Excerpts of Philip Mattera oral history interview conducted by Dr. Benjamin Luft, September 17, 2010

About

Philip Mattera was a building inspector for the NYC Department of Buildings during 9/11. He was in a meeting on the 14th floor of the Building Department on Hudson St., when a coworker called alerting them about a plane hitting the WTC. Mattera and his coworkers viewed through their windows what looked like a “little hole” in the first tower. Mattera and a coworker went to their building’s roof to get a better look. Mattera thought furniture was being thrown from the building, but his coworker had binoculars and urged them to leave realizing it was people throwing themselves out of windows. Back at work, they heard the news of a potential terrorist attack and saw the second plane hit. In the street near the WTC, he saw the building collapse on itself, leading everyone in the street to panic and run. It seemed “like time stood still” as the tower collapsed and “the cloud came.” Mattera ran thinking the cloud would kill him; he ran nonstop to Canal Street and couldn’t breathe once he stopped. Mattera recalls he and his coworkers were unable to shower or return home for days, noting that the hope of finding people in the rubble kept them going. Mattera recalls the debris at Ground Zero being three or four stories high, and posters of missing people everywhere. A year after 9/11 he began to suffer from PTSD as well as panic and anxiety attacks. He also believes it impacted his family seeing him suffer. Mattera recalls the months after 9/11, and how the city and country came…

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Library of Congress, in Library of Congress

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Rights statement at the Library of Congress, as the Library of Congress states it.

Credit

Library of Congress

Language

English

Country

United States

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