So another 9/11 passes, and today on its 8th anniversary I can still clearly recall that Tuesday morning when a colleague called me from Toronto. I was already in my LA office, really early as usual, responding to client emails.  Back in those days I liked coming into the office while it was still dark outside. It meant I had a fighting chance of catching up on whatever I’d left undone the night before.

 

A former trader, an Alpha male in every sense of the word, he asked if I was safe, and just from the abnormally gentle tone of his voice I knew something exraordinary had happened.  Death is always announced in that timbre. I remember fumbling around, looking for any information I could on the Internet and getting nowhere fast. I called my sister in Manhattan and got her voicemail.  I tried to leave a calm message but my panic might have escaped, I’m not sure now. Couldn’t find the little handheld TV I had somewhere in one of my drawers.  It took me five minutes to drive home after I went through my emergency list and told all of my staff to not come in.  And the rest…well, you have your own memories of that day.

 

I’m one of the lucky ones. I didn’t lose any family or friends in 9/11.  But its immediate impact came down on our industry as violently as the buildings on Ground Zero. I wasn’t living in NY but its pain was never far.  One year later, almost exactly to the day, I went back to NY for the US Open tennis tournament.  Those trips to Flushing Meadows were a tradition for me at that point, and I wanted very much to believe that we could continue to live our lives after 9/11.  The pictures you see today are the ones I took of Ground Zero in September 2002. To this day I am still moved by the memories behind each photo.

 

Let’s love one another.