On no other single day in history have so many people died from an attack on American soil.
By Jenny Anderson, Rich Blake, Justin Dini, Hal Lux and Justin Schack
October 2001
Institutional Investor Magazine
Not at the bloody battles of Antietam or Gettysburg during the Civil War, not during the Johnstown Flood or the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. On October 1 more than 5,000 people were listed as missing, and 641 confirmed dead, following the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington. Not all who died, or were injured, were Americans, either. Citizens of more than 60 nations perished, sadly underscoring the critical role that the U.S., and lower Manhattan in particular, plays in the world’s financial system. The ranks of the dead are filled, as well, with men and women from just about every walk of life, from chief executives to cooks and busboys. Here are some of those who lost their lives in the attack.
Lorraine Antigua ass’t v.p., equity finance desk, Cantor Fitzgerald 104th floor, Tower One
Lorraine Antigua, a native of Puerto Rico who grew up in Brooklyn and attended Forest Hills High School in Queens, worked her way up the Wall Street ladder despite never having attended college. “She’s very tenacious,” says her husband, Brian Wilkes. “Let’s face it, we’re talking about a men’s club, so she really had to work extra hard to rise through the ranks.” Antigua got her start in 1987 through a public school internship program, working part-time as an assistant on the equity finance desk at Credit Suisse. She eventually got a full-time job on the conduit borrowing desk. Before joining Cantor Fitzgerald in 1999, Antigua worked on the equity finance desk at Nomura Securities. At about 8:50 a.m., just after the first plane hit Tower One, Antigua called her husband. “The ceiling was on fire, and she was shaken up,” he says, “but she said not to worry because she was evacuating. She said she was heading down, but no one from her firm seems to have made it out.” The 32-year-old Middletown, New Jersey, resident and Wilkes had been married one year. She is survived by two children from a previous marriage, Aaron, 13, and Caitlin, 10. Her husband says, “She loved her kids, reading mysteries, scuba diving in Puerto Rico and, most of all, being happy.”
Of the 1,000 employed by Cantor Fitzgerald at the World Trade Center, none of the 730 who were in the building at the time have been found.
Marlyn Bautista accounts payable clerk, Marsh & McLennan Cos. 98th floor, Tower One
Rameses Bautista, a mechanic for Continental Airlines, works evenings and wakes up late. On Tuesday he awoke at 9:00 a.m., turned on the television like he always did and watched the twin towers burn, then collapse. Inside Tower One was his wife of ten years, Marlyn Bautista. “I thought it was a trailer for a new movie,” he says. “I kept thinking, ‘Someone please wake me up.’”
Natives of the Philippines, Marlyn, 46, and Rameses, 43, moved to the New York area in 1990; their home is in Iselin, New Jersey. They have no children. “She’s all I have,” Rameses says.
“She was such a beautiful person,” says Miriam Cepeda, who worked with Bautista for more than four years before being transferred last year to Guy Carpenter & Co., the Marsh & McLennan Cos. subsidiary that occupied the 54th floor of Tower Two. Cepeda and her fellow employees at Guy Carpenter escaped by walking down all 54 flights. “She was always in a good mood and had so much energy,” Cepeda says of her friend.
Marsh & McLennan had 1,900 people working in or visiting the World Trade Center towers on September 11; 292 are missing or confirmed dead.
David Berry director of research, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods 89th floor, Tower One
“Fundamental research is the core of our firm,” Keefe, Bruyette & Woods chief executive John Duffy told Institutional Investor earlier this year. At the heart of KBW’s efforts was David Berry, its 43-year old director of research, whose in-depth analyses have made the firm one of the most respected sources of expertise for investors in the financial services industry.
Berry joined KBW in 1985 after stints as an energy consultant and commodity fund manager. He started at KBW as a regional bank analyst before switching to money-center banks in 1990. In 1992 the firm named him research director. He joined the board of directors last year and remained KBW’s senior money-center bank analyst even as he ran the 28-person research department.
“He was one of the experienced deans of the banking industry,” says Dennis Shea, head of global research at Morgan Stanley and a former bank analyst. “He was a great analyst - very insightful, a serious, probing questioner. He was fun to debate with. I respected him a lot, and he became a great leader for his firm. He’ll be missed.”
