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Sept. 7, 2013 - The Unexplained - Howard Hughes
53:28
Edition 124 - 9/11 Archive

This edition is my re-discovered radio show done from Ground Zero on the second anniversaryof 9/11...

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Hello, it's Howard Hughes in London at the Home of the Unexplained.
www.theunexplained.tv.
Thank you very much for keeping your support up to the show.
Please keep your donations coming.
Vital for what we do here.
If you were expecting a regular edition of The Unexplained, there isn't going to be one this time for a very good reason.
A lot of you have been emailing me lately saying, Howard, what are you going to be doing about this anniversary of 9-11?
And I have to say, I've given it a great deal of thought.
I even thought about setting up another conspiracy theory, perhaps even a panel of guests.
We can maybe do that next year, another time.
But this time, because I've spent a lot of time clearing out my father's house and finding a lot of my old tapes and recordings there, I thought I would re-edit something that I did on the second anniversary of 9-11.
Now, if you know me, if you've listened to me on radio in the UK, you know me personally, or you've listened to this show online, you'll know that I had a very personal connection to 9-11.
I was on air in London doing news when it actually happened.
And I did the early morning drive shift on the biggest commercial radio morning drive show in the UK, in fact in Europe, at that time.
And I was on the train.
It was a lovely sunny day, just as it was in New York.
And I was phoned on my cell phone by a very good friend, an American lady living in London, who alerted me to the fact that something had crashed into the Twin Towers.
And she was quite understandably very upset, extremely upset, traumatized that some of her friends would have been in the towers at that time.
Well, of course, I raced home, turned on CNN, and then immediately went back to work and was on air for the rest of that day.
And for all of us, of course, wherever we are in the world, it was a life-changing event.
A lot of my friends were involved.
A lot of my friends were traumatized.
And we spent a lot of time trying to make contact with people in New York.
And in the end, a good friend of mine at Independent Radio News, the superb reporter Kevin Murphy, filed reports for me, a British man in New York.
There were very few British reporters.
You are about to hear Alan Capper on this show, who was LBC Radio's reporter in New York at the time.
But there were very few people, and Kevin had flown to New York and filed special reports for me on Capitol Radio, as I was at the time.
Well, then the next year, still working for Capitol Radio, they decided to send me to New York and put me in the Marriott Financial Hotel, which had been closed for a year after the downing of the Twin Towers, because it's only around the corner.
So I stayed there, got to know all of the people, and covered the event live on air.
And then the following year, having met so many people and become so much a part of that story, I met rescuers, people directly involved, and of course the staff of the hotel, many of whom just couldn't find it in themselves to talk about the events of 9-11 and were still coming to terms with.
They were wonderful people to me, helped me through those long nights.
So on the second anniversary, I went back again.
This time I was working for LBC Radio, and literally I dived in a taxi, hit the ground running, and was awake for 72 hours.
And I put together at the end of a week of reports, filing them into the Nick Ferrari Breakfast Show and other shows on the station.
I put together a special edition of my weekend show, Howard's World, featuring some of the material I'd done during that week and my impressions of New York and how New York was coming to terms with this event and how it was marking that sad anniversary.
Now, I only just rediscovered this show when I was doing my clear-out at my father's house, and I thought I would re-edit it and put it on here for you to hear exactly what the world was like then.
Now, we're all different.
I'm certainly different now.
I handle everything differently.
I approach my work differently.
I think to an extent I even sound different, and there are a thousand ways I'd have done this show differently.
But bearing in mind that I was awake continuously for 72 hours, I don't think it's all that bad.
A lot of the material you hear is ad-lib.
I can remember getting to the end of the week, and it was 3 a.m. in Greenwich Village, and I was in an apartment that had a little mini-studio set up in it.
And I was told by London, of course, I had to record the links, the narrative parts in between items for my show Howard's World.
Well, I had by that point been awake for three continuous days, and I sounded rather tired, and somehow, after a cup of black coffee, I just did it.
First take straight away.
I don't know how that happened, but I can still hear the tiredness in my voice there.
Also, the adrenaline of the event that fueled me through that week.
It was quite an amazing time, and it's interesting for me to listen back to the person that I was then and compare myself to the person that I am now.
We all change, we all develop, and we all improve in who we are and what we do.
But this is a snapshot in time, talking to a lot of the people involved in 9-11 and the people who were there on that second anniversary.
And I think this show is well worth hearing here.
So instead of a regular unexplained show, we'll have another one next time round, I thought I would just re-edit this show and let you hear things as they were exactly 10 years ago, on the anniversary of 9-11, when I was broadcasting from New York City.
Howard Jesus!
Well, this is a special edition of Howard's World, and this week I'm in New York.
As you may know, I've been out here reporting the second anniversary of 9-11, the worst terror attack in history.
Now, this week, I'm going to be talking to people who live here in New York two years on, and they're trying to move on with their lives, but have to get through another anniversary, perhaps sometimes, before they can do that.
So, first, let's take a look back at those fateful events of two years ago.
Two years ago, in America, on a bright early autumn day, the world changed.
At 8.45 a.m. in New York, a hijacked jet slams into the North Tower of the World Trade Center, symbol of America's wealth and economic dominance.
