UpClose With Robert DiChiara of the World Trade Centers Association

Mention World Trade Center and a specific moment and a few horrific images come to mind. But for Robert C. DiChiara, the phrase means much more. DiChiara is vice president of business development for the World Trade Centers Association (www.wtca.org), and the vibrancy of this organization, a network of roughly 320 world trade centers in more than 95 countries, has helped to sustain him in the days following September 11. As DiChiara explains in an exclusive interview with GlobeSt.com, he was running uncharacteristically late that morning on his daily walk from nearby Battery Park City to his 77th-floor office in Tower One and witnessed the attack on the association’s flagship property from nearby Liberty Street.

Listening to him tell his story, one gets the sense that the World Trade Center was more than a mammoth place of business. It was for him a hub of community activity, a meeting place for business associates and friends, as well as his corporate home for 30 years. He works today in borrowed offices in Midtown, trying to piece together business contacts using only a handful of papers, a palm pilot and a cell phone. While he deals with massive personal loss, he perseveres largely through a sense of progress through the association’s work. “They blew up the icon,” he says, “but not the mission.” Here is his story.

GlobeSt.com: Explain the mission of the WTCA.

DiChiara: It’s ironic now, but the mission of the World Trade Centers Association is to support the establishment and successful operation of world trade centers as part of an alliance of world trade centers, which enhances global economic development and world peace. So we’ve always perceived the centers as a place to come and do business under the belief that if you’re doing business with someone you’re not going to be fighting with them. So the World Trade Center was an instrument of peace. They’ve blown up the icon. Not the mission. Those towers also represented the financial strength of the United States and the financial strength of the world. You can’t destroy that either.

GlobeSt.com: Are you getting practical support from the other associations?

DiChiara: They’ve all been morally supportive. The World Trade Center Miami has been instrumental in getting Emails, other messages and general information out and keeping everyone else informed while we put or web page back up, which should be back shortly.

GlobeSt.com: Where were you that morning?

DiChiara: You know, I never put my tie on at home. I go to the office, get a cup of coffee and put my tie on then. That morning I put my tie on at home. It takes only a minute or two–but this is all about minutes. I went to vote at 200 Liberty Street–which is where I was when the first plane hit. I didn’t know it was a plane, but I heard two explosions. One I know now was the plane hitting and the second was the fuel exploding out the south end of the building. Then debris started falling. It looked like confetti.

My initial reaction was that it was a bomb, having gone through the ’93 bombing. I looked up and thought it was my floor–77. But outside the building, there were bands visible on the floors where the mechanical-equipment rooms were. I used those bands on 75 and 76 as a reference and counted up to the high 80s or 90s where this big ball of fire had come out. And I felt relieved it was not my floor or my coworkers. But I still thought it was a bomb. Then this woman in the street said it was a plane that hit the building, and I felt relieved again thinking it was a small plane. Now debris was falling all over the place and in front of a local Greek church I saw the tire and landing gear of a commercial airliner. It must have gone right through the building. I saw that and wondered how a commercial airliner could hit the building on one of the clearest days of summer. A small pilot I could see. This wasn’t computing.

GlobeSt.com: When did you figure out what was happening?

DiChiara: Just then the sky went dark. It was the second plane, and the fireball engulfed the perimeter of the building. A friend from our maintenance company said we’re under attack.. We started moving south and we met people who followed us as we went. One of the most vivid memories was that the street was littered with high heels because women can’t run in high heels. About six or seven of us got back to my apartment. We all had cell phones and we started making calls to locate people and organize as best we could.

I was on the phone with one of my daughters–Renee–when I thought I heard another plane coming in–another noise like a rush–and that was the south tower collapsing. My apartment is about four blocks away, and the sound was so loud and the vibration so strong that one person leaped across the floor and hit the deck. The debris and smoke engulfed the entire area and we couldn’t see a tenth of an inch out my apartment window. I sealed shut all ventilation. A half hour or so later, the second building collapsed. After the dust settled some people wanted to leave. I was telling everyone that we could breathe and we were safe where we were, but I began to say to myself, ‘You know, we might not get out of this.’ We stayed as long as we could until the police came and evacuated us.

GlobeSt.com: What does the loss of the towers mean to the WTCA?

DiChiara: It means we don’t have an office. And there’s the loss of the symbol. This was the first World Trade Center, although New Orleans will argue with me. But the truth is that the World Trade Center was being developed in New York when people were still asking, ‘What’s a World Trade Center?’ Guy Tozzoli [president of the WTCA] had to explain at the time that it was a place where small and medium-sized businesses can come to get involved in international trade. It’s an economic development engine where businesses that didn’t know about international trade could be trained and doors could be opened. Today, conservatively, our network of businesses total 750,000.

GlobeSt.com: What does the loss of the center mean to you personally, Bob?

DiChiara: It means 30 years of my life. Never mind the stuff that can’t be replaced, but the hundreds of people I knew. That’s the worst–all the relationships that were destroyed. I look downtown and I want to see the towers.

GlobeSt.com: There’s been a lot of talk about rebuilding. But the Port Authority hasn’t thrown its weight behind a redevelopment yet, correct?

DiChiara: Look, the governor says they’ll rebuild; the mayor wants to rebuild. . . . At the Port Authority, they’ve lost their executive director and some of their principal people. At some point they’ll come to the question about the trade center.

GlobeSt.com: What are your feelings?

DiChiara: One minute I say we should have buildings and the next I think it should remain open space, something contemplative–which was the initial design purpose of the plaza, by the way. Rebuilding is the practical solution for 16 acres of Downtown land. But there are more than 6,000 people missing, and that makes this a burial ground. So there needs to be something significant as a memorial. Plus we mustn’t forget the six people who lost their lives in the 1993 bombing.

I saw Larry Silverstein on the news the other day and he wants four 50-story buildings to get back to 10 million sf. God bless him if that works for him. Maybe as we get through the shock it will make more sense to me to put buildings up. I just don’t know when it will all sink in.