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From the Ground Up
World Trade Center Tenants Look to Pick Up Pieces
N E W Y O R K, Sept. 14 — Countless businesses were devastated by Tuesday's terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, and whether it was an entire firm or just one branch, the assault on one of the nation's most vital financial centers has forever changed the face of the 155 businesses housed there. Here are some of their stories.
Cantor Fitzgerald
One of the firms most devastated by the attack was Cantor Fitzgerald, one of the top bond brokerages on Wall Street. The firm had around 1,000 employees with operations on the 101st and 103rd to 105th floors of One World Trade Center, the first tower to be hit by the attacks.
The firm's CEO Howard Lutnick tearfully told ABCNEWS' Connie Chung how he tried in vain to reach employees in their offices once he saw the burning tower. He got into his office late on the day of the attacks because he stayed home to see his 5-year-old son off on his first day of kindergarten.
As people exited the building, he asked each one which floor they had been working on. No one leaving the building had been higher up than the 91st floor. His firm's offices were 10 floors higher.
"Then I heard the sound. It sounded like another plane hit the building," said Lutnick. "It was the plane that had hit tower two (Two World Trade Center). It was so unbelievably loud. Someone screamed out another one was coming. I started running; I tried to get ahead of the smoke."
Lutnick managed to get out of the building, but tragically, his brother, who also works for the firm, didn't.
"My brother was on the 103rd floor, he worked for me at Cantor," he said. "He called my sister, just after the [first] plane hit. He said the smoke was pouring in, he was in a corner office and he's not going to make it out. He just wanted to tell her that he loved her," Lutnick said as tears streamed down his face.
After getting out of the building, Lutnick said he wandered north in a daze for four hours, without even calling his wife. When he did phone her, she was hysterical.
So far, Cantor Fitzgerald has accounted for 300 employees. The company has not yet received any information about the remaining employees who were working on the 101st floor or above.
"I have to do something for the 700 families," he said. "Seven hundred families. Seven hundred families. I can't say it without crying."
Fred Alger Management
Another executive who has yet to hear from his brother is Fred Alger, founder of investment firm Fred Alger Management, which was located on the 93rd floor of the World Trade Center's North Tower.
Around 38 of the firm's 55 employees in New York are still unaccounted for, including President David Alger, noted stock picker of the Alger fund family and brother of Fred Alger.
"The terrorist attack is a personal tragedy for my family as well as for all of our employees and their families," said Fred Alger, who has assumed the day-to-day management of the firm in the wake of the tragedy. "Fortunately a nucleus of research analysts survived the attack. All of our administrative, marketing and fund pricing functions, which operate out of our Morristown, N.J. office, were unaffected."
The firm, which employs 235 people worldwide and manages around $16 billion in assets, has named portfolio manager Dan Chung as chief investment officer.
Alger says the firm will spare no expense in aggressively rebuilding the firm, and it will be prepared to serve its clients once markets resume trading.
May Davis Group
There was a profound sense of relief at financial services company May Davis Group that two dozen employees escaped unharmed from the 87th floor of the North Tower on Tuesday. But relief was tempered with worry about the one employee still missing, and the realization that the company's equipment and records were lost.
"God only knows what I'm going to do from here," said Owen May, a company co-founder. "You don't even know what you've lost until you reach for it."
May arrived at the twin towers just after a hijacked airliner rammed into the building that housed his company. "I looked up and saw the windows getting blown out," he said. May dialed the office on his cell phone but the connection soon went silent.
"I was standing in the middle of the street screaming when the second plane comes in," he said. "I figured everybody [in the company] was dead."
Out in the stairwell, the employees began a long descent toward safety. On the 54th floor a trio of employees stopped to help an elderly man having trouble negotiating the stairs. They helped him to the 34th floor, where he told them he didn't think he could go on, May said.
One of the May Davis employees, Harry Ramos, told his colleagues to go ahead while he stayed with the older man. As of Wednesday, Ramos was unaccounted for.