In London, it was lunchtime.
I was on the train going home from work.
My mobile phone rang and a friend who worked in the city told me the news.
I was close to home then, so I got in, turned on satellite TV in time for the second airliner to hit the South Tower.
Back in New York, by 9.17 a.m., 2.17 p.m. here, the Port Authority had closed down all the airports.
Within minutes, President Bush, who's in Florida, tells the world there's been an apparent terrorist attack.
9.43 in America, another hijacked jet hits the Pentagon this time.
Then another plane smashes into a field in Pennsylvania.
Later, it comes out the passengers may have fought hijackers to save the White House.
And in front of a global radio and TV audience, people like me watching, the drama of 9-11 unfolds.
Freedom itself was attacked this morning by a faceless coward, and freedom will be defended.
We devil here in Britain stand shoulder to shoulder with our American friends.
With this, I want to let y'all know that I love you very, very much.
In case I don't see you again.
Firemen were saying that if they could hear them to bang twice on metal, which they did.
We're going to rebuild.
We're not only going to rebuild, we're going to come out of this stronger.
America vows to react.
New York, the world's most resilient city, tries to dust down, stand up, and move forward.
But it was hard.
Everybody knew somebody who'd been affected, and for a year, the city that never sleeps had to cope with a nightmare that wouldn't go away.
Then the one-year anniversary.
I travel to New York for it, and everybody I speak to there vows to get through the day and then move on.
At Ground Zero, the name they gave to the Trade Center site, her moving commemoration, the reading of the names of each and every one of the more than 2,800 victims, started by the then mayor, Rudy Giuliani.
William F. Abrahamson.
Richard Anthony Asido.
Now a year has gone by and they've picked a design topped by a tall tower, the world's highest, to stand where the Trade Center stood.
Remains of victims, the people who jumped, who were burned or crushed, will stay there forever.
LBC 97.3.
Howard's World.
Well, as I prepared to come out to New York earlier this week, I had a chat with Curtis Sleewer.
Now Curtis does one of the most successful radio programs in America, The Breakfast Show on WABC Talk Radio in New York.
And I asked him how he thought the city was coping with it all.
Well, it certainly doesn't rival the mood of the first anniversary.
And I think because it's been out of sight, out of mind for a while, people are not as focused as maybe they should be.
I have a feeling, though, in the many retrospectives, when they begin to see the pictures again of the towers imploding, of people running for their lives, that it'll be a stark reminder of how the war on terrorism must continue.
But I think people are getting back into a natural flow, and quite frankly, many people were not thinking about the attack on the World Trade Center as they should be.
I was in New York in May again, and I had to go back to the World Trade Center site and talk to a few people around there.
And it seemed to me that the mood of New Yorkers is very much getting back to the pace and optimism that they had before the terrible attack happened.
Well, there's no question, economically, the city was quite devastated by the attack on the World Trade Center.
So I think people have focused on trying to get back into a normal kind of cycle with lots of tourists coming in.
This is a service industry town, and obviously it's based on what takes place on Wall Street, which was just a few blocks away from the attack site.
But I must tell you that this is typical for New Yorkers.
They tend to be fickle.
They tend to be on to the next moment's interest.
And if we're not wary, if we don't keep our guard up, this kind of a situation could easily take place.
Again, we've been told by our president just the other night that there were sleepist cells still active in our country, still poised to strike us at the epicenter of America.
When I was there a year ago, I found a lot of frightened people, especially around Grand Central Station, the big train station and the subway system there, just fearing that something may happen.
And we're being told that precautions being taken, certainly on the subway this week.
But from what you say, from what you say, Curtis, it sounds like people are becoming not exactly complacent, but they're ignoring the threat.
Well, I think because there have been so many various warnings, remember, here in our country through Homeland Security, we've had a series of color-coded warnings.
And sometimes, you know, when you cry wolf a few too many times, people become very jaded, very skeptical of just another warning out of the many other warnings that come down the pipe.
We've seen heavily armed police officers roaming and patrolling the subways, and they seem to have some kind of like ozone detector device, but it's really a machine that tries to monitor the air quality to see if there's anything that could prove harmful to the passengers down below.
But whereas a year ago it would have gotten a lot of attention, a heavily armed police officer carrying an assault weapon and placing a monitor in the air to measure the air quality, now the officer barely gets a look.
And here's the big question, what they used to call the $64 question, Curtis.
Do you think that New York is ever going to be the same place?
Oh, yeah, there's no question.
New York has a vibrancy.
There's what we call a juice and energy here that exists in New York that exists in no other city in the United States and few around the world, London being one of the exceptions to that rule.
And I think with Americans, while most of the fighting and most of the war on terrorism is taking place in Iraq and Afghanistan, since it's out of sight, out of mind, people are getting back into a normal routine.
And that's exactly what the terrorists are hoping, because they're hoping to catch you snapping again.
And what do you think are the chances of something bad happening on or around this anniversary?
Oh, no, no, no, no.
The history of the terrorists are that they'll lay in wait, sometimes wait as much as five to seven years before they strike again.
And it'll be a very calculated strike.
And what they feel is an Achilles heel in our homeland security.
I don't really think we'll see any attempts in the near future.
