9/11: The Worst Day, The Best Day

Fire rains from the sky as Lewis Abate huddles under an overhang at the old Merrill Lynch headquarters across the street from the World Trade Center. Just minutes ago, he and fellow commodities broker Larry Swenson escaped from the eighth floor of 4 World Trade Center. Just an hour ago, they were in Abate’s Jeep. It was such a beautiful day that they had joked about turning the car around and heading to the beach.

They know nothing of what has just happened; all they see through the smoke are the burning orange embers floating toward the pavement.

Abate turns and sees a co-worker named Danny on the nearby steps. He is clutching his cell phone in both hands and sobbing, his shoulders shaking uncontrollably. His tears are so thick that he cannot see.

Abate grabs him, and finally, Danny gains enough composure to point to 2 World Trade Center.

“My wife is on the 92nd floor,” he screams. “I’m going up there to get her. I have to get her.”

Danny takes one step toward the building before Abate grabs him.

“Danny,” he shouts. “Stop! I’m going to pray with you right now. Danny! Your wife is coming down those stairs as fast as humanly possible to get to you. And she’s going to meet you right here on these steps.”

“OK Louie,” Danny says. “OK. I will stay right here.”

Just then, a woman screams, points to the tower and passes out. Abate looks up. Through the smoke, he sees people jumping from the towers. Some look like they are holding hands. Others look like they are hugging.

All Abate wants is to reach out and catch them.

The roar of the second plane drowns the mayhem below, followed by more screams.

God, no! God, no! Oh please God, No!

Abate hears the change in United Airlines Flight 175’s engine as Marwan al-Shehhi hits the throttle. A ball of flames erupts from the impact. The heat from the explosion is enough to steal away whatever breath he had left.

It is the worst day of Abate’s life.

FOLLOW ME … AND YOU’LL LIVE
Abate finally regains his breath after the heat from the explosion dissipates. He grabs Swenson, who wants to try to make it to the Staten Island Ferry.

“Follow me, trust me, and you’ll live,” he tells his friend.

Instead of the ferry, the two run down the FDR Drive and onto the Brooklyn Bridge.

As they hit the bridge, yet another roar muffles the sea of people scrambling for safety.

“We thought it was a third plane hitting,” Abate says.

It isn’t. It is the first tower collapsing.

Smoke and soot engulf the fleeing crowd, and both Abate and Swenson fashion makeshift masks from their shirts.

On the other side of the bridge, Abate tries calling his wife, his parents, anyone. All the shop owners in Brooklyn already had locked their doors. Abate and Swenson then turn down a side street.

“We saw a car down there, and I literally thought we would have to steal a car to get home,” Abate says.
As they approach the car, Swenson sees a man sitting at a desk in one of the buildings. He tries the door, and it is unlocked.

Covered in an inch of soot and dust, Abate grabs $200 in cash from his pocket.

“This is all I have,” he tells the man. “Can I please just make one phone call?”

“Were you in the towers?” the man asks. “Keep your money. Make all the calls you need.”

Abate finally connects with his mother, who tells him his father was in Brooklyn and gives him an address.
“I couldn’t help but overhear; that’s the street I live on,” the man in the office says. “I will drive you to your father.”

FINALLY, HOME
Abate’s wife, Edie, son Nicholas, then 6, and daughter Brittany, then 3, have their noses pressed to the glass as Abate walks up the sidewalk to his Jersey Shore home. It is about 4:30 p.m. — about eight hours after American Airlines Flight 11 hit 1 World Trade Center.

Abate falls into his family’s arms, hugging, kissing each one of them. Behind their embrace, he sees his big-screen television, replaying the collapse of the towers over and over again.

“Is that real?” he asks Edie.

Until now, he didn’t know they had fallen.

Abate stumbles downstairs to the basement shower. He locks the door to the bathroom and collapses in the stall, tears streaming down the drain. He is exhausted, his mind still full of disbelief. Eventually, he pulls himself together and a robe over his shoulders.

He and Edie put their kids to bed at the normal hour. He wants the madness to stop at his front door. But, every time he blinks his eyes, he sees people jumping.

Abate can’t sleep. He lies for a few minutes with his wife. Then, he moves to his son’s bed, then his daughter’s. He takes time to smell each one’s head.

“I’m not afraid to die,” he says. “I smelled them so I could have them with me. If I was going to die, I just wanted their love with me.”

The next day, the Abates go to their church, Shore Christian Center, where both children attend school. The Rev. Dewey Friedel pulls Abate aside.

“Pray with me,” he tells Abate.

Abate closes his eyes, but the image of falling people returns, and he almost smacks the pastor. Friedel ministers to Abate for almost three hours and finally tells him to take his family to the beach.

The Abates drive to Sandy Hook, N.J. Off in the distance, smoke is still billowing from Ground Zero. Abate keeps his back to it the entire time, instead focusing on his family and the joy the beach brings to his family. He settles on the sand, the sun’s warmth on his face.

