9-11 twenty five years later. There's a whole generation that wasn't even born when 9-11 happened. Those of us who were there have an obligation to teach them something about what happened that day, and also to teach about the importance of resilience in the face of disasters. I was in front of the South Tower of the World Trade Center when the second plane hit it on September 11, 2001. Twenty-five years later, that grim event has become an important exercise in the power of resilience, and remembering. Last week, I attended a charitable event that awarded $150,000 in college scholarships to six students who had lost loved ones to 9/11-related illnesses. Once again, a community of responders, office workers, families and friends of everyone who was there on that day got together to reflect and, most importantly, to remember. Remembering has become very important because there is now a generation who were not even born when 9/11 happened, and I met several of them at this event. For those of us who were on the World Trade Center site that day, it is more than an act of remembrance. It is a about learning how to cope with loss, and the power of resilience. Remembering On the morning of 9/11, I was in a car on the West Side Highway on my way to the NYSE to start my day as Stocks Correspondent for CNBC. I was about a quarter-mile from the North Tower when the first plane hit. All the cars on the highway screeched to a halt. Everyone got out to stare at the top of the North Tower. I called the assignment desk and said a plane had flown into the North Tower building. When I arrived on the site, near the Century 21 building, thousands of people had left their offices and gathered out front, thinking it was a terrible accident. Fire trucks and ambulances were everywhere. Then the second plane hit the South Tower, and I remember the sound of ten thousand people gasping at once. Everyone stood spellbound for a few seconds, and then the metal from the plane and the building started falling all around us, and panic broke out. I saw people run over people who were lying on the ground in a desperate attempt to get away from the falling debris. I ran into the NYSE and went on the air with my colleague Mark Haines to describe what I saw. I was in constant contact with the NYSE to determine if the NYSE would be able to open. About 10:00 AM, the South Tower collapsed, and the NYSE building shook. The NYSE had already shuttered the entrance to stop the ash and soot from coming in and covering the NYSE floor. I continued to report from inside the NYSE with my colleagues, including my producer Bianna Golodryga. A little after 2 PM we were able to go outside. Broad Street outside the exchange was covered in white soot. Papers that had been ejected from the collapsing buildings were still floating in the air. I walked onto the South Tower site, where the first responders were already arriving, and did a phone interview with my colleague Bill Griffeth. I had my Nikon camera with me and took several photographs of first responders going through the debris, much of which was still on fire. The NYSE never reopened that day. When it did reopen, on Monday September 17th, six days later, all of us who worked on the floor gathered before the open for two minutes of silence, and then sang “God Bless America.” NYSE President Richard Grasso was joined on the podium with police officers, responders, and officials including Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, Governor George Pataki, Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, SEC Chairman Harvey Pitt, Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Charles Schumer, NYC Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, and Fire Department Commissioner Thomas Von Essen. The next several months were very difficult for all of us who worked at the NYSE. We all had friends who had died, but the aftermath was equally grim: the country was in a recession, markets were down, and we were all dealing with loss and grief. Worst of all: for a year after the event, the Trade Center site was still a smoking ruin that reminded us every day of the tragedy. Coping through meditation I had so much difficulty coping that I joined a Buddhist meditation society in midtown and learned how to meditate. Here’s what meditation taught me. It taught me that these emotions of grief and fear do not have an external reality, that they existed only in my head, and that it was possibly to change the relationship I had with those emotions, that it was possible to twist the Rubik’s Cube in my head and see those emotions from a different perspective. It did not make those emotions go away, but it did teach me that those emotions did not need to have a stranglehold on me. It taught me that while you cannot change events, you can change your reaction to them. You can change your relationship with those emotions. And my relationship did change. The anxiety around fear and grief gradually gave way to a more settled state focused on well-being and resilience. You can move on. And that’s what I did. I spent six months with those Buddhists, living part-time down the street from them. What did change was the world around me, and mediation forced me to confront those facts, that the world is ever changing and sometimes in ways that are hard to accept. Resilience Meditation taught me about acceptance and about resilience. And that’s what happened to the NYSE. It too evolved and changed, and today it is healthier and stronger than ever, and so is the financial district. I watched the rebuilding of the World Trade Center and the transformation of the neighborhood. Prior to 9/11, the financial district was a ghost town after 5 PM. No one lived there. But when many of the old Wall Street firms like Morgan Stanley moved out of the financial district and into midtown after 9/11, those old office buildings were converted into residential apartments. Today the financial district is a thriving neighborhood full of people walking their dogs at night. Legendary restaurants and watering holes like Harry’s and Delmonico’s are packed every night with a mix of locals, Wall Street regulars, and tourists. And on Stone Street, a cobblestone lane that goes all the way back to when the Dutch controlled New York over 300 years ago, every night looks like Oktoberfest, with the street filled with young people eating and drinking at crowded communal tables. The World Trade Center is once again a major transportation hub, home to the 9/11 Memorial and Museum, and a performing arts center. The rebuilding is still going on. In July, American Express, which has roots going back almost 200 years to downtown New York, broke ground for its new global headquarters at the World Trade Center. And that’s why, as painful as it is, those of us who were there have an obligation to remember those who are no longer with us, to educate the generation born after 9-11 and those who may have little or no memory of September 11, 2001, and to help others who have lived through other disasters about the power of hope and resilience. Bob Pisani was Senior Markets Correspondent for CNBC, where he worked for 35 years, from 1990 to 2025. bobpisani.substack.com/p/911…