I think all of the focus for their efforts are to battle American and British troops in Iraq and coalition forces in Afghanistan.
Howard's world.
And don't forget, one of the first things that dawned on me when 9-11 happened was the fact that the story was relevant to London.
Why?
Because of the great connections, especially among the financial community, both sides of the Atlantic.
Some lost relatives or friends working in that sector.
It also took its toll, of course, on the financial markets themselves, because they were significantly down for quite a while.
Justin Erkut Stewart's an old friend of mine.
He's from 7 Investment Management in the city.
And I asked him before I flew out here how London traders are feeling at this time.
It certainly did touch everybody, and it was really quite an extremely unemotional time because many people knew people over there, either directly because they were friends or just because they did business.
And because we have major transatlantic ties in our business.
And so it wasn't just something which was just another Disaster.
It was something that had become very personal to our industry, and it created not just sorrow for what had happened, but also an anger that we were damned if we were going to see our industry being destroyed and the value of our economies being destroyed by terrorism, and that we would do everything necessary to try and support the markets and the economic environment.
And that's what you said to me on that day.
You said that we have to defy, we cannot let these people win.
And that was why, when I talked to you on 9-11, that was why people went back to their desks, both sides of the Atlantic, to do their transatlantic trades the next day.
They were not going to be defeated.
They did indeed.
And it was remarkable how quickly things didn't get back to normal because things weren't going to be the same again.
But how quickly people sat down, got on with it, and made sure that these terrorists were not going to destroy what everyone had worked long and hard to and what those people lost their lives for.
And so that still same thing continues.
And every time we hear of another terrorist incident, and we will certainly be thinking of them on this awful anniversary to make sure that if anyone tries this again, and I'm sure they will, it's going to take a lot more than that to actually make sure that anything is stopped in its tracks.
Now, look, Justin, we all know the big global headlines around this and the fact that the war on terror we're being told is being won and all the rest of it.
What tends to be forgotten are the human stories, the stories of people who perhaps moved over to work in the New York office and lost their lives or whatever.
Or there was the woman from London, wasn't there, who lived over there.
The Americans nearly threw her out because she was British and her husband, who was American, died in this.
That was all sorted out.
But I wonder what you're hearing on the human side of it now.
It's all very much that families are having to still try to manage without their loved ones.
And there are still many examples of not only firms that lost a great deal, but also individuals who've had family connections.
And those wounds don't heal.
They're there.
They're just now not quite as painful as they were before, not quite as raw.
But I'm afraid they're still there and people won't forget and nor should they.
And we must do everything we can to make sure these people aren't forgotten and that their families and everyone around them are provided with necessary support and to show that actually their rare loved ones didn't die in vain.
And what about the trading firms who were affected?
I'm thinking particularly here of the firm of Cantor Fitzgerald.
Now I remember reading all about that and in fact had a friend with connections in Cantor Fitzgerald.
They had the heart ripped out of them on that day, didn't they?
It was a disaster for them and certainly they were the firm that got most hit.
But they have bounced back.
They're operating.
They are a very successful business and though they obviously went through more pain than most.
But nonetheless, just show the strength that actually we can bounce back from it and make sure that the bastards don't get us down.
And because Wall Street lost a lot of top people and also a certain amount of technical expertise and equipment in all of that, how is it all functioning now, two years on?
Well it was fascinating to see that the number of people and there were some very very talented people who were lost and of course they were missed and but over time the people have been retrained, other systems replaced and we are wiser from the event and they won't do the same thing again.
They'll find no doubt another way of doing it.
But people are now considering these issues and the markets have absorbed terrorist activity.
They've even built it into the risk, into the valuations.
That's not to say we won't get blown off course again but it may not be as easy as it was then.
And of course you can see how companies now react.
They have higher levels of security and make sure that they've got proper support if and when anything does happen again.
This is Howard's World and this week I'm in New York and I've been talking to the people who live here about the second anniversary of 9-11.
Now by the time you get to two years from a major news event it's easy to forget how the thing began and how it was reported at the beginning.
Can you remember how exactly you got to hear the news of the death of Princess Diana, for example?
Well it's the same with this story, the story of 9-11, but I can tell you how it happened here at LBC.
It was actually broken by LBC's New York correspondent, a man who is lucky enough to live in a lovely home in Greenwich Village and be very much part of life here.
His name is Alan Capper.
Alan, it's a pleasure to be with you in your home doing this broadcast.
Tell me in your own words, better than I could sum it all up, you know, the story of how you came to hear about what happened on 9-11 and how you conveyed it to London.
Howard, what happened was that morning, it was a superb morning in New York.
At around 8.40-ish, I was having the last cup of tea before I was about to go out and hit the streets.
And all of a sudden, there was this incredible noise of a large jet plane going right overhead.
That was very, very strange because it was right off the flight path.
Planes don't go over this vicinity at all.
And my first thought was it was a military jet of some kind.
But then a few seconds later, there was a loud explosion.
And this apartment, as you know, looks down towards the site where the towers were.
It was part of the view from this apartment.
So within seconds, I could see smoke billowing out.
Went up to the roof for a better view.
And at that stage, you could see flames.
And I suddenly thought, I have to call the studio immediately.
I was really struck by the horror of it all, but I felt that I've got to do something to report this back to London.
