Few instances exist where nearly everyone can collectively remember exactly what they were doing on a given day 25 years ago. The events of Sept. 11, 2001, are a rare exception.
“I remember seeing the second plane hit live. I remember thinking it was a movie, and being like, ‘Is this real? Is this a movie?’” said Northampton resident Rusty Caldwell, who was a high schooler in Concord at the time and watched the day’s events unfold in the cafeteria.
By 9:03 a.m., when the second plane struck, a majority of the country was also glued to their TVs. The attacks killed nearly 3,000 people when hijacked planes struck the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania.
During an “intense” class after watching the twin towers become swallowed in smoke, Caldwell’s social studies teacher addressed students, saying, “The course of the United States has changed today.”
And the country did change, Caldwell and others interviewed said as the 25th anniversary approached.
“Whether the travel restrictions or Islamophobia, which was rampant and still is, it’s had absolutely enormous repercussions,” he said.
Ripple effects
While he is one of the roughly 110 million Americans — or one-third of the population — not yet born when the Sept. 11 attacks occurred, 20-year-old Chris Bamber said he feels the impacts of that day. The East Longmeadow resident who was hanging out in Northampton last week specifically pointed to the USA Patriot Act, a sweeping federal law passed shortly after the attacks that expanded the government’s ability to conduct surveillance and investigate suspected terrorism.
“People, I think, are starting to realize the Patriot Act might have more downsides to it, and I think that’s maybe the biggest takeaway from our generation,” he said. “I think a lot of people back then, because of the attacks, were OK with it getting passed and with giving up some of their rights for safety.”
Jerri Cote, a Westhampton resident who was at the Northampton Stop & Shop, had been working at Providence Behavioral Health Hospital in Holyoke 25 years ago. A staff member told her that a building in New York City had been hit. She went to the waiting room and turned on the television. As she watched, a second plane struck the World Trade Center.
“That’s when the second plane hit, and we knew it was not an accident,” she said. “It was horrifying. It was the scariest thing I’ve ever been through.”
In the weeks that followed, Cote said she had to stop watching television news because the images were too disturbing. Instead, she switched to radio, saying she needed the information but found the constant visuals difficult to handle.
“I preferred listening to NPR so that I could hear it because I found the visuals too traumatizing,” she said.
Cote said some travel changes, particularly at airports, have often seemed more burdensome than useful.
“The TSA stuff just feels stupid and annoying,” she said. “The taking off your shoes, you know. I don’t think that’s helping anybody.”
Severe health consequences for first responders continue to linger. As of March 31, 2024, more than 40,000 responders had certified aerodigestive conditions and more than 19,000 had certified cancers, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Muslim community
The impact of the Sept. 11 attacks was felt not only by those directly targeted or injured but also by Muslim Americans who feared they would be blamed for an act committed by a small group of extremists, said Suleiman Ali Mourad, a scholar of Islam at Smith College.
“When this act was perpetrated by Muslim terrorists, the Muslim community itself became afraid,” Mourad said. “What are other people going to say about us because this was done by Muslims?”
The attacks also provided an opportunity for some political and cultural movements to amplify anti-Muslim sentiment, Mourad said. By associating Muslims broadly with the actions of al-Qaida and later groups such as the Islamic State, he said, political rhetoric can turn isolated acts of terrorism into a justification for viewing an entire religious community with suspicion.
“Muslims tend to feel that they are being pushed to the periphery,” Mourad said. “They feel they have to do extra effort to show that they are peaceful, that they are good citizens.”
He also cautioned against describing Islam itself as either a religion of peace or a religion of violence. Islam, he said, is interpreted and practiced differently across cultures and historical periods. He compared the religion to Play-Doh, saying it can be manipulated for different agendas.
“Islam is what Muslims make,” he said. “If Muslims decide to make it a religion of peace, it is a religion of peace. If they make it a religion of war, it is a religion of war.”
