NYC Official Can't Forget Sept. 11: The Day Still Hasn't Ended

NEW YORK CITY – The memories flash by like a series of short clips from a livestream that doesn’t end.

Fighter jets scream across the sky, flying lower than anyone wants to see a plane after the events of that morning. Intended to offer protection, they rain down anxiety on an already unnerved city.

In 10 seconds, the South Tower of the World Trade Center collapses with a rumble so powerful that it sends a cloud of poisonous dust across lower Manhattan. The powerful noise is immediately followed by an oppressive silence caused by no one knowing what to say, no one wanting to acknowledge what had just happened. The event is repeated 29 minutes later when the second tower collapses.

Thousands of people lining the West Side Highway, holding homemade signs expressing love, appreciation, support, as vehicles head to the destruction covering 16 acres.

A seemingly endless stream of search and rescue units from around the country arriving at The Javits Center ready to help, desperate to help.

Mayor Giuliani leading people up Sixth Avenue as they look for a safe space, any space where they could set up and coordinate efforts as they try to keep the city running.

People falling from the sky.

Twenty years ago, Frank McCarton was the Deputy Director for Public Information with the Mayor’s Office of Emergency Management in New York. It was the latest stop on a journey that started with growing up in New Hyde Park just over the border from Queens. After a stint as a volunteer firefighter, in 1990 he became an emergency medical technician with the New York City Fire Department.

“I wanted to help people,” he says. “I love New York and that was my chance. It’s what I just kept doing. Working, doing what was asked of me, helping any way I can.”

On September 11, 2001, McCarton and his colleagues were put to the test.

“That day changed everything,” he says.

50,000 Body Bags

In the immediacy of the attack, for McCarton and many others, there was no chance to grasp the enormity of what was happening. There were too many things happening, each one setting off chain reactions of a million more small details.

The city's emergency operations center was located in one of the buildings at the Trade Center. The proximity to the burning towers made it clear they couldn't use the center; a decision that proved wise when that building also collapsed later in the day.

"During the recovery efforts, they would find pretty much one thing," McCarton says. "The mayor's seal. It was cut in half and they only found the one half. It's still in the city somewhere but they never found the other half."

With the command center unavailable, Mayor Giuliani led aides, reporters, officials on a parade up Sixth Avenue, looking for a place to set up a new one. They stopped at Engine 24/Ladder 5 on Houston. Since all the firefighters had responded to the Trade Center, the place was locked and officers with Giuliani had to break into the firehouse.

"We needed somewhere to go," McCarton says. "We needed a place big enough; it couldn't be the firehouse we broke into obviously. Someone suggested the Javits Center, which is a big space but someone else pointed out that it might be needed as a staging area, which is what happened. All the search and rescue teams that came in from around the country, the ambulance and other emergency teams, they all staged from there.

"So, it was decided we'd go to the police academy on 20th Street."

As McCarton, Giuliani, and the city commissioners turned the police academy into a temporary city hall, the focus was still on getting the city's government up and running.

Giuliani is on the phone with the governor, the president, the vice president. Fire Commission Tom Von Essen and Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik are getting reports from the field. McCarton and the mayor's spokeswoman Sunny Mindel are briefing the press.

"I didn't go home that night," McCarton says. "I had a good buddy who lived down the street in Stuyvesant Town and I stayed on his couch, sleeping just a few hours before trucking back to the academy.

"I'm walking back and one of the things that was incredible to listen to was the silence of the city. On top of that, the roar of the fighter jets that were over New York. It was terrifying. "

That morning, Giuliani and his top aides and officials sat around a large table in the academy, discussing what happened overnight, what's going on at that moment.

"The enormity still hasn't really sunk in," McCarton says. "There had been so many things that had to be done. We'd been on the phone with movie and television production companies to get their big lighting rigs so crews could work through the night."

Then it was time for the fire and police commissioners to brief.

"Commissioner von Essen and Commissioner Bernie Kerik started briefing the mayor on the loss of life, a number no one really knew at that point. That's when Kerik said, 'you know, we got 50,000 more body bags.'

"I think that's when it really hit us."

Cookie The Rookie Becomes Cookie The Gatekeeper

There's a decent sized group of people in the United States and overseas – mostly reporters, emergency officials, and politicians – who have never heard of Frank McCarton. Ask them about "Cookie" and they immediately know who you're talking about.

"Once, when I was in the fire department press shop, HR called my boss to ask about my overtime," McCarton says. "The person asked, why is this Frank McCarton getting so much o-t? My boss said, 'That's Cookie!' At that point, everything was cool. The person said, 'oh, Cookie does everything.'"

Frank became Cookie on his first day on the job as an emergency medical technician with the Fire Department.

"It was roll call and the lieutenant calls my name and a senior guy says, his name's not Frank McCarton. He's Cookie the Rookie from Cupcake County. Everyone laughed. I said I'm ok with Cookie but does it have to be Cookie the Rookie?" He told me after I'd done three shootings, they would drop the rookie part."