It's strange how that instinct kicks in, isn't it?
Where you realize that you're seeing something terrible, but you also know that as a journalist, there's a duty there, too, I guess.
Yeah, exactly.
And in fact, through the course of the day, Howard, I think I did 18 broadcasts, and the need to be objective about it was enormously helpful to me personally because, of course, everyone was completely traumatized.
At one stage, my next-door neighbor was up on the roof with me while I was on the telephone to LBC.
And he was in a very, very desperate state.
And when the first tower came down, that was it.
He was in tears and actually left New York for a few days to recover.
What you're witnessing, you see, is the unthinkable.
Of course it is.
But you were in a very unique position, a truly unique position, because I know that covering these events for another radio station, our only contact in radio terms was a station that was 50 miles out of New York, and we were getting information from somebody there whose friends were coming to him and telling him what was going on.
New York for a while was almost cut off, certainly to us radio people.
Yes, And what happened really when the tower came down, a lot of the communications in New York City were interrupted, gone, and all of a sudden I couldn't get through to the studio at all.
And I was desperately frustrated because events were moving very, very fast.
And life in New York was coming to a standstill.
We had fighter jets flying overhead.
That was the only sound, really.
And I wanted to try and convey this, and I couldn't for some time.
And then, curiously enough, by a pure quirk of technology, we had an incoming phone call from London.
And through that call, I managed to get patched through to the LBC studio, and we continued broadcasting.
And at the end of the day, walking around our immediate area where there was no traffic at all, the city was very, very quiet.
I think then the full enormity of what had happened hit me because up until then, I'd been protected by my need to broadcast all this information.
And all of a sudden, when that stopped, I was in New Yorker like everybody else and then felt the full impact of it.
So in a way, I felt that I was privileged to be protected and privileged to be reporting a story like this back to London.
You know, they say that every journalist has that one moment and something that becomes their story.
Right.
Perhaps you only get that once in a career.
I've had it certainly once, but not as directly as you.
How do you feel after it?
How do you feel it's the worst journalistic question of all?
But how has it left you feeling, the experience of having done that?
Because it's a place in history.
Yes, it was a mixture of feelings because I did think from LBC's point of view, it was great to be telling the story so quickly and to beat our competition.
We were, if not the first, certainly amongst the very first to report the story.
And I felt that this was a strange situation because it's a dubious privilege, really, isn't it?
You know, it's a wonderful thing to have a great breaking news story, but what a horrific story.
And it's not something that you want to do again.
You're always going to be torn by thinking, that's a terrible thing and this is a great story.
Yes, yes.
I mean, I was reminded of the reporter in the 30s who had to report on the Hindenburg disaster, all that film we've seen, where he suddenly broke down and said, oh my God, the humanity.
And there were many times when I completely understood his feelings.
And I didn't break down because I was protected in a way by doing the broadcast back to London.
I think it tested all of us, even those of us who were not directly affected by it.
You know, what did it for me was a year on where we had the recitation of names and one girl was talking about her father and she said, Dad, I hope you didn't hurt too much.
And I'm afraid at that point, and I was trying to put together a report, that was it.
I still can't hear that.
And I still get choked whenever I even think of those words.
You know, one of the saddest things is that very near to us is the St. Vincent's Hospital.
And that would have been the first major hospital for the injured to be coming up from the World Trade Center.
And the entire staff were on call.
There were trolleys outside ready to pick up the injured.
But of course, there weren't any injured because most of the people that were caught in these buildings were killed.
So that was a very, very sad thing indeed.
And that was a point that was made a lot on day one, the fact that the hospital was ready to take casualties and there were none.
And that point hung in the air like something leaden.
It was a really, really terrible, terrible fact.
And yet over these two years, it's the kind of detail that you forget.
It gets lost in the mists of the past.
Yeah, it does.
It does indeed.
But certainly it's a day never to be forgotten.
And I shall remember it until the day I die.
And you still want to be a journalist?
Well, I still am, and, you know, it is a...
It's a great station.
And I love reporting what's happening in New York, whether it's good, bad, indifferent, because there's such a huge connection between London and New York at every level, from trade and politics down to personal visitors here.
Of course, we are two years on from that dreadful day, but for people here, the shockwaves, the knock-ons from it continue every day.
And whenever you arrive in this city, as I did a few days ago, first thing you do is get in one of those symbols of New York, the big yellow taxi.
Well, I spoke to my driver, Ali, and he is a Muslim living here in America, a young Muslim, about how he feels things have changed since 9-11.
New York has changed pretty much, but it has gone back to before September 11th.
People have had a lot of They helped out each other.
And I think that's about it.
Were you here when it happened?
Actually, yes, I was.
I was at home sleeping at that time.
And my father, he was two blocks away when the second plane hit.
And my mom woke me up.
I got a call from my sister and she woke me up.
She said, turn the TV on and see what's going on.
But I really had no idea.
At that time, when I turned the TV on, I realized there was something really big going on.
Try to contact my dad.
It took us about two and a half hours to get in touch with him.
And he came into Queens after five hours because they had shut all the bridges and tunnels down.
He couldn't come back in.
You know, it's the kind of experience that you never forget.