Besides calling survivor hotlines for news about Ramos, May spent Wednesday thinking about how to get back in business. "How much will insurance cover? I don't know," he said. "But it's a miracle anyone's alive."
May will not be alone in scrambling for new office space. More than 20 million square feet of office space was lost when the World Trade Center's two towers collapsed.
Morgan Stanley Dean Witter
The human dimension of the terrorist attack was less dismal for Morgan Stanley Dean Witter than initially feared. "Miraculously, it appears the vast majority got out safely," said Phillip J. Purcell, the financial services giant's chairman and chief executive officer, in a message to company employees.
Morgan Stanley was the largest tenant in the World Trade Center with more than 3,500 employees on more than 20 floors. Today Morgan Stanley said fewer than 40 employees were missing, and there were no confirmed deaths.
As with other big Wall Street firms, Morgan Stanley is headquartered in midtown Manhattan, so officials expect minimal interruption in its core investment banking and equity-trading activities.
But that doesn't mean work will be routine for the company's employees. "Security at the firm is heightened and you should expect delays," the company told its workers. "You will not be admitted to work without proper identification."
Meanwhile, Morgan Stanley was busy providing counseling and other services to victims, and preparing to open for business on Monday when U.S. markets resume trading. Operations that had been located at the World Trade Center were being divided between offices in Manhattan, Brooklyn and New Jersey.
Bank of America
Bank of America, the World Trade Center’s sixth-largest tenant, also appears to have emerged with remarkably little loss of life Tuesday.
Ken Lewis, chairman and CEO, said about 418 of the firm’s more than 4,000 associates were based in the South Tower on four floors as high as 81. Yet as of midday today, just eight have not yet been accounted for, a number Lewis thought would ultimately fall to four or five. While he lamented the loss of life, he acknowledged that “in percentage terms we were very lucky.”
Lewis added that operations were back up within hours and remain up and running, with staff quickly regrouping in other locations in Manhattan and nearby Secaucus, N.J. Because important documents were backed up in data form, little was lost in the attacks.
Will the company remain in New York City, despite the terrorist attacks? “New York City was the financial capital of world the first part of this week. It’s the financial capital now and will continue to be,” said Lewis. “The largest reservoir of financial talent in the world is in New York City. We plan to tap that reservoir.”
Washington Group International
Engineering firm Washington Group International Inc., which occupied the 91st floor of Tower Two of the World Trade Center, had accounted for about 90 percent of its employees as of Wednesday at 5 p.m.
The Boise, Idaho-based company, which provides engineering, construction and program-management services to various industries, is still dealing with the painful process of locating its workers.
"Our first priority is to ensure the safety and well-being of employees affected by this, and those still being accounted for," says company spokeswoman Katrina Puett.
The offices in the World Trade Center was the company's only presence in New York, and the company has not yet decided on its future plans.
Martin Progressive
Martin Progressive, a technology consultancy headquartered in the World Trade Center, will be back in business Monday in temporary office space scattered around metropolitan New York.
"A couple of people have offered us excess space in their offices," said CEO John Kneeley. "We're putting space together anywhere we can."
The breakup of the company — the sales team in one location, the accountants in another — will be temporary, Kneeley said. The company has no intention of leaving New York. "This is where we do most of our business."
Martin Progressive branches in Chicago, Atlanta and elsewhere are sending servers and other technology to allow the New York operation to get back to business.
A quick-thinking employee grabbed tape drives that served as data back-ups after alarms were activated early Tuesday in the North Tower, the first struck by a hijacked jetliner.
Kneeley and other staffers gathered in the stairwell and began the slow walk down from the 77th floor. "That was the scary part," said Kneeley. "We didn't know what was going on, and no one was telling us what was going on in the building."
All of the employees made it out safely. The staff is eager to get back together early next week, Kneeley said, to learn about the company's plans and whether paychecks were issued on schedule.
They will be, Kneeley said.
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