KBW lost 67 of its 224 employees on floors 88 and 89 of Tower One.
Richard Blood insurance broker, Aon Corp. 105th floor, Tower Two
When the plane hit the first tower, Richard Blood was holding a meeting with about 50 clients, the largest being Pfizer, on the 105th floor of Tower Two. Only a few of the people at that meeting were able to get out, says Blood’s sister, Becky Wynn. “He was seen in the stairwell on the 59th floor at the time that the second plane hit.” The 38-year-old resident of Ridgewood, New Jersey, is the father of two children, Michael, 3, and Madeline, 1. Wynn says Blood, a native of Williamsburg, Virginia, was a devoted father and the sort of employee who always got to work early. “I’m still hoping he somehow made it to the basement and that he is alive. I’m not going to give up hope, not while there is still a chance. Rich was just a good guy.”
Aon Corp. is missing 200 of its 1,350 employees at the World Trade Center.
Milton Bustillo operations specialist, Cantor Fitzgerald 103rd floor, Tower One
Milton Bustillo was relieved when he arrived at work that Tuesday morning. The day before, a group of co-workers had been laid off, and he had worried that he might be among them. “If he had been laid off, we might still have him with us,” says his older sister, Disa.
Bustillo, 37, had been at Cantor Fitzgerald for ten years. He worked around the clock, and often on weekends, saving to buy a first house for his wife, eight-month-old daughter and seven-year-old stepdaughter. “He found the house in Toms River, New Jersey,” says his brother Henry. “He was in the final stages of the approval process.”
One of Bustillo’s cousins also had worked at Cantor Fitzgerald, until the WTC bombing in 1993. After that attack the cousin left, but Bustillo stayed on. On September 10 he told his wife, Laura, that he was going to postpone his appointment to get his car fixed Tuesday morning.
A pop and classical music aficionado, Bustillo loved Beethoven, Mozart and the Beatles and would often strum tunes on a guitar that his niece Paulina Bustillo loved to listen to. “He would never let me touch the guitar,” she says. Bustillo was such a fan of Mozart that after he came to the U.S. from Colombia in 1979, he changed his name from Milton Gilberto Bustillo to Milton Amadeus Bustillo. He talked to his mother, Margarita Better, every day and often visited her on weekends. “I had lunch with him on Sunday,” she says. “He was working very hard.”
Dean Eberling and Russell Keene III senior analysts, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods 89th floor, Tower Two
Dean Eberling, Russell Keene and Lauren Smith joined Keefe, Bruyette & Woods last year as a team. On September 11 the three fled their office together. Only Smith made it out alive.
The trio, along with about a dozen co-workers, were riding down in an elevator when the second plane struck Tower Two. The elevator cable snapped and the car plunged before an emergency brake kicked in a few feet from the bottom. The KBW employees managed to pry open the elevator doors, creating an opening barely six inches wide. Only Smith and another analyst, Linda Rothman, were small enough to squeeze out.
Eberling, 43, a native of Seaside Park, New Jersey, got his start as a financial services analyst at Merrill Lynch & Co., where he spent six years. He moved to Lehman Brothers in 1989; two years later he made his first appearance on Institutional Investor’s All-America Research Team as a runner-up in the financial services category. He finished third twice before jumping to Prudential Securities in 1994. That year he notched a first-place ranking in the brokers and asset managers category. In all, Eberling appeared on the team seven times.
An avid cyclist, Eberling had completed a grueling 24-hour race near his home in Westfield, New Jersey, about a week before the attacks. “If anyone could have survived this thing, it would have been him,” says his wife, Amy. “He was in the best shape of his life. His whole mind-set was that of a survivalist. That’s why it has been so hard to give up hope.” He leaves behind two daughters, ages 10 and 14.
Eberling, Keene and Smith moved as a team to Smith Barney in 1997, and then, the following year, to Putnam, Lovell, DeGuardiola & Thornton, where Eberling became head of research. “He put our research on the map,” says Putnam Lovell president Richard Morris.
Russell Keene, 33, a native of Sulphur, Louisiana, covered online brokerages. Friends say Keene, who also lived in Westfield, was an avid sportsman who once hiked through New Zealand for two months. He leaves his wife, Kristen, and a two-year-old daughter.
