TOLEDO, Ohio — September 11, 2001.
8:46 a.m.
A plane, hijacked by terrorists, crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center.
Seventeen minutes later, at 9:03 a.m., a second plane hits the South Tower.
A third plane would crash into the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m.
And a fourth would crash in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania at 10:03 a.m., the time between which each of the Twin Towers collapsed.
In all, 2,996 people died in the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Many more died from illnesses linked back to the devastation that day.
It’s a day the people who lived through will never forget.
“We think of a a lot of things and when the anniversary of 9/11 comes around,” Toledo Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz said. “I know I do think of what I was doing that day and the sacrifice of so many firefighters and police officers.”
It was election day in Toledo on Sept. 11, 2001, as was it in New York City. Kapszukiewicz, then a Toledo city councilman, said he spent the morning talking to voters outside a polling location.
“As voters were coming in to vote, they were making reference to a fire at the World Trade Center,” Kapszukiewicz recalled. “At first I didn't think too much of it, but then a couple more would say it, and then voters coming out would talk about it.”
Kapszukiewicz said another voter told him there was a fire at the Pentagon. He remembers going inside the polling location, standing in front of a television, and beginning to see the gravity of what was unfolding before his eyes.
“I saw a replay of the plane hitting the tower. And that's when I knew that what was going on. I remember at that point leaving the polling location and driving down to my office at city council. I flipped on the radio, and I listened,” Kapszukiewicz said. “I knew something terrible had gone on but the fact that all flights in the country had been grounded and, you know, to sort of hear that first tower fall as I was driving in. That's when I knew that the world had changed forever.”
During that same time, then-Toledo mayor Carty Finkbeiner had arrived at work in Toledo’s One Government Center. He remembers other employees in the building sitting in front of their televisions, which he called unusual.
“But I didn't say anything, I figured there might have been something of interest,” Finkbeiner said. “So I go into, into my office and I said to my chief of staff, ‘Will you find out what those gals are doing with those TVs all on?’”
Finkbeiner said his chief of staff reported back.
“He said a building in New York City was just bombed, lit on fire. There's deaths all over the place. People are stuck in some of the upper floors of those buildings,” Finkbeiner remembered. “And I said, ‘Tell them that we got work to do here at the office and maybe at noon they could check up on what's going on.”
Finkbeiner said it wasn’t until later that morning that he realized what was happening.
“My chief of staff came back and he said, ‘You ought to look at this.’ And so I went out to one of their desk and I think the plane had just gone down in, if I'm not mistaken, near the Pentagon. And now it's beginning to look like this is a terrorist attack,” Finkbeiner said.
City leaders said the federal government provided instructions to protect Toledo’s resources. At noon on Sept. 11, Finkbeiner, Kapszukiewicz and Toledo’s government held a news conference to provide updates and guidance.
The group stood in front of Toledo’s Government Center building, facing Jackson St. downtown. Behind them stood a 22-floor building with a design eerily similar to the two that had collapsed in New York City.
“I've been working in this building for 25 years in one capacity or another, and I've always been aware of the unusual link that this building has with the original World Trade Centers, said Kapszukiewicz. “That it was designed by the same individual, Minoru Yamasaki, who is a world-renowned architect.”
Yamasaki, who appeared on the cover of Time Magazine following the construction of the World Trade Center, designed both Toledo’s Government Center and the Twin Towers.
“It's unusual to think about, and a little dark and upsetting, frankly, to think about it. But when I look at this building, I can see similarities to the original World Trade Center,” Kapszukiewicz said.
He said the windows are a particular design choice Yamasaki used in his buildings.
If you were a couple blocks away from Government Center and you looked at it, maybe squinted your eyes just a little and imagined it being five times larger than it is, it looks a little bit like the original World Trade Center. And it really does.”
Kapszukiewicz also pointed out the design of the lobby of Toledo’s Government Center, which features similar architecture to the one built years earlies inside the World Trade Center.
“I certainly wouldn't say I dwell on it, but, you know, I am someone who knows history and appreciates history and I'm aware of the history of this building,” Kapszukiewicz said. “Every time I look through these windows, these thing windows, and see how high we are above the street, I'm reminded at some level about 9/11 and frankly, how terrible a day that was.”
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