Crime & Safety

9/11 Profiles: Up Close Look Was Too Close

Meyers retired soon after World Trade Center attacks and moved to Berlin from Long Island.

Spencer Meyers had lived his whole adult life in and around New York City, mostly in Long Island. He worked at the American Stock Exchange for 44 years.

And then it happened.

September 11, 2001 happened.

Find out what's happening in Berlinwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

"I usually took the subway to the World Trade Center stop but that day I took it to Broadway," Meyers said. "I started to walk toward the Exchange. It was about two blocks away and I saw paper raining down from everywhere. I got to work and my friends were telling me to look at the television. Literally as soon as I looked at the TV I saw the second plane go into the tower."

Meyers remembers he had many different emotions flying through him at that moment.

Find out what's happening in Berlinwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

"I first thought of my seven friends who were supposed to be having breakfast at the "Windows of the World" Restaurant that morning," he said. "Then I thought 'we are at war.' Then I started thinking about my family. They locked down our building and I started telling them 'I gotta get out of here.' They told me it was too dangerous outside so I stayed for about five more minutes and then I told them again I was leaving. They let me go but they were not happy."

From there, Meyers tried to figure out how to get home.

"I started walking up Broadway," he said. "I then heard the most gut-wrenching sound I've ever heard. I heard steel bending and looked as the first tower came down. The dust and soot started coming down the street and hundreds of us ducked in the Banker's Trust building. I was watching people walk away from the towers and they were just covered in dust and soot. I'll never forget the looks on their faces. They were confused and in shock.  All I knew was I had to get out of there."

Meyers walked across the Brooklyn Bridge to the Brooklyn stop of the Long Island Railroad.

"I was finally able to call home once I got to the train stop. I told my wife (Adrienne) I was OK and by that time my daughter Lara (Veneziano) and her family were there. That was probably around 1 p.m. so my wife and family were pretty anxious for a while. When I got home I got a call from one of my friends wife. Her husband was one of the guys that was supposed to be having breakfast at the World Trade Center. She asked me if I knew if he went and if I had seen him. I told her I didn't see him and I didn't know if he went to breakfast. In my heart, I knew he was gone but it wasn't my place to tell her."

Meyers is the father-in-law of Berlin High School basketball coach Mike Veneziano, who also worked at the American Stock Exchange at that time but took the day off from work. He moved to Philadelphia, which is where the Stock Exchange did business in the weeks after the attacks.

"I was not happy with that at all," Meyers said. "I was down there by myself. My wife came down a couple weeks later for a week but it wasn't much later that I retired. I wanted to get out of New York."

How did the day change him?

"It changed my life forever," he said. "Who expects to get attacked? I had to move to go to work. When we finally got back to working in New York, I took the same subway I took that day and it was very eerie. To see the devastation is something out of a nightmare. You can't imagine it if you weren't there. I would walk on the streets of New York and every time I heard a plane, I'd look up to see where it was. It was a whole new world. Anything could happen now. I didn't feel secure at all."

Meyers moved to Berlin five years ago and hasn't looked back.

"There were a lot of reasons," he said. "I wanted out of New York and Long Island. I lost a lot of money in the stock market because of Sept. 11. Taxes were getting way too high and it was getting more and more expensive to live there. I also wanted to be closer to my daughter."

Meyers, 69, will spend this 9/11 with his family. He also has a son, Mitchell, his wife Allison and grandson Shane.

"I'm glad I survived and have this time with my family," he added. "I lost some good friends and knew a lot of people who didn't make it through that day. You can never take a day for granted."


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

To request removal of your name from an arrest report, submit these required items to arrestreports@patch.com.