Bennett Fisher senior portfolio manager, Fiduciary Trust Co. International 97th floor, Tower Two
Bennett Fisher loved to sail. Fisher, 58, owned a 38-foot yacht named Counterpoint that he kept docked at the Indian Harbor Yacht Club in his hometown of Greenwich, Connecticut. The father of a son, 26, and a daughter, 23, Fisher was last seen by a co-worker on the 44th floor of Tower Two, the first building to collapse. The Greenwich-born son of a chemical engineer, Fisher was the oldest of seven children. He had recently taken his family to the U.K. for the America’s Cup Jubilee. Active in his community, he led local efforts to limit development. Says his brother Henry, “He loved the Stamford-Greenwich countryside and wanted to try to preserve as much land as possible.”
Of the 647 Fiduciary Trust employees in the tower that morning, 87 are missing or dead.
Lindsey Herkness III financial adviser, Morgan Stanley 73rd floor, Tower Two
Morgan Stanley employed nearly 3,700 people at the World Trade Center. Miraculously, all but six made it out. One who did not was Lindsay Herkness III. Among the firm’s top-producing financial advisers, the 58-year-old resident of Manhattan’s Upper East Side was a well-known socialite - and a lifelong bachelor - says his assistant of 17 years, Haji Abucar. “He loved life,” says Abucar, who has been taking care of Herkness’s basset hound, Gaston, since the attack. Right after the first plane hit, says Abucar, “he told me to go, to get out. The phone was ringing off the hook. Even after the second plane hit, he was taking calls from worried people, explaining to them that everybody was okay and evacuating the building. He stayed behind and made sure everybody got out ahead of him.” A co-worker reportedly saw Herkness on the 73rd floor of Tower Two, talking on the phone while others fled. Abucar says Herkness, a regular at the 21 Club, was legendary at Dean Witter Reynolds Co. for gathering clients by conducting investment seminars on the exotic cruises he liked to take. He had just returned from a cruise to New Zealand. “I’ve never seen him sad,” Abucar says.
Of the 3,700 Morgan Stanley employees at the World Trade Center, six are missing.
Amarnauth Lachman foreman, PM Contracting 103rd floor, Tower One
Amarnauth Lachman, a foreman at PM Contracting, was overseeing the construction of a new video teleconferencing center at Cantor Fitzgerald’s offices in Tower One. Lachman had been on the Cantor site a little longer than a month. A native of Guyana who grew up in Queens, Lachman was with a colleague from the Manhattan-based contractor when the first plane struck. “His buddy called back to the office and said that they had felt that first impact just below them, and then the line went dead,” says Lachman’s brother Orie. “He was a large man - 6-foot-3, 220 pounds - so I know he would have been trying to help people get out. He was always willing to help strangers, anyone who needed it. He was the kind of guy who actually stopped for stranded motorists.” Adds a co-worker, “He had the biggest heart in the world.” The 42-year-old Valley Stream, Long Island, resident and his wife, Camie, have a daughter, 7, and a son, 12.
Adrianna Legro institutional sales, Carr Futures 92nd floor, Tower One
In May Adrianna Legro and her two sisters packed up and flew off to Grand Cayman for four luxurious days on the beach. “No kids, no husbands, no boyfriends,” says Maria, her older sister. “It was just us.”
A fitness buff, Adrianna, 32, liked to jog - she ran her first race on Super Bowl Sunday in New York - rollerblade, ski and spend summer weekends at the Jersey shore, where she had a time-share with friends. She lived with her 92-year-old grandmother in Elmhurst, Queens. “She had a beautiful smile,” says Maria. “That’s what everyone keeps telling me about her - she just had this really beautiful smile.”
Maria last saw her sister when they worked out at their local gym a week before the attacks. She talked to her by phone a few days later, when Adrianna called her from the beach. On Tuesday morning Adrianna phoned a friend to say that the building was smoky and asked him to call 911 immediately.
Of the 143 Carr Futures employees who worked in the World Trade Center, 69 are missing or confirmed dead.
Neil Levin exec. director, Port Authority of NY & NJ 67th floor, Tower One
Neil Levin died doing a job he loved. “He loved it because it was combative, and he loved it because it put him at the center of the public policy debate,” says Gary Lewi, who met Levin 20 years ago when they both worked for former New York senator Alfonse D’Amato.
