“I’m on my way to jury duty.”
Tuesday, September 11, 2001, 0855 hrs. Lieutenant Nicholas Bavaro had been a city-wide supervisor with the NYPD’s Emergency Service Unit (ESU) for three years.
“I’m sitting in traffic listening to the news when the whole world turns upside down,” he continues.
“I pull a very illegal U-turn and head back to my house while trying to call my wife, Debbie, at work. But everyone is calling everyone; I keep getting that ‘all circuits are busy’ recording.
“Somehow I get through to the ESU base in Brooklyn. A guy I know answers; I start to make some lame joke about it being the pilot’s first day on the job. He starts yelling over me, ‘It’s bad, Lieu, it’s really bad! It was an airliner! All hands, all hands!’
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“At my house, I pick up some clean uniforms. Back in my car, I finally get through to Debbie. She’s left work and is heading to pick up our girls — Danielle and Nicole — from school. I’m trying to follow the news while racing to the Base. It’s rush hour, but the highway is deserted in both directions. On the radio, a reporter starts screaming that a second plane has hit the South Tower.
“At the Base, I go directly to a building we call ‘The Hotel.’ From an outside stairwell on the side, you can clearly see the Towers, the smoke. A group of us are trying to figure out our next move when one of the guys on the stairs starts yelling, pointing; the South Tower is collapsing.
“I grab two of my men — Jimmy and Andy — and we head over to the equipment hangar. But it’s already been picked over by personnel who arrived earlier. We grab some masks and a few saw blades. At the armory, we take three MP5 submachine guns and a bunch of ammo, then jump in my Department auto; a blue unmarked Crown Victoria with velour seats.
“Normally, at that time of day, the ride from the Base to the Battery Tunnel — even using lights and sirens — would take a half-hour, forty-five minutes. We make it in fifteen.
“About halfway through the tube, we’re enveloped by the cloud. The North Tower is collapsing. I’m driving blind, but then I realize I can make out the tiles on the tunnel wall, so I use them to navigate.”
I hold up my hand. “Wait. You’re driving?”
“Of course.”
“But you were a lieutenant,” I say. “Why didn’t you just order one of the cops to drive?”
“Because it was my car. No one drives my car.”
We stare at each other for a beat, then share a laugh at the absurdity of it all.
He continues.
“On the Manhattan side of the tunnel the streets are choked with cars and emergency vehicles. Somehow I’m able to weave my way up to the intersection of Albany and West streets, a couple of blocks from the Hudson River. I lock the car and we head in the direction of the Piles.”
The piles of debris left by the collapsed Towers were massive, each approximately five stories in height.
“As we get closer, we hear what sound like dozens of car alarms chirping, whining. It slowly dawns on us that the sounds are coming from the positioning alarms on the air tanks worn by the firefighters buried under the rubble. There are clusters of firefighters around the sounds trying their best to determine the source, to locate their friends and colleagues.
“I immediately begin organizing sorties; sending guys out in pairs to help as needed, to see what they can find out, making sure everyone knows to report back at a predetermined time. Most of the Department’s antennas and repeaters were on top of the Towers, so we can’t communicate through Central, but we’re able to use the point-to-point feature on our portable radios.
“We organize a bucket brigade as more guys begin to arrive. The Piles are so high we need a lot of people to go up and over them, so I’m grateful to see cops, troopers, EMTs and firefighters arriving from Long Island, Upstate, even New Jersey and Connecticut.
“It’s a warm day, plus all the dust; it’s not long before people are calling for water and air tanks. That stuff comes up via the bucket brigade, but there aren’t enough people, so there are gaps in the line. Climbing the piles and walking on them you have to be careful because everything is shredded, sharp edges everywhere. I step over the debris to grab a case of water from the guy closest to me, and my right leg sinks up to my hip. Somebody yells out, ‘Good job, Lieu! You found a void!’
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“Around 7:00 p.m. we learn that earlier reports of trapped persons were found to be Port Authority cops. It’s getting dark, guys are yelling for lights. One of my guys helps run intravenous lines down into the hole where they are. One officer is pinned; a surgeon is brought in to discuss performing an amputation.
“Around 1:00 a.m. our relief arrives. No one wants to leave, but we’re ordered to get some rest. I jump into a crowded van for the ride back to Base, figuring I’ll get to the Crown Vic in the morning. When we arrive, we throw all our uniforms into a washing machine, shower, then head to our respective homes.
