Cantor Fitzgerald's Howard Lutnick

Cantor Fitzgerald lost 658 people when terrorists flew a jet into the World Trade Center, where the financial firm had its offices. Five years later Cantor Fitzgerald is flourishing and the survivors have for the most part put their lives back together. Their stories:

Howard Lutnick
Chairman and CEO
Where he was on September 11: Lutnick was late to work because he decided to take his son to his first day of kindergarten.

On recovering: "We always thought we'd fall apart at some point. I'd tell people it was like I was surfing in front of a very large wave and as long as I kept going forward as fast as I possibly could, the wave would never get me. But if I ever stopped, and took a moment to look back..." He turns to look at an imaginary wave. "Whoosh, the wave would crash over me, and I'd get crushed. But if I kept moving forward, the wave would get smaller and smaller and that's what happened."

Maryanne Burns
Lutnick's administrative assistant

Where she was on September 11: Burns missed her train and arrived after the planes hit the towers.


David Kravette
Senior partner and Lutnick childhood friend

Where he was on September 11: A customer had forgotten his photo ID and Kravette needed to clear him through lobby security. After the initial explosion, he saw an elevator free-fall to the ground and a fireball of jet fuel rage through the lobby.

Stephen Merkel
General counsel
Where he was on September 11: Merkel was in an elevator on the lobby level when the plane hit. He wasn't hurt but recognizes how close he came to a different outcome.

On recovering: "What's lost from then is the intensity. You can't easily describe it, whether it's the fear or the grief...all those feelings that were so powerful are less so now, which I'm grateful for. Recently I was at the site. I had to walk over the overpass I used to walk on, and everyone was rushing to get their trains, and I felt a tinge of what I felt back then, like a switch that was turned on."

Joe Noviello
Chief product architect at eSpeed
Where he was on September 11: Noviello was embarking on the same fishing trip as Crosby. When they heard about the attacks, they convened at Cantor's disaster-recovery site in Rochelle Park, N.J., and began the Herculean task of restoring Cantor's bond-trading system.

On recovering: “Each year, September comes and you start to feel a little weird. You feel it coming. The days are beautiful. Summer's coming to a close."


LaChanze Fordjour
Tony Award-winning actress and widow of Cantor Fitzgerald employee Calvin Gooding. She has since remarried.

Where she was on September 11: At home, nine months pregnant.

On recovering: "I really was spiraling down. I was an unemployed actress with two children, a husband who'd died. My prospects were slim. I got [a role in The Vagina Monologues] and I saw that I could be productive. That I had things I could bring to people."



Joe Noviello
Chief product architect at eSpeed

Where he was on September 11: Noviello was embarking on the same fishing trip as Crosby. When they heard about the attacks, they convened at Cantor's disaster-recovery site in Rochelle Park, N.J., and began the Herculean task of restoring Cantor's bond-trading system.

On recovering: “Each year, September comes and you start to feel a little weird. You feel it coming. The days are beautiful. Summer's coming to a close."


Frank Walczak
Foreign exchange broker
Where he was on September 11: Walczak, a lifelong surfer, had taken the day off to catch the swells kicked up by Hurricane Erin. Sitting on his board in the water off Sandy Hook, just south of the city in New Jersey, Walczak saw smoke pouring out of the Trade Center. He began calling the office and the homes of his colleagues. No one else on the foreign exchange desk where he worked survived.

On recovering: "I had a lot of guilt with this. I still get the feeling that people look at me and think, 'Why weren't you there?' But in general I'm doing much better. I know I'm here because of luck, because I surf, and because there was a hurricane. But I'm going to make the best of my life, because I know I can't take anything for granted."

Chris Crosby Member of the technology team at eSpeed, Cantor Fitzgerald's bond-trading system Where he was on September 11: Crosby was setting out on a fishing trip with colleagues when the Twin Towers were hit.

On recovering: “[Work] made me feel sane. I wanted to go into work every day. I still do. And yet, there are times when I'll be out to dinner with my wife and I'll hear someone talking about 9/11 and getting it wrong, and I'll feel the need to go over and correct them.”