Finally, he falls asleep.

PICKING UP THE PIECES
The nightmare is always the same. People fall from the buildings. Then, they get up — broken and bloody — and stand before Abate.

They ask him: Why?

But before he can answer, they leave.

“They won’t let me answer,” Abate says.

In the months that follow, the Abates attempt to put their lives back together as best as they can. The commodities exchange is moved to Long Island City, Queens. Instead of a room that was two football fields wide, the new building is only large enough to accommodate a fraction of the work. Each commodity only has one hour each day on the floor, and much of the paperwork is done in the streets.

It is good for Abate to return to some semblance of normalcy. But the relocated office means a longer commute. Suddenly, Abate is aware of every parked truck in front of every building. The drive also takes him right by Newark Liberty International Airport, from where planes have been rerouted directly over the Abates’ home.

“One time, a plane was flying so low that I could see the passengers inside through the windows,” Edie Abate says.

Nicholas, only 6, also displays effects from the attacks. For months, the only pictures he draws are of airplanes going into the World Trade Center.

It is simply too much. Too many reminders. Too many trucks. Too many planes.

NEW LIFE
A native of New Jersey, Abate went straight from high school to the commodities exchange floor at 4 World Trade Center.

“I loved going to work every day,” he says. “It was a thousand guys making money — just a really big men’s club.”

Edie Abate also worked in the city for 15 years. From the train, she walked her husband to the World Trade Center and grabbed breakfast. After the couple had Nicholas and Brittany, Edie Abate became a stay-at-home mom, and Abate continued working at the commodities exchange — loving every minute of it.

But 9/11 changed everything. Two years after the attacks, the Abates packed up and left their home.

“I never thought I’d leave New York,” Abate says.

“It was just too hard,” Edie Abate adds. “Too many reminders … too much.”

In August 2003, the Abates settled in Lakewood Ranch, where several members of Edie’s family live.

“We came down here, and I had to reinvent my life,” Abate says. “I really didn’t know what I was going to do.

“But when life throws things at you, you can either crawl up and die or pick yourself up and do what you have to do,” he says. “I don’t like to fail, and (my wife) won’t let me fail.”

Abate first took a job at Sears to generate some income and provide health insurance for his family. Later, he moved to FedEx, where he spent his mornings packing trucks and his afternoons cultivating his new business, Simply The Best Pool Services.

Finally, in August 2007, he found Grand Incentives, a Sarasota-based travel incentive company. Now, he leads the company’s telemarketing division, and on every anniversary of 9/11, Abate’s boss, Jose Martinez, calls to check on him.

“He calls Sept. 11 my second birthday,” Abate says. “It definitely was hard to up and leave your roots, your entire family. We had no job, no income coming in.

“But, we did it,” he says. “I’m not rich, but I got everything.”

LOVE OF COUNTRY
A new flag is folded and draped over a dining room chair in the Abates’ home in Lakewood Ranch. The flag’s stripes contain the names of the nearly 3,000 people who died in the 9/11 attacks.

Abate pulls out a book, “Here is New York: A Democracy of Photographs.” He turns to a page saved by a pink sticky tab.

“That’s me,” he says, pointing to a man in a crowd of hundreds scurrying over the Brooklyn Bridge. “I was younger, then.”

Abate says he always was patriotic, and his experience on 9/11 only bolstered his love for the United States. His Jeep displays two custom pieces by Myakka artist Drew Walker. The first is a bald eagle and American flag on the hood; the second an image of the Twin Towers with the words, “Never Forget,” emblazoned on the spare tire cover.

“You saw so many flags right after 9/11, but as time went on, that dwindled pretty quickly,” he says. “The saddest thing is that so many people forget they live in the greatest country in the world.”

PHOENIX
With the fires still burning at Ground Zero, Abate arrives for the first time Sept. 15 at the temporary commodities exchange site.

About 800 to 900 men meet for the first time since 9/11 — that fateful day in 4 World Trade Center that began with what felt like a bowling ball dropping at Abate’s feet.

“Everyone is kissing and hugging,” Abate remembers. “It was pretty cool to see people together (like that). Guys who had been enemies for years were hugging each other.”

Off in the distance, Abate hears a voice calling.

“Louie! Louie!” a man shouts.

The crowd parts, and Abate sees a man running to him. Danny grabs Abate and kisses him.

“Louie, you prayed with me,” Danny says. “You told me to stay there on those steps. You said not to leave.

“So I stayed,” he says. “And right after you left, my wife ran right by me and knocked me over! Thank you, Louie. Thank you!”

The nightmares still come from time to time; the last one a year ago, Abate says. But as tragic as 9/11 was, stories such as Danny’s affirm that the American spirit burned brighter than those buildings that day.

“Not a day goes by that I don’t think about 9/11,” Abate says. “It was the worst day of my life — and the best day of my life. All rolled into one.”

Contact Michael Eng at [email protected].

Read more East County 9/11 coverage here.