Industry Reactions And Implications From The ‘Attack On America’

NEW YORK CITY. "Our company looks at those World Trade Centers every day - or used to," said Don Sussman, president, Town and Gardens Ltd., New York City, N.Y., referring to the Twin Towers - One World Trade Center and Two World Trade Center - that both crumbled to the ground in downtown Manhattan after being struck by Boeing 767 airplanes. "It was part of our landscape here. I don’t think it really has sunken into us how our landscape has changed."

Located on 25th Street about two miles from the scene of massive destruction, Town and Gardens is a design/build company that performs residential and commercial horticultural installations throughout Manhattan, including rooftop gardens in some of New York’s tallest buildings. While the company did not have any installations in the World Trade Center, its work was displayed at nearby parks - work that was covered in several inches of ash following the building collapses. "There are many places that we did do in that area that are damaged with debris and ash," said Sussman.

The losses resulting from the attack more closely affect the business of Madelyn Simon & Associates, New York City, N.Y., which lost several clients but, luckily, no employees. "Unfortunately, we lost clients - which ones have actually died, I don’t know," said Madelyn Simon, owner and president of the interiorscaping company located on 34th Street about three miles from the attack. "I don’t know whether they are alive or dead. It’s very, very serious."

Two employees from Simon’s company were scheduled to work in One World Trade Center - the northernmost of the Twin Towers, which was struck first in the attack - Tuesday morning. "One person was going to the delivery area, and thank God, he called in sick. The other person was delayed in a horticultural meeting," explained Simon.

If they were on schedule, the plant technicians would have been in the buildings at the time of the attack - One World Trade Center was struck at about 8:50 a.m. EDT, and Two World Trade Center was hit shortly after 9 a.m. EDT.

As far as impacting Simon’s business, the client loss is not limited to companies in the Twin Towers. "We’ve lost clients in other buildings," explained Simon, noting that Seven World Trade Center - which collapsed hours after the plane crashes due to structural damage caused by explosions and the collapsing of the Twin Towers - housed other clients. Additionally, other buildings in the area that housed clients have structural damage, are missing windows and have no utilities. "I’m sure it’s going be some time before the clients are going to be occupying the space," said Simon.

As the events of Tuesday morning unfolded, Simon was holding a training meeting that ended abruptly when other employees interrupted to turn the conference room television on to watch the incredible scene happening about 20 blocks away. Shortly after the attack, Simon ran downstairs to the street to get an idea of how people were reacting. She talked to a man that was on the 46th floor of Two World Trade Center when the crashes occurred. He told Simon that instructions were given to people inside the building to not leave their offices and stay where they were - an obvious mistake since each building collapsed about an hour after being struck. "Anyone that listened to that probably is dead," related Simon.

Sussman had crews out in the field and at the company’s facility, but no locations were in the immediate vicinity of the World Trade Center. He received a phone call about the first plane crash while on his way to a meeting. He was able to get to the meeting site and watched the second impact on television as it happened. He said many of his employees witnessed the events from their vantage points throughout the day. The closest call for Sussman’s employees was that the husband of one of the company’s designers works in the World Trade Center, but he ended up being stuck in a subway for two and a half hours while on route to work. "It was lucky [he] didn’t make it," said Sussman.

Simon and Sussman both made immediate efforts to ensure the safety of their employees. "My interest was in making sure everybody got home safe," said Simon, noting that bridges, tunnels and trains around the area were shut down. Because of concern for her employees’ safety, Simon invited people to stay at her house if need be. No one took her up on the offer, but one worker did spend the night on a couch at the office because he didn’t think he would be able to make it home.

"We suspended operations that day," said Sussman, "but our clients depend on us, and the things we take care of are living things. Therefore, we’re not apt to just turn around and let those living things suffer as well."

Sussman said his employees were back to work on Wednesday and he expects New York, a city known for its toughness, to be able to rebuild. "I honestly believe business will go on - I know it will go on," he said. "This is not something you can plan for, yet things will change around us and we’ll adapt to it."

Landscaping in the city will go on, too. "We have to go on and do the best we can to make our environment pleasing and friendly and inviting," he said.

Simon also has her employees back to work, but it is difficult to service many of the company’s clients due to roadblocks, street closings and security. "From a business standpoint, it’s really weird because we’ve not been able to service any clients south of 14th Street," she related on Thursday. "We’ve not been able to service any plants downtown, and I’m sure that there’s going to be an enormous amount of loss, and God knows when we’re going to be able to go into these buildings or when the clients are going to be able to move back to the World Financial Center."

