He was a regular guy from Brooklyn on his way to work. One snap made him a familiar face to millions
“There were 18 different rings, each dealing with a different commodity,” Dov explains. “You know those guys on the trading floor who are jumping up and screaming? That was me. I’d always wanted to do that.”
Dov had a seat on the exchange and was in the coffee pit. He’d been there since 1997 and loved his job, despite the fact that he doesn’t drink coffee and was the only frum person in that particular ring. Given the breakneck speed of the bidding and limited time slot of four hours, it was crucial that he be there every morning before the bell went off at 8:45.
All Dov Blumenthal could think about on that sunny fall morning of September 11, 2001, was that he was going to be late for work. That morning, he jumped on a Q train and made his usual switch to an N or R. Those lines usually took him directly to the World Trade Center — all he had to do was hop on an elevator right there in the station to get to his job in the North Tower.
But then he heard the conductor make some unintelligible announcement, and the train sailed past World Trade to the following stop at Rector Street. He couldn’t have known that at 8:46 a.m., hijacked American Airlines Flight 11 had just crashed into the North Tower between floors 93 and 99.
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