I guess two years down the track from it, it still must be very fresh to you.
It must be like yesterday.
It sure is.
I remember I got out of my house.
At that time, I used to live in Jackson High, Queens.
I got out of my house and I went and stood on the corner and I could actually see the smoke coming out from towards Manhattan, coming out from Manhattan.
And I could just see the smoke and everybody was standing over there and just staring.
Really, they were shocked that how could something like this happen?
They had no idea what actually was behind this and what really was going on.
Now I've got friends who work on Wall Street and friends who work in buildings very close to what used to be the World Trade Center.
I know how it affected them, but if you were standing there from a distance and watching it, what did that feel like?
It felt like that had really happened and I really wasn't sure exactly what's going to happen to us because I myself am Muslim and they were saying a day Later, they were saying what had happened and who had done it.
You know, I was really shocked.
And a lot of my friends are actually American, Hispanic, you know, mixed breed.
And they were really shocked and surprised as well because they see me as an example of Muslims and they say, How can somebody like this do that?
Because there was for a little bit of a while a backlash, wasn't there, against Muslims here.
Anybody who had a skin that wasn't pure white, you know, was seen as suspicious.
And if you were Muslim, you were particularly suspicious.
Yes, there was.
I was the next day, I was walking with my parents to my sister's house, my brother-in-law's house, and I actually felt it when I see young kids looking at us and pointing fingers and saying stuff.
I really felt it at that time, but then when President Bush came on the radio and TV and said that the Muslims who are living here had nothing to do with it, you know, after that we felt a really change and people had stopped doing that.
So what do you think of the Muslims who did that two years ago?
What's your view of them?
Well, my view is that the people who did it, they just call themselves Muslims.
They really do not follow the preaching of the Prophet Muhammad.
You know, people, the Prophet never told the Muslims, his coming generations, to do something like this.
You know, you're not allowed to attack an innocent human being, period.
And it's now two years exactly like we've been saying, and that's why I'm here.
Do you feel that you have a problem with other people now?
Do they still point you out?
Do they still give you abuse or is it okay now?
Is it alright?
Well, there, you know, in a society, there are always going to be a couple of handful of people who are going to be ignorant and really don't actually realize who has done it and who's responsible for it.
They just like to blame everybody.
In every society, we have them.
And I would say you only have those people left and nobody else would point you out or do anything to you.
Well, Ali, listener, I hope you get through this day okay and I wish you well for the future and all your friends here in New York.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you for having me.
Talking with you, this is Howard Hughes, Howard Hughes.
This is Howard's World and this week a special edition from New York City.
We're looking back at the second anniversary of 9-11, the terror attacks in 2001.
There weren't many aspects of life here in New York that weren't touched by the atrocity, tourism being one of the worst areas to be hit, of course.
I've been staying at the Millennium Hilton Hotel, one of New York's finest hotels just across the road from Ground Zero.
It was badly damaged in the attack and they've done amazing work to not only get it back to the way it was before, but to really improve it.
I caught up with the manager of the hotel, Yen Larsen.
Yen, tell me the story of this hotel, because the story of this hotel is really the story of what happened to the buildings around here on 9-11 and after.
Yes, it was certainly very much part of what happened.
We were fortunate enough that our hotel was not destroyed.
We had some damage and we spent some considerable amount of time to make sure that the building actually were structurally sound and that it was free of any asbestos or any contaminated air.
So we spent a good six or nine months actually making sure that everything was okay.
Now if you're in the hotel trade, downtime like that is a disaster, isn't it, in itself?
It certainly is.
It's tough on our customers.
It's tough on the company.
Thank God for our good insurance.
We, at the end of the day, when we had analyzed, evaluated the situation, we were required to remove every piece of furniture, the wallpapering, the carpeting, everything we had in the hotel because of potential contamination.
So what we have today is a completely new interior of the hotel.
The exterior, we replaced the broken windows and the building looks the same, but inside it's a brand new hotel that we are very proud to have reopened back on May 5th of this year and gradually put the rooms into inventory and by the end of July had all of the rooms back in service.
It's an amazing sight when you see it inside.
You know, I saw this place on the television and up close and personal around the time that it happened.
I think it's a bit of a tribute to America in a way that it's possible, just like what they've done over at the Ground Zero site, to get this place into this condition in this amount of time.
It is indeed and we, as a hotel company and the ownership, we were very anxious to be part of the rebuilding of Lower Manhattan.
We wanted to contribute.
We wanted to show the rest of Manhattan and the rest of the country that we were committed to being Lower Manhattan.
We were committed to be in this location and be part of the rebirth and the rebuilding.
It is indeed America.
It is ever optimistic, but we also move forward and I think it is very important that we continue to look forward at the what can we do tomorrow.
Tell me about getting the business back because as you said you lost a certain amount of trade during that time.
From what I'm hearing, the taxi driver who brought me here told me people are coming back to New York.
So tell me about that whole process of getting people to be, first of all, feeling safe about coming here and actually wanting to do it.
There's a couple of different aspects of that from a pure business point of view.
We have been in contact with all of our customers during the 18 months the hotel was closed down by regular mailing, keeping an update as to what was going on.
We have a very active sales force that makes sure that we stay in touch with everyone.