“Deb is up. We wake the kids to show them I’m OK. We share a family hug, then I crash for about two hours. When I wake up, I remember the MP5s are still in the Crown Vic. Ignoring the sick feeling in my stomach, I call Jimmy, who tells me he’s already on his way to the Site — we didn’t start calling it ‘Ground Zero’ for a few more days.
“At the Base, I ask my commanding officer if I can grab a ride with him. He says, ‘Sure, but I’m going in by chopper; is that OK?’ I nod, thinking, ‘Why wouldn’t that be OK?’
“When we arrive, the pilot flies a few wide circles before landing. No one speaks.
“After he sets it down, I start toward the intersection of Albany and West. As I get close I see my car has been pushed or dragged way off to the side, presumably by a tow truck trying to clear intersections. Jimmy is sitting in the driver’s seat with the door open. I yell his name. He gives me a thumbs up; I finally let myself breathe. All three of the MP5s are there, along with the ammo. But the driver side window is completely smashed. I start rifling through the car. Jimmy asks, ‘What’s wrong?’ I say, ‘Where’s my hat?’ Someone ignored three fully automatic weapons and hundreds of rounds of ammunition, but stole my uniform cap. Jimmy starts laughing and says, ‘Leave the guns; take the cap!’ I’m a Godfather fan, so I laugh; but I’m pissed. Who steals a person’s hat?
“A few days later, another cop from ESU is waving at me from one of the Piles, calling my name. He has my hat! He took it off some civilian driving a roll-off truck who was there removing debris. I’d written my last name on the underside of the brim; Mom is right again.
“The next couple of months are like the movie Groundhog Day. One afternoon right before Thanksgiving one of my sergeants, Dominic, comes over to me in the Pit.”
Approximately two months after the attack, so much debris had been excavated that the workers at Ground Zero eventually stopped using “Piles” and began referencing “The Pit.”
“Dom holds out his hand and says, ‘Take care, Lieu; thanks for everything.’ I’m confused, as I’ve been with him most of the week, and all that day, and he hasn’t said anything about taking a vacation. ‘I put my papers in,’ he continues. ‘I’ve had enough. This is my last tour.’
“I think he’s kidding, but I ask him what he’s going to do, that he’s still young, in his early 40s. He shrugs and says, ‘I’ll figure it out.’ I watch him walk across to the stairway we’d constructed on the other side. He climbs to the top, snaps to attention and salutes. He then performs an about-face and just walks away.”
The two men would not see each other again for more than 20 years.
“I stood there for a long time watching the space where he’d been. I had less than three years left until I could retire. How could he just leave with nothing to go to? How could I? It wasn’t long after that that I decided to go to law school.”
Why the Law? I ask.
“From my first exposure in an academy classroom to my first arrest, watching the assistant district attorneys draw up cases. Then all the hours in court, testifying before the grand jury, watching how it all works; it always fascinated me.”
I ask where he’d gone to law school.
“New York Law, which is actually not far from Ground Zero. When I was a kid my dad worked for the city as an auditor for the Department of Transportation. His office was across from the school in the city’s municipal building. Once in a while he’d bring me or my brother Vinny to work with him. One time I was looking out the window and saw a group of guys in suits standing in a circle, smoking. I said, ‘Dad, who are those guys?’ He said, ‘They’re training to be lawyers. That building; that’s New York Law School. Maybe you’ll go there one day.’”
I ask if his father had lived to see him graduate.
“He was at the ceremony. He was very proud.”
He takes a long pause.
“I hate to admit this, but I failed the Bar the first time. One thousand percent my fault. I was diagnosed with an aortic aneurysm in my last year of law school, so my head wasn’t exactly in the game. I ended up having to have open heart surgery, and was actually in cardiac rehab when I found out I’d failed.
“After everything I’d been through, there was no way I wasn’t going to retake and pass that test. After I retired, I ended up working as a consultant in financial crimes investigations. It’s intense work with a lot of reading and writing, so I was primed for studying. I also took a different prep course and really jelled with the instructor. Right after I retook the test, I accepted a contracting job that took me to Texas for a few months. That’s where I was, having lunch, when I received a call from my friend Minnie, a classmate from law school. She said the results were in, and did I want her to check to see if I’d passed. I heard myself say, ‘Sure,’ but I really wasn’t,” he says with a laugh.
“It was probably just a few seconds, but you know how it is when you’re waiting to hear news. Finally, she comes back on the line. ‘Here it is,’ she said. ‘Nicholas P. Bavaro … Esquire.’”
