and celebrate their memories.
The crisp, clear fall weather today is just like it was twenty-three years ago today, making the poignant memories sharper. Like everyone who was here on that day, I remember exactly where I was, and the confusion, horror, fear, and grief we went through together.
For those of us in NYC in the weeks after 9/11, enduring that trauma was the darkest moment we ever experienced — but it did provide a glimmer of unity. The response of New Yorkers in those agonizing minutes, days, and weeks provided a powerful glimpse of what's possible when we come together to respond to tragedy, to turn pain into purpose.
We lined up to give blood. We mourned together in firehouses and neighborhoods across the city. We learned the names of lost neighbors and heroes, who we still honor through the Tunnel To Towers run each September. We marched against anti-Muslim bigotry in a Children of Abraham peace walk that became an annual event. In the years that followed, conservatives and liberals united in the fight in Congress for health care and death benefits for responders.
At the Fifth Avenue Committee (where I was working then), we provided housing and support for the family of Manuel Asitimbay, a dishwasher at Windows on the World. Survivors and family members from Windows on the World created Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, who are still fighting for better wages and working conditions for restaurant workers in the memory of their co-workers decades after the attacks.
I don’t want to be overly rosy. Twenty-three years after 9/11, we’ve done much too little to honor that spirit of unity. Our country feels more divided than ever.
To this day, asbestos makes people sick (which is why I sent a letter last year urging the last remaining importer of asbestos to cease imports and expedite its transition to non-asbestos technology). Restaurant workers like Manuel Asitimbay are still paid subminimum wages. We did not rebuild Lower Manhattan in a way that furthered equity between investment bankers and dishwashers.
That’s why it’s worth asking today how we can regain that sense of shared fate and unity that emerged in the trauma of that moment. Because we sure need it today — a time when polarization roils our country, sometimes making it feel like we are pitted against each other, and when the growing costs of child care, housing, and other basic standards of living feel more and more out of reach for everyday New Yorkers.
As Rebecca Solnit writes, our collective response to disaster gives us “a glimpse of who else we ourselves may be and what else our society could become.” Twenty-three years later, that possibility of solidarity remains our collective choice.
Both the unforgettable sacrifice of first responders and the unity we found together serve as reminders. That we are capable of it, in our most human moments, is profoundly worth remembering.
With hope,
Brad
