Gotham Gazette

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The direct losses to New York and the United States from the WTC attack are incalculable. Yet, as the first anniversary comes and goes, the calculations go on apace.

More than two-thirds of the 2801 victims, or at least 1946, died on the upper floors near or above where the planes crashed: the top 19 floors of the North Tower and the top 33 floors of the South Tower. With the firefighters (343), the police and other rescue workers (about 90) and the victims from the two planes (157), and that accounts for about 90 percent of those who were killed.

Cantor Fitzgerald, the bond trading firm, lost 658 employees, by far the greatest number. Other companies and their losses:

  • Marsh and McLennan (the insurance firm) 295;
  • Aon (another insurance firm), 176;
  • Fiduciary Trust International (a financial firm), 87,
  • the Port Authority, 75;
  • Windows on the World restaurant, 73;
  • Carr Futures, 69;
  • Keefe, Bruyette and Woods, 67;
  • and Sandler O'Neil and Partners, 67.

All these were on high floors in one of the towers. Risk magazine, the trade bible of derivatives industry, which defined much of finance in the 1990s, was having a conference at Windows on the World. Everyone in attendance, including many high executives, perished.

 

Given the firms for whom many of those in the World Trade Center worked (as well as the large number of fire fighters and other rescue workers) the other demographic facts should not be that surprising. The victims were overwhelmingly male (about 75 percent), young (many under 40, most under 50), and white (about 75 percent). Only about eight percent were black, nine percent Hispanic, and about six percent Asian. About 75 percent were born in the United States; the rest came from many countries. Together New York and New Jersey accounted for about 87 percent.

We now know that the Upper East Side had the most losses (44), while Hoboken, NJ had the highest proportion of loss of any area, losing 39 residents, or about one per thousand. The number is probably even higher if parental addresses are taken into account. It is not surprising that many of the victims lived in very affluent parts of the metropolitan area, including the Upper East Side and Basking Ridge New Jersey.

But those working at 10048 represented many aspects of New York City society -- the wealthy older executives at the Risk conference or running some of the firms, the young traders on the make, the lawyers, the computer techies, the immigrants working in the service fields. After 9/11, 10048 is no more.

Andrew A. Beveridge has taught sociology at Queens College since 1981, done demographic analyses for the New York Times since 1993, and provides expert testimony on a range of cases, including housing discrimination. The opinions expressed are his alone.