On Sept. 11, 2001, AP journalists across New York rushed to document a story unfolding before them. In the days and months that followed, the story reverberated around the world, as AP journalists chronicled the attacks, their aftermath and the events they set in motion.
Twenty-five years later, AP journalists in New York and across the globe reflect on covering 9/11, what they remember and what has stayed with them.
Howie Rumberg was the first AP reporter on the scene. He lived in Tribeca and was heading home after working an overnight shift in Sports when the attacks occurred. He spent the next two weeks monitoring the overnight shift downtown.
“I think what still resonates about covering the attacks in lower Manhattan is the chaos around the World Trade Center. People were scrambling in all directions, a woman running out of her high heels, backpacks and briefcases left on the sidewalks by people sprinting to what they hoped was safety. No one knew what was happening – and it was happening here, so shocking. I think all of New York was numb for weeks.
“Twenty-five years later, I am still struck by two things: one, just how many people rushed downtown to help. And, two, the little details: a police captain going over a list of his staff written on a notepad in the gym of the community college nearby, choking up as he tried to read the names out loud; listening to a speech by President Bush on a police cruiser radio; a young woman with a picnic basket filled with snacks that she was offering to people moving rubble in the pile; the shouts for silence from rescue workers and volunteers who were trying to listen for signs of life; finding everyday objects like golf balls and paper weights amid the destruction that most likely sat on desks just hours earlier.”
AP photographer Richard Drew was covering Fashion Week when his photo editor called and sent him to the World Trade Center. Drew would go on to capture one of the most enduring images of the attacks, known as “The Falling Man.”
“My cell phone went off, and it was my photo editor Barbara Woike. And she said, these are her words, I’ll never forget this. She said, ‘Planes hit the World Trade Center. Bag the fashion show, you have to go.’”
Drew positioned himself near West and Vesey streets, where he could watch both the World Trade Center and the ambulances assembling nearby.
“Then I heard this rockslide. And I looked over and I started photographing what I thought was just the facade of the building coming down. It was actually the collapse of the south tower.”
Someone grabbed Drew and pulled him away as the building collapsed.
“It’s really tough sometimes thinking about it even 25 years later.”
AP reporter Larry Neumeister usually traveled through the World Trade Center on his way to work. On Sept. 11, he was running about half an hour late.
“Because of that, I wasn’t in the World Trade Center when the planes hit, because I came through there on the PATH every morning. And so I just feel incredibly lucky to have not been in a position to die that day.”
Neumeister spent part of the day at a hospital near the World Trade Center, where doctors and nurses had prepared for an influx of patients.
“They had lines of wheelchairs resting right outside this entrance to the hospital, expecting a lot of traffic. Then as the hours went on throughout the day, it became clear nobody else was being brought in.”
Four days later, while staying at a friend’s apartment, the emotion finally caught up with him.
“I just found a secluded part of the apartment and just cried my eyes out for like a minute, a full minute. I didn’t even know why I was crying. It had to be all the pent-up emotion of 9/11. Finally, you let it out.”
AP reporter Deepti Hajela was part of AP’s New York City bureau but was at home in Jersey City when the attacks occurred. She recalls trying to find a way to help with the coverage and the stories of loss that followed.
“I was part of the New York City bureau but lived in Jersey City at the time and wasn’t scheduled to work until later in the day. I had actually passed through the World Trade Center the night before to take the PATH train home.
“Once I realized what was happening, I scrambled to figure out how to help. With the Hudson River crossings closed, I knew I wouldn’t be able to get into the city, so I went to our office in Newark instead.
“Most of what I remember is from the weeks after, all the different stories of loss and the pieces we wrote about them. It was a lesson in humanity, and learning how to be respectful of people’s grief.”
AP reporter Nicole Winfield, a New York City native, had moved from New York to Rome just months before 9/11. She recalls watching the attacks unfold from the AP bureau in Rome before being sent to Pakistan and Afghanistan to cover what followed.
“As a New York City native, I remember 9/11 as a deeply personal attack on my hometown, even though I was thousands of miles away at the time. My husband and I had just moved to Rome from New York a few months earlier for work. I was in the AP Rome office that day and watched as the second plane slammed into the World Trade Center.
“Within a few months, I joined the AP team covering the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, first working at our war desk in Islamabad, Pakistan, helping anchor stories on al-Qaida, and later doing a stint in Kabul after the Taliban fell.
“My husband and I returned home a month after the attacks for a friend’s wedding. We flew into Newark and saw from above the still-smoldering ruins as we approached. Looking south from my childhood home in Greenwich Village, it still shocks me today that the towers aren’t there.”
Ted Anthony had transferred from New York to Beijing just seven weeks before 9/11. He recalls watching the attacks unfold from China before being sent to Pakistan and Afghanistan in the weeks and months that followed.
“The bottom line: At the beginning, in those early moments, we had no idea how much was changing under our feet. I remember sitting in Beijing that night when a colleague messaged me one line: ‘Did you see this plane that hit one of the towers?’ Within minutes, we knew it was more. Within hours, we were holed up in the AP office in a protected compound, trying to help our colleagues (in a pre-Zoom, pre-Slack era) figure out what was going on and how it was rippling. Was this a coup? Would the government fall? What would come next?
“As it turned out, for those of us working internationally, what would come next were months and years of being tested, of finding our limits, of doing some of the most important work of our careers. I was en route to Islamabad within days, and to Kabul not too long afterward. For AP people in my generation — then in our late 20s and early 30s — this was very much a coming of age that would reverberate through our work forever. And for me, at least, some of the personal impact would wait years and even decades to reveal itself.”
Read more from AP journalists reflecting on what they witnessed on Sept. 11, 2001, 25 years later, on AP News.
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