Status
Call number
Genres
Collection
Publication
Description
History. Politics. Nonfiction. HTML: "102 Minutes does for the September 11 catastrophe what Walter Lord did for the Titanic in his masterpiece, A Night to Remember . . . Searing, poignant, and utterly compelling."�??Rick Atkinson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of An Army at Dawn Hailed upon publication as an instant classic, the critically acclaimed New York Times bestseller and National Book Award Finalist for Nonfiction is now available in a revised edition to honor the anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001. At 8:46 a.m. that morning, fourteen thouosand people were inside the World Trade Center just starting their workdays, but over the next 102 minutes, each would become part of a drama for the ages. Of the millions of words written about this wrenching day, most were told from the outside looking in. New York Times reporters Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn draw on hundreds of interviews with rescuers and survivors, thousands of pages of oral histories, and countless phone, e-mail, and emergency radio transcripts to tell the story of September 11 from the inside looking out. Dwyer and Flynn have woven an epic and unforgettable account of the struggle, determination, and grace of the ordinary men and women who made 102 minutes count as never before. 102 Minutes is a 2005 National Book Award Finalist for Nonfiction.… (more)
Media reviews
User reviews
The events of 911 was almost too much for the mind to comprehend - even now I find it so hard to believe that this actually happened. Dwyer & Flynn, New York Times reporters have invested
Some 12000+ were able to safely escape the inferno that erupted in the WTC, the facts, presented make it abundantly clear that many more "should have" been able to escape...but instead were trapped and therefore sentenced to death on a crystal clear September morning. Many were told to "wait" for help to arrive, others were redirected back up the stairs by folks coming up saying it was impassable - when in fact there was a stairwell, intact and relatively clean, clear and smoke free, and the roof had been locked after the 93 bombing, but the employees did not know that.
As we watched that morning, in sheer horror, I couldn't help but wonder what these people must be feeling or thinking. I had to avert my eyes when people began to make their own final choice, rather than allow the terrorist to decide --
This book is not easy to read - but everyone should read it. I have read many books covering the 911 attacks and each is heart breaking, maddening and filled with strong, palpable emotion - 102 Minutes presents eye opening information, from the special exemptions given to the WTC for less stairways/elevators thus allowing for more office space - the result, of course, more revenue. Also, the continued communication problems with the WTC complex for the NYPD & NYFD --these had been glaringly revealed during the 93 attack, yet had not be rectified.
We met the worst of humanity with the best of America - the good, the bad, the sad and the maddening - it's all here in 102 Minutes, be prepared to feel strong emotions while reading this exceptionally well written novel -
The book moves through the disasterous morning starting with a Prologue time-stamped 8:30 a.m. which gives the reader a sense of who some of the people are who were there at the time the first plane hit. It continues tracking the fates of these people and others in the Towers whose locations and actions could be verified through records and survivors' accounts. The stories are tragic, heroic, gritty. It's amazing to think that people around the country watching TV knew more about what was happening, as far as the "big picture," than those in the Towers -- many of whom did not know that the chaos in which they found themselves had been caused by airplance strikes upon the building.
The authors don't confine themselves to the events of the morning, but also examine choices made during the planning and design of the buildings which affected people's ability to survive and escape. Here they tend to get a bit repetitive: the 1968 NYC building code, under which the Twin Towers were built, made changes that adversely impacted safety. I personally think it's not realistic to think that any building could be built to stand up to the kind of attack that occurred that day without significant loss of life. However, features of the "old" code would almost certainly have saved at least some of the lives that were lost, and they explain why at every opportunity. The book also looks at the state of disaster response in NYC. While nobody in their right mind would question the heroism of the first responders who went into the buildings that day (and these authors appear to be in their right minds!), it is obvious that poor communication probably contributed to the body count that day. They delve into the reasons for this. They also chronicle the often gracious and sometimes heroic actions of everyday civilians as they helped one another try to survivie.
There are times when the book is a bit confusing, and I had to go back a page occasionally and establish in my mind what area of which tower certain events were occurring in. This is not so much a fault of the book as it is a simple matter of the complexity of the events of that fateful day. If it is difficult to take in after years of analysis, one can hardly imagine the confusion being experienced by those there as the events unfolded. Diagrams are included in the book which are helpful to the reader in understanding the unfolding of events.
This is a good book about an extremely difficult subject, and a very moving portrayal many of the lives caught up in that terrible disaster.
Certain details in this book have lingered over the years. For example some firefighters actually reached the fire that was raging on the upper
A large crowd of firefighters, some of them suffering from chest pains and the like under loads of 60 pounds or more, were still resting on the 19th floor of the north tower as the last of the interviewed survivors came down.
While reading "102 Minutes," I recalled two books especially: John Hersey's "Hiroshima," which reconstructs that bombing from interviews with six survivors; and Walter Lord's "A Night To Remember," the definitive account of Titanic's sinking. There are many more similarities with Lord's account -- particularly the attempt, by a non-participant, to keep an eye on hundreds of personal stories.
We see a picture from inside the towers from both survivors and those who died. We learn that some rescue workers did make it to the crash
"102 Minutes" vividly recreates the emotional power of that day from the inside. While we were watching our TV sets in near catatonic states, these people were acting out the dramas of life and death, love and fear, community and the salvation of the soul. This book changed the "3000 dead" into real people, not statistics.
The real weakness of humanity is its inability to remember the past and move to the future by the lessons we have learned. This book resurrects the dead and brings back to sharp relief the necessity of living each moment to its fullest. Highly recommended.
I thought the
I confess that the descriptions of those in the situation of trying to find a way out from floors above the point of entry of the planes that hit the tower, was so difficult to
Despite the sadness and sheer horror that those trapped inside the south, and north towers, I recommend this one!
What I take away from this book was no matter how evil the terrorists were and how destructive their act, it was overcome with pure goodness in thousands of ways and by thousands of people. Frank DiMartini and his group were directly responsible for saving 70 people before ultimately losing his life. He could have left the tower with his wife but he kept going up to the impact zone in order to save whoever he could. Abe Zelmanowitz wouldn't leave his paraplegic friend Ed Beyea even though he could have evacuated and saved his own life. Orio Palmer, a firefighter who arrived at the South Tower, fixed an elevator to take him to the 41st floor sky lobby and from there ran up 37 flights of stairs to go into the impact zone. Once there he gave comfort to survivors and directed them to escape routes. Countless first responders who stayed with people they were helping to evacuate even when the news finally came that the towers were in danger of falling. An act of evil on a terrible day overcome with heroism and love, that is what I take away from 9/11.