25 years ago today, the financial capital of the world stood in the shadow of the Twin Towers. The terrorist attacks on nine over 11 brought the capital markets to a sudden halt, shutting down the New York Stock Exchange for four consecutive trading days, its longest closure since 1933. When the opening bell finally rang on Monday, September 17th, that delivered a clear message to the world.
Wall Street was back open for business and as trading resumed, it took an unprecedented coordination between financial institutions, regulators, telecom giants and the Federal Reserve to restore liquidity and signal institutional stability to world markets. Joining me, as we mark 25 years since that fateful day, is former NYSE chairman and CEO Dick Grasso, who led the big board through its darkest hour and spearheaded that historic reopening day.
Great to have you here. Thank you so much. It is an honor to have you here today.
I'm honored to be with you on this very special day. Thank you for inviting me.
And we all remember. For all of us who were down on Wall Street that day, that morning 25 years ago, and it's so hard to believe that a quarter of a century has already passed. But walk us through that day for you. Yeah.
Well, I was I was in my office waiting to host a breakfast for a new company, and I wanted to do it because it was the combination of two of our listed companies and the chairman. It's a company called AmerisourceBergen. I had I had given the chairman and he accepted on a temporary basis the ticker symbol A, B, c.
I said, I'm going to take it back if American Broadcasting Company ever gets spun out of Disney. And he said, Dick, you have a deal. So I wanted to do it. And I was waiting to go in and host the breakfast. And I got a call from my partner who ran our enforcement division, which was located in tower two, and he said, Dick, I just got a call from the Port Authority management at a small plane had hit the North tower.
Everything was fine. Stay where you are. And as he was speaking, the videos in my office flipped from stock talk to cameras that were pointed towards the North Tower. And I said to him, David, I'm not an expert, but that's no small plane. And in 1993, my people who were in that building when the bomb went off in the basement got the same message.
Stay where you are. And they were trapped for about five hours. I said to him, David, get them out now, okay? No one knew a second plane was coming, and thank God he did. We did a wonderful job. Uh,
but, you know, it was perhaps only five minutes before tower two came down that my security guard that was over there got out of the building. All of the professionals and support staff were out. Security. A young man named Oliver combed the three floors we were in. Looking for folks that might have been hiding in closets or in eaves.
Thank God he got out. And so we were very lucky. But for the next five days. It was one of those unique moments in American history where everyone who, on a normal business day competed vigorously, took off, took off their jerseys, whether the jerseys were at Goldman Sachs or Merrill Lynch or Morgan Stanley or Nasdaq or the New York Stock Exchange.
And we all put on the same jersey, the American jersey. And when this bell rang on September the 17th, it was a message to the terrorists who killed 3000 people and destroyed billions in property. But you will never destroy the American will to always rise from ashes, whether it was Pearl Harbor or all the way back to the forming of our nation.
And that's what we did. And you know, that day people were concerned that the market was going to experience a drop similar to October of 1987, when we lost 22% in one day.
It didn't happen. People stepped up. Companies started buying their own stock back. The chairman of the SEC waived the buyback rules. That morning of nine over 11. Harvey Pitt, who was chair of the SEC. And I spoke very early after the first plane hit, and he was wonderful. And he was also the lawyer to this place before he became chair of the SEC.
And he said, Dick, this is your game. You called us and he supported everything we did. We all worked together for the benefit of the American people and people who were basically of the mindset that this market would never recover. It was less. It was less than 10,000. On the Dow at that point. So America proved once again.
You know, we rise and we form together as Americans to meet any challenge, whether it's physical, psychological or, in the case of bin laden, pathological. Okay. He wanted to destroy the Western way of life. And instead, when that bell rang on the 17th and that ESU cop, Billy Fisher, okay, flexed his big biceps.
He said, the bin laden you've lost.
Yeah. And it is such an honor to hear your story on that fateful day and the days after nine over 11, because many of us remember how clear, how blue that sky was that morning of nine over 11 and how the air actually smelled in the days after. And it's so hard to believe that 25 years have passed. But your leadership here at the New York Stock Exchange played a key part.
So given that we are here in 2026 and there is so much political division around the globe, not to mention this country, what is your message to leaders of America right now?
Well, I hope your viewers and Americans who see this understand that this is a day to reflect and remember, you know, 343 New York City firefighters, 23 New York City police officers, 37 Port Authority police officers and two New York City court reporters ran into those buildings so that 25,000 people could come out.
It was a moment of unity, and I hope today, on the 25th anniversary, people step away from the vicious rhetoric
that now divides us. You know, and look back to what put us together as a country, as a people, you know in this business. Nothing thrilled Goldman Sachs more than beating Morgan Stanley to a piece of business, but not at that time. Nothing thrilled me more than beating Nasdaq to a new listing. But I'll use that as an example.
On the morning we reopen the markets. Nasdaq was on that podium here at the New York Stock Exchange with me, and at the close of business that day, I was up at their headquarters to close the market at Nasdaq. We're first and foremost Americans. This country needs to step away from the vicious rhetoric and remember one thing.
Most importantly,
you're talking to a kid who came here in 1968, fresh out of two years in the Army, landed a job on this trading floor at $81 a week. The pay was a little better when I became chairman. Okay? But it said to me, and I hope your viewers understand, and I hope the DSA and the centrist Democrats and the center right and the far right Republicans, remember, this has always been a country where you can expect a hand up, not a handout.
Show me a country around the world that has succeeded the way we have. Under socialism or under communism. That's the way a lot of people would like us to go. And thank God most of Americans reject that out of hand. Come together. Remember those firefighters, police officers and and just regular civilians who helped one another come out of those towers?
I had a friend, Captain Billy Burke from FDNY, whose company was coming down in the North Tower, and he said to them, keep going. This woman needs help. I'll meet you at the truck. Never got out. That's the kind of commitment that all Americans should have. And that's what we should be remembering. Not just today, but all days going forward.
This country is the shining star on the hill. Ronald Reagan talked about. Okay. It is a place where a kid like me can start at $81 a week, running messages on this floor. The sky's the limit. If you love it, live it. Treat people well and never forget where you started.
Well, Dick, thank you so much for joining me on this 25th anniversary of nine over 11 and for sharing your stories. I think those are sage words of advice for all of our viewers out there. So thank you so much, Dick. I appreciate your.
Time, my honor, to be with you. Thank you. God bless.
You.
