Jacob Fortinsky Recalls South Tower Collapse Blowing Out Gateway Plaza Windows 25 Years Later
Updated
Updated · The New York Times · Sep 8
Jacob Fortinsky Recalls South Tower Collapse Blowing Out Gateway Plaza Windows 25 Years Later
1 articles · Updated · The New York Times · Sep 8
Summary
One block from the World Trade Center, Jacob Fortinsky says the South Tower’s collapse blew in his family’s 21st-floor Gateway Plaza windows, filling the apartment with dust and debris when he was 3.
Wet cloth strips became makeshift filters as his mother and nanny carried Jacob, his twin Sarah and their 2-year-old sister into a crowded stairwell and then a basement boiler room.
Barefoot after escaping, the children took a boat to New Jersey and bathed repeatedly until gray ash washed off, in what Fortinsky says are his earliest memories.
At 28, he says the attack’s aftermath lingered in months of anxiety that tall buildings would collapse and fear of fire, part of a broader look at whether 9/11 dust still affects survivors’ health.