25 years later, the events of Sept. 11, 2001 still impact America and the world

LAS VEGAS — For all Americans, this is always a tough day.

For those who live or grew up in New York, it’s even tougher. And despite the passage of time, it doesn’t get any easier.

It’s the 25th anniversary of the terrorist attacks that brought down the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan, which scarred the Pentagon in Northern Virginia and would’ve done unimaginable damage to the United States capitol were it not for the bravery of a group of passengers on United Flight 93 that ultimately led to their demise in a field near Shanksville, Penn.

Those of us who were old enough to remember the events of September 11, 2001 do so the way our grandparents or great grandparents remembered Pearl Harbor. For my generation, it was our “Date that will live in infamy.”

Me? I was lying in bed in Las Vegas when my phone rang. I was still groggy and a bit angry over the New York Giants dropping their season opener to the Denver Broncos the night before, but normally, I would get over such things. One lousy football game? There’s an entire season to still play.

I pick up the receiver — I still had a land line in those days — and it’s my friend Tony Cordasco. He’s telling me, “Carpy, did you hear what happened?” and after I answer in the negative, he tells me, “Turn on the television.”

Nothing more needed to be said.

The World Trade Center’s North Tower was awash in smoke and flames. Shortly after, the South Tower would suffer a similar fate.

I’d grown up in the 1960s. I remember the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, of Martin Luther King, of Bobby Kennedy. All horrific events in their own right. All dark moments in our nation’s history.

But this? This was different. It felt different. It hit home. I was born in New York. I remember watching the World Trade Center get built. I had visited the 110-story twin towers. I had stayed at the Marriott Hotel at the base of the North Tower. And while I hadn’t lived there since 1978 and had been in Las Vegas since 1988, there’s a part of me that never left New York.

The towers would fall. Thousands of people would die, including numerous brave firefighters and police from both the NYPD and the Port Authority of New York/New Jersey, which technically were responsible for policing the area. In all, 2,977 victims, including two Los Angeles Kings scouts, Garnet “Ace” Bailey and Mark Bavis, who were on United Airlines Flight 175, the first of the two planes to hit the World Trade Center. Barbara Edwards, a language teacher at Palo Verde High School in Las Vegas, died when her flight, American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon. She was the lone Nevadan to perish that day.

As I watched the horrific images on my TV, my thoughts turned to my cousin Dorothy, who worked next door for Deutsche Bank at 7 WTC and her daughter Sara, who lived in nearby Greenwich Village.

Were they OK? Did something happen to either or both of them?

Fate must’ve intervened. Dorothy had decided to take a later bus into Manhattan from her home in Monroe Township, N.J. and when the word came from my cousin and her husband Bernard, who had just entered Manhattan from the Holland Tunnel to his job on West 23rd Street, she stayed put.

Eventually, I was able to reach both of them and they were OK. But it could’ve been a very different story. If Dorothy had decided to go to work at the usual time, who knows what might’ve happened to her?
We lost Dorothy in 2021 after she battled cancer. I’m still grateful she got a late start to her day on Sept. 11, 2001.

The other story that still sticks with me about that day and the aftermath was from Jim Fassel, who was coaching the Giants and would later coach and run the Las Vegas Locomotives of the United Football League.  

As I had mentioned, the Giants had lost to the Broncos the night before and Fassel, who at the time lived in Ho-Ho-Kus, a 20-minute drive from Giants Stadium, was in his office at the Meadowlands trying to figure out how to fix what went wrong. He had gone straight from Newark Airport to his office

When news reached him about the attacks on the World Trade Center, he made it to the roof of the stadium where he could see the smoke billowing from the towers.

As the chaos ensued and the turmoil spread and the NFL ultimately decided to put its early season on pause, Fassel would drive past a park-and-ride lot on his way to Giants Stadium. Day after day, he would see the same cars parked in the same spots he saw the day before. And the day before that. And the day before that.

It dawned on him something was wrong. The owners of those cars had perished and nobody had come to claim the vehicles.

That image along with his visit to Ground Zero stayed with him the rest of his life. He showed up not knowing what to do. What he did was provide a mental break for those working the site who wanted to talk a little football and get their minds off their morbid task, if only for a brief period.

Fassel died in 2021. But he never forgot those first responders, the firefighters, the cops. He set up a foundation that raised well over $1 million for the families of the deceased in the 20 years it existed. In the grand scheme of things, it was a minuscule amount of money, but Fassel said after he visited Ground Zero he felt compelled to do something.

Over the years, I have visited the World Trade Center site several times, sometimes alone, sometimes with friends. One day, I’lll return with our family’s youngsters, my three nephews’ kids, all of which were born years after 9/11. We’ll look at the names inscribed in the marble and how every year on the anniversary of the attacks the families gather to read the names of the loved ones they lost. We’ll walk the area and stop at the waterfalls of the reflecting pools that feed into the footprints of where the towers stood. We’ll look up at the Freedom Tower which replaced the Twin Towers. Maybe we’ll visit the 9/11 Museum.

They’ll have questions. I’ll try to provide answers. It won’t be easy. It’s not supposed to be.

I’ll try to explain who Osama bin Laden was. I’ll tell them about how sports helped the city heal, how Mike Piazza hit a home run at Shea Stadium that lifted the spirits, not just of Mets fans, but of all Americans. I’ll tell them how President George W. Bush defiantly stood on the mound at Yankee Stadium before Game 3 of the World Series for the ceremonial first pitch and he didn’t bounce it to home plate.

Most of all, I’ll try to explain to them the bravery of those who rushed into those towers in an attempt to help save lives and wound up paying with theirs.

I’ll tell them to ask their parents to let them listen to Bruce Springsteen’s “The Rising,” which may have been his most important contribution in his 50-plus year music career. They may be too young to understand the lyrics but they’ll figure it out.

And when they come to visit Uncle Steve in Las Vegas, maybe we’ll drive over to Palo Verde and pay our respects to Barbara Edwards, where there’s a memorial in her honor.

As for me, I wasn’t sure I’d even be around to witness what happened. I had just spent nearly a month in Bethesda, Maryland at the National Institutes of Health, having had surgery for thyroid cancer. I was still in recovery mode, having made it back to Las Vegas just a few days before things turned upside down when the phone rang that Tuesday morning at my place in Summerlin.
And like all Americans who were witness to the horrors of Sept. 11, 2001, I’ll never forget.

Somewhere, I have a FDNY hat in my closet. I think I’ll break it out and wear it today.