911 Didn?t Shake Money Manager

Mary Ann Greenwood was in the World Trade Center’s Marriott Hotel on September 11, 2001, when terrorists hijacked commercial aircraft and slammed them into the 110-story towers. The hotel curved between the two towers. She was on the first floor.

The rumbling of the first impact, Greenwood said, reverberated down the buildings like a roll of thunder from a heavy storm. When the chandeliers began swaying, her party got up and left the building. She walked past firefighters poised to go inside, then looked up to see the smoke and fire.

Seventeen minutes later, a second plane screamed into the south tower

“We said, ‘Oh my God, it’s a terrorist attack,” Greenwood said. “We thought maybe there was a bomb on the planes or something. Our first thoughts were about the people at our convention, but we didn’t lose anyone. We were just in awe.”

People were jumping from buildings. Greenwood heard some hit the ground. Disbelief took hold. But in typical fashion for a veteran money manager, she didn’t panic.

“If we had known the buildings were going to crumble when we were in them, I probably would have been scared,” Greenwood said. “But I didn’t feel threatened. I was not a victim, just a witness. The first instinct was to do something about it, to take care of the situation.”

Two employees and two interns along for the trip were also safe. Despite getting gouged $2,000 by Hertz ($1,400 of which was refunded) to get home quickly, Greenwood said she came away personally unscathed.

Upon revisiting the site this past September, she and husband Reed Greenwood were surprised to see that vendors now hawk souvenirs at Ground Zero. She said both images were incredibly horrible to see.