Jim Hake Reflects on 9/11

As I mentioned in a post last year, I had the pleasure of meeting the entrepreneur, philanthropist, and patriot Jim Hake, founder of Spirit of America, several years ago, and what he's accomplished with SoA has been impressive. Here he reflects on the eighth anniversary of 9/11. Worth reading.

Ordinarily, I'd post an excerpt here, but after an hour of trying to format the HTML properly, I gave up. Please click over to the SoA site. I don't think you'll regret it.

Bergen County's 9/11 Memorial

Two towers inscribed with the names of the 147 Bergen County residents who were killed in the attacks, set in a heart-shaped base. This memorial is in the center of a county park surrounded by a 1.25 mile track, so on a sunny day like today was it's usually full of folks running, biking, rollerblading, walking dogs, pushing baby carriages, etc. I was going to head there for a run today and take a closer shot of the memorial myself, but I got tied up on a conference call, so I pulled this photo from the Internet.

After the first attack in 1993, the World Trade Center instituted some elaborate security measures. For example, all visitors were given laminated photo IDs after checking in, that they were required to show to the guards at the relevant elevator banks. Security tightened at all office buildings in New York after 9/11, but before 9/11, the WTC had uniquely tight security. The last time I was in one of the towers was in June of 2001 and I think I still have that laminated ID card in my desk somewhere.