The morning of September 11, 2001 started out as a regular daily commute to work for millions of New Yorkers, including lifelong Bronx resident Bianca Figueroa-Greco.
Suddenly, at 8:46 a.m., the city, the country and the world would change forever — when the first of two hijacked commercial airplanes was deliberately flown into one of the two World Trade Center’s 110-story Twin Towers.
That morning, Figueroa-Greco was working as an assistant superintendent for NYC-based construction engineering company Turner Construction in the North Tower. At the time of the attack, she was located on Basement Level 4 of the North Tower, four levels below ground within the original World Trade Center complex.
Also known simply as ‘B4’, Basement Level 4 was a deep underground sublevel within the WTC’s “bathtub” slurry wall structure which consisted of heavy mechanical systems, transit infrastructure and part of the complex’s large refrigeration and chilled-water plant, as well as a portion of an underground parking garage.
Figueroa-Greco said her company had been performing construction management in the mechanical rooms of the building, after full-service real estate development, investment and management firm Silverstein Properties signed a 99-year lease of the complex in July 2001.
The $3.2 billion lease deal between Silverstein and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey became official six weeks before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. At the time, it was the largest real estate transaction in the city’s history.
Suddenly, Figueroa-Greco, who still has her visitor’s pass from that day, said she heard the sound of a suppressed boom which sounded like it came from the upper floors. She didn’t know it at the time, but the sound she heard signified the crash of American Airlines Flight 11 into the upper floors of the North Tower.
“When the planes hit, the first thing I remember is the lights throughout the level flickered on and off,” Figueroa-Greco said. “Then I heard the sound of a falling elevator, followed by a loud boom which sounded like it came from the elevator shaft.”
According to Figueroa-Greco, smoke began to fill B4, which prompted her and other onsite Turner personnel to move to an adjacent workspace and plan an evacuation strategy.
“We all knew there was something seriously wrong and that we needed to leave as soon as possible,” Figueroa-Greco said. “But there was a lot of confusion — we didn’t know what was happening.”
Figueroa-Greco and fellow employees then proceeded to an emergency exit, only to find it locked. Ed McCabe, a stationary engineer of the International Union of Operating Engineers who had been working on the B5 level that day, had the keys and was able to unlock the door — which Figueroa-Greco said unquestionably saved the lives of her and many others.
After she and other co-workers successfully evacuated Tower 1, everybody began to “run for their lives,” according to Figueroa-Greco.
She recalled she heard another loud boom once she got onto the sidewalk, which represented the sound of United Airlines Flight 175 striking the 110-story South Tower, 2 World Trade Center, and continued to retreat further from the site amidst the burning and scattered debris throughout the area.
Figueroa-Greco ran for a few blocks before she ducked under a car for safety when debris began to fall from the towers and onto the street.
Once the immediate chaos seemed to subside, Figueroa-Greco told the Bronx Times she attempted to help a man in flames on Vesey Street.
“I didn’t do anything anybody else in that same situation wouldn’t have done,” she said.
After helping the man on fire who she didn’t know, Figueroa-Greco remembered looking up and seeing both towers on fire and ruptured, which convinced her to further retreat and proceed toward the subway to go back home to the Bronx.
United Airlines Flight 175 hit the South Tower at 9:03 a.m. before it collapsed at 9:59 a.m. the same morning. Although the South Tower was hit second, it collapsed first — having stood for less than half the time the North Tower remained standing following impact.
A total of 2,753 people died at the World Trade Center site as a result of the attacks, including 343 firefighters, 23 NYPD officers and 37 Port Authority police officers along with all the passengers and crew aboard the two hijacked aircrafts.
There is no official record or exact count of how many people died specifically in the basement or sub-level areas of the World Trade Center.
Figueroa-Greco came back to what became known as Ground Zero three days after the attacks to assist in the rescue and cleanup effort, after watching countless news clips of the horrific footage on television.
She was stationed to help at the former site of World Trade Center 7, which had also collapsed on Sept. 11 due to prolonged and uncontrolled fires combined with structural damage caused by the collapse of the towers. It was at Ground Zero where she met her future husband, Rafe, another lifelong Bronx resident who was also at the site.
Rafe Greco, who had been working construction in Times Square at the time of the attack, traveled to the site later that night to aid and assist in the disaster response.
Having been a welder since the mid-1980s, Rafe took his cutting torch and began clipping the remaining framework of the building. He ended up cutting down several beams from the World Trade Center and created many crosses out of them for families of the victims. He also ended up cutting the final standing beam from the World Trade Center site.
After some time, he asked her to go to lunch by writing her a note on a list of signatures with names of people who had checked in and out of the site, which. The two began dating and also remained committed to the rescue and cleanup efforts at the site.
Bianca and Rafe, who each helped in the rescue and recovery efforts at Ground Zero for months among tens of thousands of responders, workers and volunteers, officially married in 2012. They now have two children together, including their son who they refer to as their “Ground Zero baby.”
“It shows that something beautiful can still happen, even during a horrible situation,” Figueroa-Greco said, and added she will be at Ground Zero on Sept. 11 for the anniversary.
“What happened 25 years ago was catastrophic and tragic, and I’ll never forget it,” she said.
