Caller About The FAN On 9/11

0:00I'm Susie Welch, the host of Becoming You, a podcast where I help you stop living by default and start living by design. Listen to Becoming You, wherever you get your podcasts. Sherman's in Manhattan. What's going on, Sherman? Woman, G.O. Yeah, Sherman. Yeah, Sherman. What do you got today, man? Yeah, listen, I'm worried about Jerry Raccoon too, but he did make a good point while you guys run vacation that if anybody gets the opportunity to do that or something similar. He said, he recommended go to YouTube and on YouTube you can listen to WFAN from September 11th, starting with IMS before everything happens into Big Mike. And there's a couple of things that really start happening. One, it's so much carons that they so much sadness, but the first thing that you hear him talking about is making fun of the guy, this producer or whatever his title was. Some guy behind the glass showing up to work wearing a Dan Moreno jersey, Eddie Scazeri.

1:03And that putting, you know, I brought a little smile to my face. And then through the day, Warner Wolf, Susan Walman calling in, it's really heartbreaking. And then the second thing, you know, one o'clock rolls around, Big Mike comes on, I know he was doing the best he can. I could have sworn to you as chairman of the joint chiefs the way he spoke with such a authority on our military. It's unbelievable. And for all the crap that you guys did, we give New York City. It's the greatest city in the world, the greatest country in the world. And I just hope today, you know, we never forget that. Yeah, of course, Sherman. Yeah, I do remember listening to the station constantly during that time. And, you know, well, that's really where I was in an IMS listener prior to that, but I would listen, I listened to him as post 9-11, just because I was just consuming a lot of that stuff. But one thing when you're talking about, you know, Mike authoritatively speaking, one lighter note, I remember it was, you know, a few months later where it sent troops overseas

2:08and Afghanistan and all that. And he landed out the battle plan. Well, I've said this one before, but it just, it was just made me laugh when I was listening. He goes, you know, and soon we're going to have, you know, troops on the ground, they have boots on the ground, Turkey's starting to play bowl. I'll never forget that. It was like, you know, 2000 and I will never forget him talking about Turkey allowing us to like use their country to like, you know, put troops in, you know, Turkey's starting to play bowl. You know, I was a contributor on IMS at that time. Yeah. And about six weeks to eight weeks after today, 25 years ago, there was a headline in the post about my friend Howard Lutnik. And the reason I was in the World Trade Center is because my buddy Timothy Michael O'Brien

3:09took a job up there. And in 94, he said to Howard, because I was at Patriot Securities before that our foundation when we first started it. And when we first started it, we needed, I needed free office space. We didn't have all the, the money that we needed to get it off the ground. And Patriot Securities and Liam A.D.S. were great to me. They gave us an opportunity. And then Timmy took this job over at the canter and brought over the, a lot of the mortgage back security guys with him and said to Howard, Lutnik, you know, I'll come, but, you know, you're going to have to bring boomer on his foundation. I had never met Howard. And of course Howard said, yes, we'd love to have boomer here because it turns out that I think Howard's a jet fan. And so from 94, at first bombing to 2001, September 11th, we were up on the 101st floor as he underwrote our entire foundation's office space. And I remember about six, eight weeks afterwards, there was a really negative headline about Howard and what he was doing.

4:10Because he had lost 600, I think, in 54 employees that day, 85% of his company. And you know, there are a lot of people that were worried and, you know, understandably so. And there's a lot of negativity around what was going on and whether or not he was trying to save himself and what was, he wasn't there because he was taking his kid to kindergarten. And I was just listening to all this negative talk about Howard. In the meantime, twice I went with Howard to two different family groups where he was standing in front of these groups. And it was out at the Marriott Hotel. One was in Uniondale. One I think was at the Pierre here in New York City, one his wife and his sister, Edie, set up the Canter family center at the Pierre Hotel so people could actually go there and find out what was going on and find out up to date news about whether or not there was going to be any loved ones found. And I watched Howard talk to these families matter, effectively answering questions. I was just sitting there just in awe of how he was handling all this and then all of a sudden

5:13this negative stuff started coming out about him and what was going on. And I called in to IMS and had a huge argument with him on the, I believe it was on the radio about, and we have to see if we can find it. And you know, and I was sitting there, you have no idea what Howard Lutnik is doing. And what he's trying to do. And not only do it for his families, but also the families that lost loved ones up on Windows of the world, which was the restaurant up on the 110th floor, I think it was. And you know, that that Canter family fun, you know, took care of everything that Howard said he was going to do for those families and the partners that he lost. And I remember those, I just remember how angry I was literally six to eight weeks after it because I was listening to something that was completely inaccurate. Yeah. Wow. That's a memory. I'd heard you tell that story before. Yeah. And that was, you know, and I'm as well. I'm as to his credit, you know, was very understanding of how angry I was and appreciated

6:14me calling in and really explaining exactly what Howard Lutnik had to deal with. I don't, we are all walking around in a fog. And I'm like, this guy had just lost 654 people, including his brother, his best friend, all these partners that he has had up there. And he's got to somehow figure out how to cover all the losses financially that day. And he luckily had a group over in London that was working 24 seven that ultimately saved the, saved the company. The recap show is an inside look into the world of global soccer and women sports. Follow and listen to the recap show wherever you get your podcasts.