Never Forgotten: Looking Back at the Lives White Plains Lost
By Andrew Vitelli and Pat Casey
When American Airlines Flight 11 hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 and United Airlines Flight 175 struck the South Tower 17 minutes later, everyone’s world changed. From Lower Manhattan to White Plains, from Baghdad to Kabul, around the world and back, the decade since has been shaped by the 102 minutes beginning at 8:46 that sunny September morning.
Six White Plains residents were among the 2,977 who were suddenly ripped from our midst. Who they were and what brought them to the top floors of the Twin Towers varied as much as what led them to call White Plains home.
Linda Sheehan grew up in Yorktown and worked for Bear Stearns until 1988, when she joined Sandler O’Neill & Partners. Working on the 104th floor of the South Tower, she was unfazed by the 1993 attack next door and was at the same company, in the same building and on the same floor eight years later.
Gregory E. Rodriguez grew up in Croton and was an avid scuba diver. The Labor Day weekend before the 9/11 attacks he was diving off the coast of California. He worked as an assistant vice president of Information Security for the eSpeed Division of Cantor Fitzgerald on the 103rd Floor of Tower 1.
Joe Riverso coached football at Stepinac, where he had been an All-County lineman, and bartended at Sports Page Pub on Mamaroneck Avenue. At Sports Page he met a group of brokers from Cantor Fitzgerald who helped him get a job at the company, whose offices were on the 101st through 104th floors of the North Tower.
Hemanth Kumar Puttur grew up in the town of Puttur in India. He was working for Wipro, an IT company headquartered in Bangalore, India when in July 2001, the 27-year-old Puttur joined Wipro client Marsh & McLennan as a database manager. His office was on the 97th floor of the North Tower.
Marisa Di Nardo Schorpp was a trader with Cantor Fitzgerald on the 105th Floor in the North Tower. She grew up in Harrison and later moved to White Plains. The night before 9/11 Marisa was at Windows on the World atop the World Trade Center celebrating her mother’s birthday. Even though she left the party to go home at 1:30 a.m., she returned later that morning for an 8:30 business meeting.
Sharon Balkcom worked her way up from poor roots in East Harlem to become acknowledged for her ability in mathematics. Sharon worked as a Computer Systems manager at Marsh & McLennan, which was located on the 93rd to 100th floors of the North Tower.
With Sunday marking a decade since the September 11th attacks, The White Plains Examiner takes a look back at the six residents the city lost; who they were, the impacts their lives had and what brought them to the World Trade Center on that fateful Tuesday.
Adam has worked in the local news industry for the past two decades in Westchester County and the broader Hudson Valley. Read more from Adam’s author bio here.