Explosions at the World Trade Center sent scorched documents as far away as Brooklyn.

Photo: Patrick Bunyan, Brooklyn, New York.

Terrorist Attacks Shatter American
Sense of Security

September 11, one of the most horrendous days in American history, began for President Bush in a most ordinary way. When news of the terrorist strikes on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon reached the president, he was at the Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida, promoting his education plan by reading to a 2nd-grade class. Within minutes, the president was hustled off to the school library, where he had intended to celebrate the merits of reading. Instead, he told stunned teachers and parents that America was under attack.

As the casualty count climbs into the thousands, citizens across the country await news and cling to the hope that friends and relatives survived. The World Trade Center housed many corporate and specialized libraries and archives serving the dozens of firms located in the twin towers, including Aon Corporation, Morgan Stanley, Fiduciary Trust Company International, and the American Merchant Marine Library Association. The archives of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey were located in Tower One. Collections, records, and papers were blown into the sky and landed as far away as Brooklyn, across the East River.

Lynn Angell, former school librarian and wife of Frasier co-creator David Angell, was on American Airlines Flight 11 with her husband when it was hijacked and crashed into the World Trade Center. Ann Parham, chief librarian for the Department of the Army, was near the site where American Airlines Flight 77 struck the Pentagon, but she survived. No Pentagon library personnel were reported among the dead.

The New York Public Library has eight branches located in the area of Manhattan south of 14th Street. Closest to the World Trade Center is the New Amsterdam branch, but an NYPL spokesperson said that, apart from the smoke and soot, the building does not appear to have been damaged seriously.

Condolences have come in to libraries and to the American Library Association from around the world, and ALA’s Association for Library Service to Children has prepared a list of resources to help children deal with this American tragedy, and libraries in New York, Washington, and around the country stand ready to help heal this deep wound to the national psyche.

Posted September 17, 2001.