New York Law School and the Crisis of September 11, 2001

Abstract

New York Law School, an independent law school founded in 1891, stands in the Tribeca section of Manhattan about eight blocks from the site of the World Trade Center. On a mild, sunny Tuesday, September 11, 2001, students and a few faculty members and staff who had arrived early to get coffee before classes had an unobstructed view of the incomprehensible: a jetliner slamming full speed into the upper reaches of the north tower at 8:46 a.m., followed less than ten minutes later by a second suicide run at the south tower. Shortly after 9:00 a.m., our main switchboard was alerting callers with a message saying that the Law School was closed—the first non-weather-related term-time closing in our history.