Thursday, October 1, 2026
On the morning of September 11, 2001, I arrived at Rockefeller University sometime between 6 and 7:30 a.m., as I usually did depending on whether I stopped at the gym.
I was already at my desk when I noticed the first sign that something was wrong: the internet went down. A few minutes later, my wife called. She was off from work that day and walking our daughters to grammar school. She asked if I was OK. I told her yes, aside from a mildly upset stomach from the night before — our 13th wedding anniversary.
I then realized she had the television on in the background, something she never did in the morning. She told me a plane had hit the World Trade Center. Then she paused and said she had just seen a second plane strike the other tower. She told me they were calling it a terrorist attack.
Working on the East Side of Manhattan, I couldn’t see anything happening downtown. With the internet down and my old cell phone offering no data or news, I had no way to understand what was unfolding except through phone calls — and soon, I couldn’t make any. Both the landline and my cell phone failed, leaving me feeling isolated. I managed to reach my brother in South Carolina. I asked him to call our mother in Flushing to let her know I was safe, and he also contacted my wife.
As coworkers arrived, including my boss, our administrative assistant suggested using the old AM/FM radio we still had. Through that radio, we learned about the attack on the Pentagon and the crash of Flight 93 in Pennsylvania. We listened as the reports came in that the towers had collapsed, one after the other. At some point the landlines partially returned, and I received a few calls from scientific colleagues elsewhere in Manhattan. I stepped outside to the East River esplanade to see if anything was visible, but from that vantage point the city looked strangely normal.
Around 1 p.m., I decided to try driving home. The bridges were open, and I made my way to the Queensboro Bridge. I ended up in the outer lane, driving slowly among massive crowds of people walking out of Manhattan. No one looked back — everyone moved forward except for one person standing on the bridge supports taking pictures of downtown.
I glanced toward where the towers should have been and saw only plumes of smoke. The sight left me disgusted and heartsick. The only communication during that drive home was the car radio, listening to the popular sports radio show, which of course had no conversations of sports that day.
I reached home (in Franklin Square) around 5 p.m., having been able to call my wife earlier to tell her I was on my way. Only then did I finally see the footage of what had happened — how the towers were struck, how they fell, and I watched live as the third building, 7 World Trade Center, collapsed.
The next day proved even harder. Manhattan was closed, and my boss told me to stay home. He also asked whether I had seen Sal the day before. Salman Hamdani had been working with us for a few months. I was his direct supervisor and scientific mentor.
Sal was a Pakistani American who had immigrated as a baby, a U.S. citizen with a chemistry degree, a police cadet, and a trained EMT. He was conscientious, kind, empathetic, and bright. He hadn’t come to work on 9/11, and I assumed he had stayed home once the towers were hit. His mother was searching for him, especially after discovering he had accidentally left his cell phone at work — something he did often.
What followed was an investigation into Sal that, in my view, turned ugly. As his family became more assertive in trying to locate their missing son, the media grew more aggressive, labeling him a “person of interest” and putting his face in headlines.
Eventually his knapsack was found at Ground Zero, and it became clear he had likely gone there to help because of his EMT training. I spoke with a New York detective and told him exactly that: Sal was a good young man who wanted to help. His remains were found in the rubble and identified by DNA in February 2002. I attended his funeral at a large Manhattan mosque, surrounded by his family, friends and fellow police cadets.
The experience changed me. Although I continued working in science at Rockefeller until retiring in 2018, my drive and passion for research were never the same. Other matters felt more important. Commuting into Manhattan after 9/11 became difficult both emotionally and logistically, often requiring me to arrive before 6 a.m. And I never mentored another young scientist after Sal. His loss stayed with me.
To read more from the Herald's Remembering 9/11, 25th anniversary special section, click here.
