At 9/11, a journalist makes a tough life choice

A modest, almost self-effacing man who works as a florist and has lived in the same tiny apartment for most of the past 30 years, Roccosalva, 55, downplayed the assistance he provided, noting that others had done so much more to help. But his eyes welled with tears as he recalled one young woman who was able to reach her family and assure them she was alive. The girl’s mother was so grateful she insisted that Roccosalva get on the phone himself so she could thank him for bringing so much happiness and relief.

“It was a little gesture, but I guess in its own way it made a difference for some people,” Roccosalva said. “The city was made up of a lot of people who made a lot of small gestures, and they added up to a lot.”

Don’t let Roccosalva's modesty fool you: New Yorkers don’t just open their apartments to people on the street and let them use their phone. And they certainly are not in the habit of going out and recruiting people on the street to come inside their home. The scene inside the tiny apartment that day was truly moving.

Ari Schonbrun, another person I met on 9/11, remembered Roccosalva as an “absolute saint.”

“He was a messenger from God, and I firmly believe that,” said Schonbrun, 49, an executive at Cantor Fitzgerald, the brokerage based in the Trade Center that lost 658 employees that day.

Fleeting friend turns out to be a hero
It was strange to hear Schonbrun’s voice on the telephone after five years. I had met him briefly in Roccosalva’s apartment and knew he had been in the 78^th floor elevator lobby of the north tower at the moment of impact. But I only later learned that he had been a true 9/11 hero, helping a horribly burned colleague down all those flights of stairs and into an ambulance.

Schonbrun agreed to meet me in one of the broker’s new Midtown offices, and he offered me an inspiring personal perspective, saying the events of that day had reinforced his religious faith as an Orthodox Jew, even if he admits he cannot understand God’s “master plan.”

Schonbrun also forced me to make a revision in the 9/11 story I have been telling for five years.

In my story, I met a man who escaped from the north tower and stood with me outside the World Financial Center watching the two towers burn. This survivor also had been in the tower when it was attacked in 1993 and told me in no uncertain terms he was never going back inside. When the first victims began jumping from the top floors, I turned to him and said, “I can’t watch this.” He agreed, and we parted company making our way from the scene.

Two hours later, I met the same man in line at a phone booth in Greenwich Village, where Roccosalva plucked us out of line and invited us into his apartment. In telling the story, I always have assumed that man was Schonbrun, whom I did meet in Roccosalva’s apartment. But I now realize there was a third man. Checking my scrawled notes from that day I did find another name, but I have been unable to confirm the identity.

For me, it was a humbling lesson in the fallibility of memory even on a day when so many details were burned unforgettably into my mind.

As I talked to the people about the events of those days, I was reminded how badly shaken I was by the events of 9/11, especially the next day, when the impact of my close call began to sink in. Both my brother Jeff and my friend Laurie Berkman reminded me that I told them I might never return to New York City after that experience.

A return to New York City
I am happy to say that I did return to New York in 2002 and have been back several times since. Everybody I talked to feels differently about the city now — we know it is a target and we feel the city is more closely connected to geopolitical events. But while I am still  uncomfortable with the new air travel security procedures, I am glad I have regained the confidence that allows me to fly to New York and other cities, maintaining my family connections and friendships and forging ahead with my career.

To this day, whenever I tell the story of what I saw on 9/11 — whenever I really tell it to somebody who has never heard it before — I am transported back to that time and place when I witnessed something that even today seems almost incomprehensible.

But retracing my steps and talking to people about that day has been surprisingly cathartic and has done nothing to change my opinion that I did the right thing — for myself and my family —by heading home Sept. 12 instead of returning to the scene of the crime.

For my generation 9/11 will always be the marker date — the before-and-after, the where-were-you, the date when everything changed. For me it was also the day when I was presented with a very clear decision — and I chose my role as a husband and father over my role as reporter and editor. And I will never regret it.

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