We have found since we have reopened that there's a lot of Americans that has a very strong need to come back and visit, experience, see what Ground Sera is all about, and quite frankly, very emotional for a lot of them.
LBC 97.3.
Howard's World.
And I also spoke to Terry Dale.
Now he is the very, very enthusiastic boss of the NYC and company, which is basically the New York Tourist Board.
He believes that the city is moving forward now.
Well, Howard, if we just take a look at the last 24 hours and what took place in this amazing city, we had the U.S. Open with the strongest attendance ever.
We had a sell-out crowd For the Yankees, a sell-out crowd for the New York Giants.
We had Broadway on Broadway, which brought to best to life the best of Broadway in the middle of Times Square, which we literally turned down to vehicular traffic, and 70,000 people congregated in the middle of Times Square to watch all of those amazing productions.
Now, that of all things is really important, isn't it, Terry?
Because Broadway took a massive hit for a long time after September the 11th.
Broadway did, but they're back.
And then we look at the downtown area, and we had the River to River Festival, where we had a live conference going on, and New Yorkers gathering in the middle of Battery Park.
And then we had the Third Avenue Art Festival going on, which was the largest ever in its history of some 30 years.
So a lot of stuff.
A lot of stuff going on.
What is going on in a mere 24 hours in New York City?
So we are back.
There's a renewed sense of optimism.
There's an excitement about the vision that's going to rebuild the downtown area.
So it's the same dynamic city that it was prior to September 11th, and there's a lot for people to take part of.
Well, that's the impression that I'm getting.
And even here around Ground Zero, where it's been cleaned up to a large extent, a lot of that dust that was here even a year ago has gone now, and it's looking very forward-looking and very optimistic if you can feel that from an area.
Are you surprised at one thing that has struck me very forcibly since I've been here?
The fact that this has become a tourist attraction.
I hate to use that word attraction, but it's a tourist draw in itself.
I've talked to people today from Argentina, from Chile, from Britain, and they've come here because they feel they have to see this.
They have to see this site.
Well, to answer your question, we are not surprised.
When you put this into historical context, this is a point in our history which people will want to pay tribute to, remember, never forget.
So there is a natural draw to come to this destination in the downtown area.
So we're not surprised by that draw, and we want to make sure that we pay appropriate tribute to those people who lost their lives, but also we will be forward thinking to show the future of New York in what is developed here.
So do you think the design concept for what will replace the Twin Towers, and that is, I think, what they call asymmetric buildings with a tower that's going to be taller than the Twin Towers as a commemorative thing.
Is that appropriate?
Is that right?
Does that feel right to you?
Well, everyone seems to agree on the point that New York City should be home to the world's tallest building.
Now, that does not mean that we will have offices all the way to the top, but that we should have a tower that is symbolic of the strength and the image of this city.
So I think that there is agreement to that.
There is also agreement that it should be a mixed-use development where we will have a cultural institution that has performing arts space and a lot of green space for people to reflect on what took place here and a place to escape to.
So it will be a mixed-use development, but most importantly, it will pay tribute to the tragic events that took place here.
One of the things that always sells New York is the spirit of the people.
You know, they are very direct.
I forgot what it was like to be here.
And I was here in May.
You know, you pick up the phone and you talk to somebody and they say, yes, right, fine, thank you.
Not, have a nice day.
What a lovely sky there is today.
And I had a good flight over from London.
It's like very, very direct.
And I think New York has got back that spirit.
It's what Chutzpo, what do they call it?
Whatever it is.
Right.
That's a good thing, isn't it?
That's a great thing.
That's what we're known for.
But I think that we've got a softer edge.
There's warmth with it, too.
Absolutely.
I think that that's something that the world forgot.
But it became much more apparent after the September 11th tragedy where New Yorkers are still very warm, loving, caring people.
And we will never lose sight of that fact.
Very quickly, New York has always been a terrifically packaged and marketed city.
You know, the whole Big Apple concept, and I love New York.
In the future, we'll be looking maybe at a different way of selling New York.
Will you be coming up with a new slogan, a new way?
I think we just want to reiterate that premier international destination image, whether it's through the Big Apple or some other new symbol.
We just want people to know that we're still the same dynamic, diverse destination that they've loved for years and they will continue to love as we move on.
Terry Dale, what do you think in your position of the people who did this to your city, who leveled the Twin Towers and caused two years as it's been now of anguish?
I'm not sure I know what to think.
We are a stronger people as a result, and I think that that's what's most important.
And it helped define who we are and reinforce what we love and have passion for, and that's our home called New York.
So far, we've seen how it affected London and the city's tourism, but of course you can't come to New York now without visiting the Ground Zero site itself.
It has become curiously a tourist attraction.
Jimmy Riches, Away with Women.
Among the firemen sifting debris at Ground Zero is a battalion chief, James Riches, who is searching for his son and namesake, known to his family as Little Jimmy.
Jimmy Riches, who would have turned 30 on September 12th, was the oldest of four brothers in a family in which uniformed service is a way of life.
He served seven years in the police department before joining the fire department in 1999.
Rita Riches, Big Jimmy's wife and Little Jimmy's mother, does not bemoan her fate.
Her second son, Timothy, is a police officer who expects to join the fire department early in 2002.