Levin, 46, reportedly was attending a breakfast meeting at Windows on the World on the 107th floor when the attack began. A trusted ally of New York Governor George Pataki, Levin took the Port Authority job in April. He oversaw the New York metropolitan area’s three major airports, bridges, tunnels and port facilities as well as the World Trade Center itself.
In 1981, just out of law school, Levin became an aide to freshman senator D’Amato; two years later he was named chief counsel of a Senate subcommittee on securities. He joined Goldman, Sachs & Co. in 1985. He was New York’s superintendent of banks from 1995 until 1997, when he was appointed state superintendent of insurance. In those jobs, he helped lead the fight waged by the World Jewish Congress and other groups to recover assets for Holocaust victims. “Neil was engaging, he was charming, he was smart, and he was very effective,” says Elan Steinberg, executive director of the World Jewish Congress. “In a very real sense, the hundreds of thousands of payments that have already been made to Holocaust survivors are each an individual tribute to Neil.”
The Atlantic Beach, New York, native shared a Manhattan apartment with his wife, Christine Ferer, an author and television producer, and his two stepdaughters.
Of 2,000 Port Authority employees at the World Trade Center, 74 are missing or confirmed dead.
Manuel Lopez vice president, federal tax department, Marsh & McLennan Cos. 98th floor, Tower One
Manuel Lopez hung up the phone about seven or eight minutes before a Boeing 767 smashed through his building. He had been talking to his wife, Rose. “She said it was a great conversation,” says Scott Morison, who is married to Lopez’s daughter, Minnie.
Lopez, 53, “was a short, cheerful guy who always fell asleep watching the Food Network,” says Morison. The Marsh Mac vice president loved to cook.
Lopez leaves behind Rose, a department head at Quest Diagnostics, and his children, Jay and Minnie.
Peter Ortale broker, Euro Brokers 84th floor, Tower Two
When the plane hit One World Trade Center, Peter Ortale called his wife in New York, his mother in Pennsylvania and a friend in California, but he wasn’t overly concerned. The former Duke University all-American lacrosse player, who had worked for more than a decade as a bond broker at Tullet & Tokyo and Euro Brokers, thought a small plane had crashed into the building. Two weeks later, Ortale, 37 - who had mistakenly appeared on a list of confirmed survivors - still had not been heard from. “The last person to see him on the staircase told us he was helping people out,” says his sister Cathy Grimes. “We’ve done the rounds in New York of every John Doe, every hospital, the piers.” Born near Philadelphia, Ortale had worked for years on Wall Street. He and his wife, Mary, were married a year ago and planned to start a family. “He loves history. And he’s a real literature buff,” says Grimes. “He once took a vacation by himself to reread War and Peace. The family position is that he’s missing. We haven’t give up hope.”
Euro Brokers had approximately 300 people on the 84th floor of Tower Two; 60 are missing or confirmed dead.
Michael Parkes accountant, Marsh & McLennan Cos. 98th floor, Tower One
Michael Parkes was at his desk when the first plane struck. Friends believe he may have been in an office that suffered a direct hit. A native of Jamaica, Parkes, 27, came to New York when he was 18 and later attended New York University, says friend Geoff Parris. Parkes was single, but his friends explain that he was not a typical bachelor. “He’s a Boy Scout, I mean literally,” says friend Stanley Edme. “He’s a scoutmaster, higher than scoutmaster, I think. He’s a Red Cross volunteer. He’s an acolyte at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Brooklyn. He heads up a community youth group. I mean, he was unbelievable. This is a guy with a presence you felt. He made you feel stronger. No matter who you were - young, old, black, white, rich, poor, on top of the world or in trouble - he always gave you that special attention. We called him ‘the diplomat.’ He was the man.” Parkes was in the office every day at 8:00 a.m., Edme says. “He was never late. That was the way he was.”
Christopher Quackenbush investment banking chief, Sandler O’Neill & Partners 104th floor, Tower Two
Chris Quackenbush and Jimmy Dunne caddied together as teenagers in Bay Shore, New York, shared an apartment in Brooklyn Heights while Quackenbush studied law, and helped build the investment banking boutique Sandler O’Neill & Partners. Quackenbush was the trustee of Dunne’s estate; Dunne named his second son Christopher.
