Remy Blaire: Today marks 25 years since September 11th, a day that forever changed our nation. In the immediate aftermath, the U.S. equity markets were forced to shut down for four consecutive days. It was the longest closure since World War I. When the trading floor finally reopened on September 17th, it served as a vital symbol of recovery and resilience for Wall Street and the rest of the world.
Well, joining us to reflect on the 25th anniversary, as well as the human toll and how that historic week transformed financial markets, is Dr. Gordon Charlop. Great to have you here. Thank you so much for joining me.
Gordon Charlop: Pleasure to be here.
Remy Blaire: Well, it is a somber day here on the trading floor as well as on Wall Street. And it's so hard to believe that 25 years have passed since that fateful day. But walk us through the first days before the markets reopened and how far we have come since then.
Gordon Charlop: Well, a quarter of a century. Just a real block of time. That day and the days that followed were infamous.
That day, for example, I mean, just to go through it. First tower was hit, and many on the floor were watching on the monitors. We weren't sure what it was, pilot error, but no one really suspected what it turned out to be. Then the second hit, and they had a fire alarm, pulled the fire alarm, and everybody evacuated.
We had trained to do that. We were out on Broad Street. We were told that there would be at least a delayed opening and that they might close the exchange for the day. We weren't sure, but that was the way we went forward.
Dick Grasso was the chairman and a tremendous leader at that time for us. Could have opened the exchange the following day. The stock exchange is self-contained. It has its own power source and own ability to reach the outside world. But it was all the surrounding infrastructure that had been destroyed, power lines and phone lines. And he felt that it was in the interests of the investing community to wait.
The neighborhood was pretty beat up when the towers came down. They talk about how you've heard of the Canyon of Heroes. Well, this whole place is like a canyon. When the debris came down, it actually filtered its way through the streets. And that's why all of us got covered with this ash.
And so the whole area needed to be cleaned up, not just immediately around the World Trade Center, but everything in Lower Manhattan.
When we came back that following Monday, the Army was there, the Navy was here, the Coast Guard, everything. They set up barbed wire directly from Pier 11 to Wall Street. And somebody once said to me at that time, you know, "Are you afraid to go back down there?" I said, "Actually, no. I think it's about the safest place on the planet right now."
So we opened up that following Monday. I was actually fortunate. The Wall Street Journal, I was a leading broker at that time, they called me at home and asked me what I thought. I said, "The opening bell can't ring soon enough for me." I wanted to get back to work.
I felt that you were giving in to the terrorists the longer you kept the markets closed, which was in line with what the White House was saying. And certainly Mayor Giuliani was ready and eager. He was a great leader at that moment, too.
So we finally came back, and all the guys that were here felt a tremendous sense of pride. We knew what was at stake, making sure that these markets opened in a fair and orderly manner. And there was a professionalism that just permeated the place. You know, a lot of different companies working together to make sure that the markets were fair and orderly.
And the markets did sell off maybe 8% that first day, maybe 12% through the first week, but there was no sense of panic. It was nothing like, say, 1987 or the 2008 financial crisis.
So it was more than the fact that we were the epicenter of the free world and global markets. We were also like a beacon of hope that we would, you know, kick the dust off and we would get back about our business.
And I can remember that opening day when all the dignitaries were there. But more vivid in my mind were the firemen and the policemen who stood there and rang that bell. You know, and you could tell how hurt and how painful that moment was for them, as so many of their compatriots had lost their lives bravely trying to ascend up 70 flights with 100 pounds of equipment on their backs.
But you know what? One of the things, too, that always struck me was, in a way, how lucky we were, in some odd way.
Two ways. Number one, the towers got hit, but then it took some time before they came down. So all the people in the lower floors below where the planes entered managed to escape. I mean, those towers were used. They were like little cities. It was a city. So a lot of people were able to get away.
And the other thing was that the towers came straight down. Had they toppled in either direction, the damage would have been significantly worse.
Remy Blaire: And Gordon, I do hate to interrupt, but we are approaching the opening bell here on Wall Street. So I do want to get your perspective on how far we have come when it comes to trading infrastructure as well as technology since 9/11, 2001.
Gordon Charlop: Well, to Chairman Grasso's credit and a lot of other folks, we realized that we needed to have some sort of backup facility in case something like this happened and directly affected the stock exchange.
So they set up something in MetroTech in Brooklyn. And then with the advent of electronic trading and multiple destinations for order flow, I think we've mitigated the risk of having a central location being, you know, destroyed and therefore affecting the global economy and the global markets.
Markets are much more liquid now, 24/7 trading. It's a different time. It's a different world. You know, a quarter of a century is a long time. A lot of development in those years.
Remy Blaire: Well, Gordon, I appreciate your time. It is so hard to believe that 25 years have passed because so much has stayed the same, while so much has changed as well.
And I know that you do want to show our audience something from that day.
Gordon Charlop: Yeah, well, for those of us who... Can you see that okay? Is there a way to get, like, a close-up on that?
Well, this was a medallion that was given to us by the exchange, to all the guys, the traders and people, the guards and all those who worked here, to sort of thank us and kind of help us commemorate what was a pretty awful day at a pretty awful time.
But to thank us for the way we pulled it together and made the markets up and run again. And we're very grateful for that, that we were able to do that.
Remy Blaire: Well, thank you so much, Gordon. I really appreciate you, and thank you so much for joining me this morning.