Her third, Danny- What you've heard is three people reading from a book, and the book chronicles the life stories of people who suffered and died in the tragedy.
Not people who make headlines, but the ordinary people, the people who perhaps would take the PATH train into New York every day and work in the financial district down on Wall Street or work in the hotels and the shops here and whose lives were tragically cut short in such a terrible and horrific way that the world Would never forget.
That's a book that's been published out here telling the stories of these people, and they've got a very big audience, the three people who are reciting from it here at the moment.
At the actual site of Ground Zero, I'm standing right looking into the chasm at the moment, the multi-story chasm that was the lower part where there was a train station, where there were shops, where there were offices.
It's a 24-hour building site here, but for a little while later, when the commemorations happen, of course, everything will stop.
And as you will know, a group of children will start to read the litany of names, the 2,800 people who died, just as Rudolf Giuliani and President Bush read those names last year.
Very, very moving.
And there is still here, and I guess there always will be, there is still here a sense of great and deep solemnity about it all as people stand and lean against the railings here because the whole thing is fenced and railed off and just stare into that sight and quietly reflect on their lives and the lives of the people who passed here.
You cannot fail to be moved by it.
Even if you weren't in New York, even if you're not American, you can't fail to be moved by it.
And whoever you are, I think it probably has something to say to you.
I'm just going to try and talk to a couple of the people who are here without intruding.
Excuse me, I'm from the radio in London.
I hope you don't mind me just talking to you.
No, that's fine.
Can I ask you why you came here now?
I came because one of my best friends was in the towers and died.
And to come here and be part of this now, does it help?
It's my first time coming down here.
I couldn't come before now.
I've heard that a lot.
I've heard a lot of people say that I just haven't been able to come the other side.
The spot we're standing in now is the closest to where she would be because she was in the 93rd floor of the first tower right here.
So that's what I felt right now.
And as you stand here right now, what are your thoughts?
What's going through your mind?
It's just such a horror that she and all these people are gone so senselessly.
It's just horrible.
And you look at this pit here.
I used to work two blocks from here.
You can't believe that this is just a big gaping hole for no reason.
You know, I came here a year ago for the first commemoration.
People then were talking about getting through the day and moving on.
Do you think New York, do you think America will ever be able to really do that?
I'd say now it's getting better, but even in the first year, it's very hard because you feel it's going to happen again.
Something is going to happen.
I mean, I never had the ground taken from under me like that.
And I was working in Midtown and for weeks just was trembling at the thought of being in the city, but I had to do it every day.
This is Howard's World, and this week, a special edition from New York City.
We're looking back at the second anniversary of 9-11, the terror attacks in 2001.
We've moved away from the site of Ground Zero across the road now, across the street, as they say here.
Now, as I said, standing immediately in front of the site are the people who are directly connected, people who lost friends and loved ones who are standing in silence.
And the media, the TV crews are respecting, as they should, the solemnity of the moment and more or less letting them have their moment.
On the other side of the street are people not so directly connected, but nevertheless, people who feel they have to be here, like this lady here, what's your name?
Sharon.
Where are you from?
I'm from Pennsylvania.
Why are you here?
I'm here with a group of sociologists and we've become involved with the victims groups, the different groups, specifically the one group that we work with is Peaceful Tomorrows.
And so we've come here to show support for the victims of 9-11.
You say sociologists, is this sort of counseling or what?
Well, no, we're basically college students at various levels in the university working towards a degree in either sociology or psychology.
And so we have come as a show of support for the specific, for the different groups, but like I said, specifically for the one group.
It's interesting, it's been interesting to me talking to people along here and around this site.
People have come from all over the world here to be part of this.
People who perhaps on holiday have taken a day out to come to this site.
Does that surprise you as an American that people feel they have to be here?
No, I don't think so.
I think many times that we as Americans we tend to bluster, but when they say that we have big hearts, it really is true.
I think deep down inside, we kind of like to keep that covered.
But when it comes right down to it, we're very close-knit.
Just like a close-knit family, we may squabble among each other, but if some outsider comes out and insults us, one of us, then we all stick together.
It's a question that I asked a lot a year ago.
I asked this question a great deal to many people and got some interesting answers a year ago.
I'm going to ask you, do you feel safe in your country now?
I do.
I personally do.
But I know there are some people who do not.
But I feel that measures have been taken.
And hopefully it won't happen again.
We don't know.
But you have to keep moving on.
You can't look behind you for the boogeyman every time you turn around.
It just doesn't make sense.
People I talked to here last year said, we want to get through the day of commemoration, then look forward.
Do you think America's getting through it?
Are they getting through the process of moving forward, coping with the grief, dealing with it day by day, and then stepping forward?
Well, I think we're definitely moving forward.
I mean, there's no two ways about that.
You know, that American dog determinism.
But, you know, the other thing, too, is, though, is if we don't learn from history, we're doomed to repeat history.
So it's real important that we remember, you know, this is what happened here.
You know, this could happen anywhere out of the blue.
And, you know, we have to be prepared for it.
But as we look to the future, we can't forget, you know, the people who were here, you know, the innocent victims who were murdered, basically.
Sociology, sociologists, you study people.
So your answer to this question will be interesting.
