9/11

Last Friday, I found out that the company where I used to work in New York had just gone through a second round of layoffs. This time, a former immediate colleague of mine was given the boot. We used to keep in touch constantly right after I left especially during the December CFA days, which we both failed.

During lunch break, sometime last year, we talked about 9/11 and I was surprised to discover a previous work experience of his. He had stints at smaller hedge funds before joining our former company including one at had an office on the 80-something floor of one of the World Trade Center towers. He told me the story how he was slightly late for work on that fateful Tuesday morning. Had he came in earlier, he said he could have been stuck inside the elevator when the airplane struck. He became a witness to a tragedy that included desperate office workers who chose death by jumping off from the buildings instead of death by fire. He was reluctant to talk more about it although I was pressing for details.

Here are some photographs of the WTC site which I had taken from the PATH train station situated right inside Ground Zero. The photos within these photos are lined against the wall of the station. The site continues to evolve. When I was there in December 2003, you could still tell that it was a site of collapsed buildings once. In May 2007, it looked like any other construction site.





I wish JY well in these tough times. Hopefully he'll secure a job somewhere else soon.