NEW YORK CITY—The opening sentences of the first of many stories GlobeSt.com provided on the events of that week were stark: “In what President George Bush has labeled a terrorist attack, two jet planes have crashed into the World Trade Center.” “Shortly after the suicide flights that flattened New York's World Trade Center, a plane crashed on a helipad adjacent to the Pentagon, causing a portion of that military complex to implode.”

Fourteen years ago today, the coordinated attacks on New York City and Washington, DC took 2,977 innocent lives, mainly at the Twin Towers, as well as the lives of the 19 terrorists who carried out the attacks by hijacking commercial aircraft. They made an impact on daily life that is felt to this day.

Initial news accounts from 9/11 provide a sense of the upheaval the attacks caused along with the sketchiness of the information that was available as the unprecedented events unfolded. That first GlobeSt.com story reported that One and Two World Trade Center each were hit by “a small commercial air-bus plane.” Subsequent reporting the same day revealed that both aircraft were wide-bodied Boeing 767s, while the plane that hit the Pentagon was a 757, as was the United Airlines flight that crashed into a Shanksville, PA field, apparently after passengers rose up against the hijackers. The United flight was likely headed for another target in the nation's capital.

The first news reports on this website also cited a report on Abu Dhabi television that the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine had claimed responsibility for the attacks on the Trade Center. Later, al-Qaeda would be implicated, although it was not until 2004 that Osama bin Laden formally claimed responsibility for authorizing the attacks. Bin Laden was shot dead by US Navy SEALs in May 2011, nearly 10 years after the attacks.

What was clear early on, however, was that the commercial real estate industry was ready to roll up its sleeves and pitch in. “For companies that don't have their own in-house expertise, we can provide technical assistance, advisors, access to temporary space to get companies up and running,” James Kuhn, president of Newmark & Co. Real Estate (now Newmark Grubb Knight Frank), told Globest.com the day after the attacks. “We;re just opening our resources to the business community to help with anything they need.”

Bruce Mosler, then president of Cushman & Wakefield, held a press conference to outline C&W's plans to get the city firmly back on its feet. He said his firm was “dedicated to assisting our clients in any way,” in the aftermath of the World Trade Center bombing, adding that securing emergency space and providing human resources, facilities management and other advisory services would be offered gratis to firms affected by the bombings.

“They may have bloodied our nose but we expect to come back stronger and better than ever before,” Mosler said. “This is something we are taking personally.”

Also evident was the fact that for the industry, the attacks would have long-term implications. As an example, GlobeSt.com reported a few days after 9/11 that Patrick Colwell, then the senior managing director for the investment services group for Grubb & Ellis, told the attendees at the Board of Realtors session in White Plains that market conditions in the suburbs had changed over the past few days. “Actually, we've heard that there are a substantial number of new tenants in the marketplace that are scouring, New Jersey, Westchester and Connecticut for space because we lost about 14 million square feet of space in Manhattan,” said Colwell.

In the years since Colwell made that statement, rebuilding has been under way at the World Trade Center site, with three towers now open—including Silverstein Properties Inc.'s 7 World Trade Center, which chairman Larry Silverstein has called “the last to fall and the first to be rebuilt.” A new 1 World Trade Center, developed by the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey and now the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere, opened in 2014, a year after SPI opened 4 World Trade Center a block to the south. Lower Manhattan, written off by many immediately after the attacks, has itself "come back stronger and better than ever before," to paraphrase Mosler.

However, another effect of the attacks that was seen immediately after 9/11 remains: tighter building security. “Everybody is very conscious of security,” said David Martel, then SVP at Spaulding & Slye Colliers in Boston, where one of the hijacked planes took off on 9/11 en route to Los Angeles. “I think the real estate industry recognizes that the world has changed. It is not only to make tenants feel comfortable but also to protect their assets. It makes sense to respond with updated security measures.”