Dov, Run!,Subject: Dov Blumenthal / Photographed by: Suzanne Plunkett / Location: the World Trade Center / Date: September 11, 2001. The bigger picture: He was a regular guy from Brooklyn on his way to work. One snap made him a familiar face to millions.
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.
“I’d gone to Selichos and I was late getting back from shul” he says. Still single and in his middle 20s he was living with his parents in their Bedford Avenue home.
A typical yeshivah grad from Flatbush Dovy had attended Toras Emes Yeshiva of South Shore and Merkaz HaTorah before completing an accounting degree at Brooklyn College. After that he took a job working for the Commodities Exchange at the New York Board of Trade on the eighth floor of the World Trade Center. This was high stakes high-adrenaline work. “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.
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