New York: Shele Lieberman was “a little disheartened” when her good friend Lesley Thomas got a job with Manhattan investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald. Though she was happy her buddy was achieving her New York dream, she knew it would mean their time together would be more limited.
“We did see a lot of each other,” says Lieberman, who was working shifts as a midwife. “She and I were both the same age. [We] had the same quirky Australian humour – you miss that in America sometimes.”
Little did Lieberman know how limited that time would turn out to be. It was only a few months after Thomas joined the company – and began working on the 105th floor of the World Trade Centre’s north tower – that al-Qaeda terrorists flew planes into the twin buildings. Thomas, who was 40, died in the collapse.
Of the nearly 3000 innocent people who died in the September 11 attacks, 10 were Australian. Most were working at the World Trade Centre; Alberto Dominguez was on the flight that hit the north tower, while Yvonne Kennedy was on the plane that crashed into the Pentagon.
After 25 years, some people’s memories of that day have faded, but not their recollections of their lost loved ones.
Thomas moved from NSW to New York with her American husband, Joseph O’Keefe, and met Lieberman through Australian Women in New York – a networking association. Lieberman, from Brisbane, had returned to New York permanently in the 1990s, following an earlier stint.
They regularly went to AWNY events together – at restaurants, the theatre, day cruises on the harbour. Two days before September 11, they attended a brunch across the Hudson River in Hoboken, New Jersey. Lieberman still has the photos from that day; by chance, none of them feature the World Trade Centre in the background.
She was working at the Beth Israel Medical Centre near Union Square that sunny Tuesday morning when a resident nurse “came racing down the hallway” to tell them a plane had just flown into the tower.
“We all thought it was something like a little Cessna. We just thought it was [that] somebody had a cardiac arrest or something. Not the horror that finally came to light.”
Medical staff were told to cancel their patients and set up a makeshift triage on the ground floor. Lieberman’s thoughts turned to Thomas almost instantly. She knew her friend’s routine, including that she was working with European clients in a later time zone. “The mornings were her busiest time. So, you knew she was in there.”
Lieberman couldn’t get through to Thomas’ mobile phone, but says O’Keefe was able to speak with her before the building collapsed.
She remembers her friend as a “good Australian girl” – vivacious, funny, happy; a high achiever ready to embark upon this exciting new chapter of her life. “She loved dancing,” Lieberman says, particularly ABBA. “At her memorial, they played Dancing Queen.”
This year, many of those who lost loved ones in the September 11 attacks are grappling with conflicted feelings about New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Lieberman is no different, though it is less intense for her as she now lives in Atlanta.
New York’s first Muslim mayor has never defended or excused the attack. He has been criticised by some for past comments that appeared to rationalise the radicalisation of American imam Anwar al-Awlaki, who became an al-Qaeda leader, and for hiring his chief counsel, Ramzi Kassem, who had previously represented an accused al-Qaeda terrorist.
A collection of families, first responders and conservative elected officials urged Mamdani not to attend Friday’s memorial service, and an online petition asking organisers to ban Mamdani garnered 110,000 signatures.
Last Friday, Mamdani held a signing ceremony at City Hall to declare September 11 a Day of Remembrance and Service. Multiple people were standing around him – including Kassem – and he handed a pen to each of them. But conservative media outlets seized on the gift to Kassem, labelling it a “message of contempt”.
At a previous memorial, Lieberman helped escort grieving family members to their seats, and they showed her their photographs of lost loved ones. It has stuck with her, and she says she understands where those families opposed to Mamdani’s attendance are coming from.
“I just thought: what these [people] have lost 25 years ago, it warrants more respect,” she says. “I feel more supportive of the families [than Mamdani] and can understand why they feel that way.”
For Lieberman, giving the pen to Kassem was “unspeakable”, especially as it was passed through the hands of Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch. Dozens of officers died in the line of duty that day; many more perished in later years from health conditions related to toxic dust.
Mamdani this week released previously unseen documents showing that city officials under then-mayor Rudy Giuliani knew the air quality around Ground Zero was dangerous despite their assurances to the public. The bombshell files backed up what first responders had long believed.
“The air was as toxic as we said it was,” said James Brosi, president of the New York City firefighters’ union. “We were dying with every breath we took down there. The city knew it.”
The union says 453 firefighters have died of related illnesses over the past 25 years. “They didn’t have to lie to us,” Brosi said. “Because if they’d been more honest, we probably still would have done it; we just would have taken better precautions after the fact.”
Giuliani was among those calling on Mamdani to stay away from the official memorial. But the mayor said he would attend Friday morning’s ceremony, where it is customary for politicians not to speak.
“I’m proud to be the mayor of this city,” Mamdani said. “I love this city, I love this country, and what I want this week to be a focus on is the families whose loved ones were stolen from them 25 years ago in the horrific act of terror of September 11th, and a focus also on the first responders who gave everything they could to this city.”
Twenty-five years on from September 11
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Michael Koziol is the North America correspondent for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald. He is a former Sydney editor, Sun-Herald deputy editor and a federal political reporter in Canberra.Connect via X or email.From our partners
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