And that's what happened. "the Rookie from Cupcake County" went away but Cookie stayed.

It was Cookie who, in the weeks before 9/11, had been helping city agencies prepare for how they would respond to if there was a health emergency, a bioterrorism attack.

"We needed to figure out how many pills, how many shots, how many doses could be distributed, how quickly we could respond. Would have been great practice for the pandemic," he said.

The drill was going to be held at Pier 92, a cruise ship terminal. While the place had been changed into an emergency operations center for the upcoming drill, it was adopted as an operations center for the real life emergency. Everything shifted there from the academy.

"There were press requests from all over the world coming in, people wanting to be able to go down to the site," McCarton says. "So, the mayor's press secretary, Sunny Mindel, one day at a press conference, Sunny tells everyone that from now on, all requests to go to the site will go through me. Only she doesn't tell everyone it will be Frank McCarton who is the contact.

"She tells everyone, you want to go to the site, go through Cookie. Cookie, give them your number. And that's how Cookie. became the gatekeeper for Ground Zero."

Golden Arches

"One thing that happened pretty much right away was offers of help started coming in from all over," Cookie McCarton says. "Not just the entertainment industry people with the lights but steel workers, iron workers, search and rescue teams. People were sending food, water.

"There was even a couple of brothers from Louisiana who drove their gumbo truck up so they could help. We had to get them to move because they wanted to be right at the site but we couldn't have people serving food there. It was a health issue."

It wasn't just offers to donate help but there were politicians, and elected officials, and reporters who wanted to see the site.

"We set up protocols, we made a process to handle all the requests," Cookie says. "We wanted to accept as much help as we could, to never be ungrateful because we were grateful, for every offer, for every package of food and water. But there was only so much space.

"And more important than everything else was that the people at the site had two jobs to do. They were looking for survivors at first and soon after looking for remains. They also had to clear the area."

Over the course of months, workers cleared nearly 2 million tons of debris spread out over 16 areas.

"One of the things that kept me going, that kept many people going, were the thousands of people who would line the road leading up to Canal," Cookie says. "Thousands of people holding signs and flags, cheering as people drove south because they knew that the only people who could go past Canal were emergency workers and people headed to the site.

"There was so much love, so much gratitude. Everyone was dealing with so much tragedy and all these people came out wanting to feel a part of something. There was so much unity. They would make you feel so incredibly cherished.

Cookie says that he holds those images in his head, his heart, as a reminder of the good in the world.

"It's the same thing that happened during the pandemic with people showing up at hospitals cheering for doctors and nurses, people standing on their balconies and ringing bells. And I will always be grateful for the Red Cross.

"They set up at Pier 92 and there was always a cup of coffee available. And if they ever saw someone eating, sitting alone, they would come over to make sure that person knew they weren't alone. They came from all over just to help."

Another image of people coming together that Cookie will always remember: the site of the Golden Arches.

"We're walking up Church Street and it's 2 in the morning and we're starving," he says. "And everyplace is closed and suddenly we see the golden arches above a truck.

"They had just set up shop and just kept making Quarter Pounders for whoever wanted one. Free. I will always remember that."

Something Beautiful

Cookie still has a hard time believing that for all the tragedy, there was a silver lining of sorts.

"It was the second week or third week after the attack," he says. "We've argued about that. At the command center, there was always a camera ready to go live and give people a pool feed if it was needed. And the news organizations would take turns staffing it.

"One day it was this woman and she would be there for a few weeks as a relief producer and we just kind of hit it off."

They got married, are still married, and have a 14-year-old son.

"He is so wonderful and bright and makes me laugh every single day," Cookie says of his boy. "I wouldn't have that, maybe, unless that day had come. I think about that every day, that I met my beautiful wife, my rock.

"Something beautiful came out of this."

The Day Hasn't Stopped

That thought comes in helpful because there's always reminders of that day, tragedies that happen that show that in some ways, it's still that day.

"You remember everything," he says. "I hear planes flying too low, I think of the fighter jets over the city. I see a crisp blue sky, I think back to that morning. I hear popcorn being popped...it reminds of the sound that I heard when the bodies were hitting the glass, hitting the ground.

"It just takes you back to that time."

He's not alone, something that he knows very well.

"I have friends and they, you know, have some mental health issues," Cookie says. "And I pray for them every day. They are still struggling from what happened. For them, the day hasn't stopped. It hasn't.

"It hasn't."

He has to look no farther than the number of people struggling with cancer and other ailments as a result of the toxic cloud that blanketed lower Manhattan.

The WTC Health Program, which certifies ailments, registers members, and provides money to help with health care, says as of June 30, 2020, there are 107,415 current members – 77,837 first responders and 29,578 survivors.

That doesn't include the 3,623 first responders and 1,004 survivors who have died since entering the program.

"It's hard to think of it as 20 years because everything about that day is still so with us," he says. "It really was the worst of times but it was also the best of times.

"You saw so many coming together. You see those people still looking out for each other. What you saw that day, you still see."

The memories are so vivid because the day hasn't ended.