9/11 Unsung Heroes: How River Water Valves Saved New York City's Subways

By Jim Lauria

Growing up in New York City and watching the Twin Towers being built in the early 1970s, I am always tearful on September 11th. This day, twenty-two years ago, I lost two friends.

I played football with Tommy McCann, an FDNY firefighter, who like many of his fellow first responders, died heroically rushing in to save occupants as the Twin Towers collapsed on top of them.

Bob Twomey and I enjoyed talking Civil War history as we worked together at a Brooklyn sugar refinery before he left to become a trader for a financial firm located at the World Trade Center. He was having breakfast at Windows on the World restaurant on top of the North Tower when the first hijacked plane crashed into the building.