The anniversary should be an opportunity for people around the world to stand together against terrorism and the divisions that can fuel it, he said.
“9/11 should be a moment to try to be better citizens in the world,” he said.
Conspiracy theories
Meanwhile, an entire generation has now grown up since 2001 without experiencing the attacks. In the years since, 9/11 has become fodder for internet trolls and conspiracy theorists who question the official account of what happened.
Twenty-year-old Lucas McNally of East Longmeadow said he has ultimately come to believe the official account that al-Qaida was responsible, though he has gone down rabbit holes considering other possibilities.
“I definitely thought before maybe it was Saudi Arabia funding it, or maybe Israel or an inside job because there’s some suspicious coincidences that line up, like the thing on the insurance policy on terror,” he said, referencing the claim that the buildings were covered for terrorism two months before the attack.
“That’s definitely pretty odd,” he said.
“I don’t have a hard stance on what it could be. I guess it changes over time how I feel about it,” he said. “I think there were definitely people who knew about it, and different enemies who knew about it and didn’t warn us. But overall, I think it was probably al-Qaida.”
Others interviewed didn’t express much interest in the conspiracy theories. Caldwell called them “silly.”
“I think the conspiracy theories tend to reflect away from the important truth of what actually happened,” he said.
McNally and his friend Bamber both said they learned a lot about the attacks during their years in East Longmeadow schools.
But as a child, Easthampton paramedic Elizabeth Karolides did not understand the full gravity of what had happened. She was 2 years old at the time. She learned more about the attacks from movies than from school or her parents.
Now, after six years as a paramedic, she is beginning to understand the magnitude of what occurred.
“Now, being in this field, it’s definitely talked about way more than what I was exposed to,” she said. “I don’t know if, without entering this career, I would have gotten the same exposure.”
Karolides has not done a deep dive into 9/11 conspiracy theories, but believes the speculation can lose sight of the human cost of the attacks.
“I haven’t really researched all the conspiracy theories, but I feel like those people lose the human aspect of it,” she said. “I think people forget sometimes about how many people this really affected.”
In Granby, a small memorial located outside the Public Safety Complex on East State Street has been erected in an effort to keep the events of 9/11 alive for generations who have no firsthand memory of the attacks. The memorial consists of a warped piece of metal from a New York City fire truck destroyed when the Twin Towers collapsed, mounted on a steel beam.
George Randall, a retired Granby firefighter, remembers watching the attacks unfold while working as a property claims adjuster. At his first stop that day, a homeowner had the television on, showing the damage caused by the first plane. Then he watched the second plane strike. Randall, who was also serving in the Army Reserve, knew the attacks could lead to his unit being activated. “I was standing there just watching this in total disbelief,” he said.
For Randall, the memorial ensures younger generations understand what happened and the people who were lost. It honors civilians, firefighters and police officers killed in the attacks.
“Nobody should forget,” Randall said. “They should tell their children, and their children should tell their children of what happened here.”
Deborah Toledo had been living in New York for about 30 years when the attacks happened. She had left her job on Park Avenue after having her son and moved to the Pioneer Valley, while many of her former colleagues went on to work near the World Trade Center.
After the planes struck, everything was chaos, the Northampton resident said.
“I couldn’t get in touch with my family,” Toledo said. “It was terrible. It was agonizing.”
She traveled to the site about five days after the attacks, when smoke was still rising from the ruins.
“The worst part was when I stepped out of a cab to go to the site,” Toledo said. “I felt everything. I felt all those souls. I saw the smoke. I just cried and cried. It was devastating, the most devastating.”
Toledo said she lost many friends in the attacks, including people who had once worked alongside her and later took jobs in lower Manhattan.
“The pain is just crazy,” she said. “They’re still not good. They still can’t get over it.”
Other friends survived because they had taken the day off or moved to different jobs, she said.
“You never know what’s going to happen,” Toledo said. “Live your day as if it’s your last.”