Two years on, what do you think of the people who did that?
Well, they believed in what they, you know, they had their beliefs.
We have our beliefs.
It's two separate worlds.
And, you know, they did what they felt was right.
You know, sadly enough, as it is with most fanatics, it's always the innocents that suffer.
You know, whether it's the innocent people in the Middle East or the innocent people here.
I mean, even in Israel, innocent people are suffering for what?
You know, for fanaticism, because fanaticism in any form is unhealthy.
This is Howard's World.
And lastly, I think this week we have to look at the commemoration itself.
These are the sounds of the day.
On the stage, two years ago, our homeland and the world witnessed acts of unimaginable horror and unforgettable heroism, of unspeakable cruelty and uncommon compassion.
Six decades ago, Winston Churchill's beloved country also suffered a terrible blow and faced what seemed to be insurmountable dangers and despair.
He taught me, and I remembered on September 11, 2003, that he always believed, and we believe, that people who live in freedom have something to live for, something to fight for, and even something to die for.
And they will prevail over those who live in oppression.
Winston Churchill taught us that our ideas and ideals of freedom and democracy will prevail.
Winston Churchill said, we shall not fail or falter.
We shall not weaken or tire.
Neither the sudden shock of battle nor the long-drawn trials of vigilance and exertion will wear us down.
He also said, repair the waste, rebuild the ruins, heal the wounds, crown the victors, comfort the broken and brokenhearted.
There is the battle we have won to fight.
There is the victory we have now to win.
Let us go forward together.
But we also remember with pride, and from that comes our resolve to go forward.
Our faces and hopes turn towards the future.
In keeping with this, the children of our city and the children who lost loved ones will lead our ceremonies.
It is in them that the spirit of New York lives, carrying both our deepest memories and the bright promise of tomorrow.
And now, please join us and all New Yorkers in a moment of silence.
This garden should never have been built because you should never have suffered as you have.
But here it stands for you and for the whole world.
A testament to the love you have for those who died on that terrible day two years ago.
Remember me when I am gone away.
Gone far away into the silent land.
When you can no more hold me by the hand, nor I half turning to go, yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day you tell me of our future that you planned.
Only remember me.
You understand.
It will be too late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while and afterwards remember, do not grieve.
For if the darkness and corruption leave a vestige of the thoughts that once I had, better by far you should forget and smile than that you should remember and be sad.
*Burz*
David Scott Agnes.
Brian G. A. I love you, Daddy.
I miss you a lot.
Richard Anthony Ochada.
My loving father, Patrick Adams, we love you.
I miss you.
We remember lives lost.
We remember the heroic deeds.
We remember the compassion, the decency of our fellow citizens on that terrible day.
I can only hope that the relatives of those who died will see in this garden beauty, tranquility and space, along with sensing the thoughts of millions of people who would wish to help you ease the burden of your sorrow.
Say can you see, by the dawn's early light Well, thank you for being part of a special edition of Howard's World, looking back at the second anniversary of 9-11.
And even amongst all the suffering and the pain that is still so apparent here in New York, there is the sense that things are moving on and this is going to be an even better city.
In spite of something terrible that happened here two years ago, thank you very much to producer Jenny Priestley for a lot of hard work this week.
And I'll be back in London next week.
Well, that's how life was and how I was exactly 10 years ago.
On the anniversary of 9-11 when I did a special broadcast direct from New York City.
And it was a pleasure and a privilege to meet a lot of those people.
Very, very brave people.
Very, very thoughtful people.
And I hope that if you're one of those people and you're hearing this now, that life has been good to you in the intervening 10 years.
And if you were involved in 9-11 in any way, directly or indirectly, as so many of us were, then I hope that you are slowly coming to terms with this awful event, in whatever way that you can.
I think it will be there in all of our minds.
I will never be able to pass an anniversary of 9-11 without thinking of the people that I knew at the time, and the person I was back then, and those events and what they meant.
And the conspiracy theorists and people asking questions about 9-11 will continue to do exactly That.
Things like, how come the black box flight recorders, or most of them, apparently disappeared?
How come a passport of one of the hijackers survived when those black boxes didn't?
Many, many questions.
What about the planes?
What about the passengers?
They will continue to be asked by many, many people for as many years as I'm going to be on this earth and possibly you too.
And perhaps there will never be a definitive answer.
But the most important thing is the questions continue to get asked.
I've thought a million times about 9-11 and how it happened and who was behind it over the years.
And I'm still not convinced that the official explanation was the explanation, but neither am I totally convinced by any of the so-called conspiracy theorists.
So there are many, many questions to ask.
Thank you to Adam Cornwell, my webmaster at Creative Hotspot in Liverpool, for getting the show out to you this time.
We have a regular edition of The Unexplained coming up next.
If you want to donate to the show, please go to my website, www.theunexplained.tv, and you can do that very, very easily there.
And thank you, all these years on, to Jenny Priestley, who was my assistant producer and friend at both Capitol Radio and I took her across to LBC when I moved there.
She nailed together that show in very, very little time.
Neither of us had very much time available to us and did a great job.
It was broadcast originally exactly 10 years ago.
My name is Howard Hughes.
Like I say, a regular Unexplained coming next.
Please take care.
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