Quackenbush, 44, perished after speaking briefly with his wife, Traci, and with Dunne’s wife. Firm founder Herman Sandler also died in the attack. Today Dunne, who was out of the office on September 11 trying to qualify for a golf tournament, is running Sandler O’Neill from midtown offices provided by Banc of America Securities. The son of a doctor, Quackenbush attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and New York University School of Law before joining Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom as a merger lawyer in 1982. In 1984 he joined Merrill Lynch & Co. as an investment banker specializing in financial institutions. In 1988 he helped found Sandler O’Neill, a banking boutique specializing in advisory and underwriting work for midsize banks and S&Ls. He ran the firm’s investment banking group. A father of three, Quackenbush was a rabid New York Mets fan who took needy Long Island children to baseball games and was a friend of Mets manager Bobby Valentine. “He was the most tremendous combination of intellectual capabilities and common sense,” says Dunne. “He loved good literature and good cinema. His kindness was without limit.”
Of the 177 Sandler O’Neill employees at the World Trade Center, 66 are missing or confirmed dead.
Hugo Sanay chef, Euro Brokers 84h floor, Tower Two
“That’s my father,” says a lanky, awkward 16-year-old boy, pointing to a poster of Hugo Sanay, 41. The photograph shows a happy-looking man sitting on the edge of a chair. “He called my mother when it happened, to say that it wasn’t his building and that he would call later. He said not to worry.” Besides his wife, Laura, and Hugo, Sanay leaves Michelle, 10, and Steven, 7. He came to the U.S. 15 years ago from his native Ecuador and had a passion for cooking - everything from American dishes to Puerto Rican rice and beans. He worked as a chef at Euro Brokers for eight years.
Herman Sandler founding partner, Sandler O’Neill & Partners 104th floor, Tower Two
With the passing of Herman Sandler, New York lost a dedicated philanthropist as well as a sophisticated investment banker. Sandler, 57, had long been a major donor to the Rainforest Foundation, which is dedicated to the preservation of the world’s disappearing rain forests. His charity also reached the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the United Jewish Appeal and Carnegie Hall. “His generosity knew no bounds, and he was just as boundless with his energy,” says Trudie Styler, the wife of pop star Sting and a founder of the Rainforest Foundation, whose fundraisers Sandler co-chaired.
Sandler’s other legacy is the firm that bears his name. He left Bear, Stearns & Co. in 1988 to launch a boutique catering to midsize financial institutions. Sandler O’Neill flourished thanks to his hands-on style. “They’d call him ‘Herman the Helicopter’ because he’d hover,” says the firm’s managing principal, Jimmy Dunne. “He’d hear five minutes of a conversation and already know the critical points and have an opinion on it. The thing that really infuriated people was that he was usually right.” Sandler, who lived in Manhattan, leaves a wife and three daughters.
Christopher Wodenshek managing director, TradeSpark 105th floor, Tower One
Christopher Wodenshek was a managing director in Cantor Fitzgerald’s TradeSpark, an energy commodities trading platform powered by eSpeed technology. He has been missing since the first plane hit. “We heard reports that people were alive and heading for the roof,” says his wife, Anne. “But we also heard that someone near his office was on the phone with their wife in a conference room and started saying that they had to get out because the ceiling was falling in.” The 35-year-old Ridgewood, New Jersey, resident was the father of two boys, ages 2 and 4, and three girls, 6, 8 and 9. Raised in Wood Ridge, New Jersey, Wodenshek graduated from Paramus Catholic High School and William Patterson University. Before joining Cantor in November 1999, Wodenshek was a senior vice president in the New York office of London-based Tradition Financial Services, the main data provider for Wall Street bond traders. He got his start on Wall Street in 1987 as a trader at now-defunct Philipp Brothers, a commodities brokerage that was once part of Salomon Brothers. Since its debut in October 2000, TradeSpark’s virtual gas and oil marketplace has handled transactions totaling more than $100 billion. “In 12 years he only missed one day of work,” Anne says. “We just moved to Jersey in August from Stamford, so his commute would be easier. He gets into work at 7:30 every morning. He never leaves his desk.”
Written and reported by Jenny Anderson, Rich Blake, Justin Dini, Hal Lux and Justin Schack.
