Grieving company boss to write Sept 11 book
The chief executive of a firm which lost more than 600 of its 1,000 workers in the collapse of the World Trade Centre is to write a book about the ordeal.
Cantor Fitzgerald suffered the greatest loss of life in the September 11 attacks, as its staff were concentrated in the upper floors of the first tower to be hit.
Chief executive Howard Lutnick cheated death because he decided to take his son to school and arrived late at the office on the day of the attacks.
Now he is to write a book about the firm’s struggle to keep going as a bond trading house and deal with the grief which engulfed it.
Mr Lutnick, whose brother Gary worked beside him and was killed in the attacks, is to donate his share of the royalties to the families of the staff killed on September 11.
‘‘I think it is an incredible story,’’ he said.
‘‘I think it is really important that I get to tell it. It will stand as a testament to my friends and partners who I lost on the 11th of September.’’
Co-writer Thomas Barbash has interviewed the families of the victims and the survivors of the attacks and the book will also feature their stories.
‘‘We will weave together things I want to say in my voice and things that need to be said in all sorts of voices,’’ said Mr Lutnick.
Mr Lutnick was known as one of Wall Street’s toughest bosses before the attacks but broke down repeatedly in the aftermath as he pledged to do all he could to help the families of the dead workers.
He asked survivors to vote on whether to keep the firm alive after the attacks and pledged to donate 25% of its profits over the next five years to a fund for the dead.
Families have also been given the healthcare benefits they enjoyed before they lost their loved ones in the attack and have already been paid more than £30m in bonuses the dead would have been due.
