Generation 9/11

Each picture below links to memories and reflections of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Some of the people we spoke to across the country are survivors who were stuck in the towers and made it out. Others were inspired after the attacks to enter military service. One was a Staten Island Ferry captain who helped bring people and supplies to and from the bottom of Manhattan in the wake of the attacks. Still others were, like so many, merely headed into work in Manhattan on a day that forever changed their commute and their lives. Join us in remembering by clicking on the photos displayed here, and listening to the compelling audio interviews attached. We want to hear your stories too. Please call us at 1-877-8-MY-TAKE to share them with us.
 —Ben Johnson, interim digital editor

Special thanks to everyone who participated in this project and shared their stories. This project was completed with the help of The Takeaway's Control Room engineers Tim Einenkel and Vince Fairchild, digital team members Marine Boudeau, Kate Edmundson, and Elizabeth Zagroba, senior producer Mary Harris, producer Arwa Gunja, and Takeaway interns Jaywon Choe, Kristina Fazzalaro, Kathryn Thornton, and Erica Schwiegershausen. 

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  Capt. James Parese commanded the Newhouse, a Staten Island Ferry boat, on 9/11 and spent the day transporting people and supplies back and forth between the boroughs. (Photo: Michael McWeeney)

   

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  Barbara Kaufman watched the events of Sept. 11 from her home in Battery Park City.

   

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  Lee Ielpi, who served as a New York City firefighter for 26 years, lost his son - a fellow firefighter - on 9/11. Ielpi was also a founder of the Tribute WTC Visitor Center.

   

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  Conley was working for Pricewaterhouse Coopers in Washington, D.C. on Sept. 11; the experience urged him to join the Marines in November 2011.

   

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  John Vigiano, a former NYC firefighter, with his two sons, a policeman and firefighter respectively, who both lost their lives on 9/11.

   

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  Jean Potter ran down 81 flights of stairs from her job in the North Tower after the first plane struck; her husband, Dan, is a retired NYC firefighter who was reassigned to Ten House - a fire house directly across from the World Trade Center - just four days before 9/11. They both survived and live together in Pennsylvania.

   

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  Bill Keaton is an air traffic controller who watched Flight 93 disappear off his screen on September 11th as the plane, hijacked by terrorists, crashed in Pennsylvania.

   

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  On September 11th, Morgan Stanley Executive Jim Tousignant was having breakfast on the 66th floor of Two World Trade Center. Tousignant tells us his story about getting out of the building on that day.

   

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  John Bourges is a retired NYPD detective who enlisted after 9/11 as a combat nurse. Bourges believes he was driven by fate to enlist after the September 11th terrorist attacks.

   

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  Kerry Sulkowicz was a psychiatrist who volunteered to counsel the Cantor Fitzgerald families after 9/11. His was one of many small acts that took place in the aftermath.

   

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  Masayuki Sono, an artist who designed the Staten Island 9/11 Memorial "Postcards," reflects on how the tragedy and community experience inspired his work.

   

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  A practicing Muslim-American, Navid Ali Shah was in middle school on 9/11. Six years later, he joined the U.S. Army to help fight the war on terror.

   

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  Married couple Teri Cohen and Ken Kutner were both commuting to work on September 11th. They both describe making their way back out of the city, and the eerie quality of traveling with thousands of New Yorkers in the wake of the attacks.

   

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  Angela joined the Army at 17-years-old because she wanted to help her country after 9/11. She converted to Islam in 2007 when she joined, and reflects on discrimination after 9/11 and the Fort Hood shootings. She says the country has made progress, in both discrimination and in the world, since then.

   

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  Richard Salorio and Eugene Chun are recent Air Force enlistees who say that 9/11 helped form their decision to join the military.

   

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  Commuting into the city on 9/11 forever changed these individuals' experiences traveling to Manhattan.

   

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  Thomas Heidenberger chats with U.S. Airways flight attendants Gail Bartlett (R) and Marty Spina (second right) during an event to mark the finish of Airline Ride Across America outside the Pentagon on May 9, 2006 in Arlington, Virginia. (Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

   

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  Marine recruits Tyla Adolf, Jason Lu and Roger Peralta talk about their reasons for joining the military after 9/11, as people just old enough to remember the attacks.

   

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  Darrell Hucks is currently an assistant professor of Education at Keene State College. On September 11th, he was teaching in a third and fourth grade classroom on the Upper East Side. He talks about a teacher's responsibility in an emergency like 9/11.

   

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  Billy Wik, Cathy’s husband and father to Tricia and Katie, was killed in the September 11th World Trade Center attacks. The three women talk about the meaning of the day 10 years later.