To try to curb plant losses, Simon’s technicians are calling clients and asking them to make sure all of the plants are watered.

"You’re frightened about business because our industry in New York City has just shrunk," expressed Simon, "but the big thing is the loss of lives - the big thing is the people and the loss of our freedom."

WASHINGTON D.C. Events in Washington D.C. were somewhat less dramatic from a visual standpoint because the World Trade Center attack was caught completely on video and the destruction was so widespread. However, the D.C. attack was no less important, as lives were lost and a symbol of national security was breached when a Boeing 757 crashed into the Pentagon, a hub of U.S. defense and military workers, around 9:38 a.m. EDT Tuesday.

"Relatively speaking, we’re [mildly] inconvenienced compared to what they’re going through in New York," expressed Paul Levy, president, Rolling Greens, Inc., Falls Church, Va., noting that some roads are shut down in the area and plant technicians serving the company’s interiorscape clients may be delayed. "Delayed compared to death - there’s no comparison. You can’t even put them in the same sentence."

Business was disrupted in Washington with government offices being evacuated for the day, causing gridlock on area highways. Some landscape companies in the area followed similar actions, while others stayed on job sites to avoid being caught up in traffic.

"The only thing that separates our yard from the Pentagon is the highway," explained Todd Thompson, branch manager, The Brickman Group Ltd., Alexandria branch, Falls Church, Va. "We were not able to get back to our yard, and we were all out on jobs working, so the best thing for us to do was to stay there and work." He said that the maintenance company’s nine crews of workers made it back to the yard by about 5 p.m., but getting there and getting home took a long time due to road closings and heightened security around the Pentagon.

"We were just beginning a job, so we were in a position that nobody could go home," related Andrew Aksar, owner, Outdoor Finishes, Walkersville, Md., "but the workers seemed to be more interested in what was going on and listening to the radio than doing the work that had to be done." Interestingly, the majority of Aksar’s employees are Hispanic, and he said they have pride to be in the U.S. and seemed just as stunned and saddened by the day’s events.

Aksar said traffic wasn’t a problem in his design/build company’s area, which is about 60 miles north of the Pentagon. "All of the government workers were off at noon, so by the time we hit the highways, they were already home," he noted.

John DeBell, owner, Clippers Inc., Chantilly, Va., was at the company’s office Tuesday morning and quickly called all of his maintenance crews to see if any employees were near the Pentagon or in Washington, D.C. - none were, although some were within 10 miles of the Pentagon. "I got in touch with our management team, and I told them that there’s a certain anxiety living in the Washington area and that it was up to each of the individual teams as to whether they wanted to wrap it up and bring it in or not," he said, explaining that with highways jammed around the area some crews came back and others stayed on job sites.

"[On Tuesday] anybody who needed to leave and either go home or check in with other folks, we gave them an opportunity," explained DeBell, noting that Clippers is located about 25 miles from the Pentagon but is about four miles from Washington Dulles International Airport. "On Wednesday, we proceeded with sensitivity, but business as usual."

Thompson’s branch office is in a building that houses defense contractors and other government offices about five miles from the Pentagon - close enough that a project director from his company saw the plane crash. "I said something because I heard an airplane that was a lot closer than normal," explained Thompson. "He looked out the window and he actually watched it hit the Pentagon.

"It’s definitely not back to normal," he continued. "Some of the buildings that we deal with are still high security. Landscape isn’t the top of everybody’s agenda now - a lot of the property managers are dealing with security issues, so we’ve definitely had some meetings cancelled."

Besides delays in some projects, Thompson said one of the more immediate adjustments was obtaining paychecks for his employees. Because paychecks are distributed from The Brickman Group’s corporate office in Langhorne, Pa., and overnight shipping was temporarily shut down following the attacks, he said a Pony Express kind of delivery of checks started in Pennsylvania with drop offs and exchanges occurring down the eastern part of the U.S. through Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina.

Servicing Rolling Greens clients’ rooftop terraces and balconies has been a struggle, according to Levy, because the Secret Service was discouraging activity on balconies for security reasons. Additionally, several clients have locked their reception area doors to have more control over people entering their buildings. To adjust, Levy is making sure his employees are uniformed and carry proper identification when making service calls, especially when going to government offices. "We want to make sure that our people are a little more visible," he said. "We haven’t been really turned away from anything, but the security checkpoints at the government offices are tighter now.

"It’s scary and inconvenient, but those are terms I find minimalistic compared to what has gone on up in New York," Levy said.