Windows on the World and the jewel box-like Wild Blue restaurant were part of a spectacular restaurant complex on the 106th and 107th floors of the North Tower in New York’s World Trade Center. These semi-magical spaces high up in the sky had staff costume departments, seamstresses, cigarette girls and cocktail impresarios like bartender Dale DeGroff, who reigned at the lounge area’s The Greatest Bar on Earth. (And the name was no exaggeration.)
If you’re of a certain age, you remember where you were the morning of 9/11.
I was at a Nissan dealer in Bloomfield with a group of strangers, waiting for cars to be serviced. Frank, my then-husband and business partner, called, voice cracking, to make sure I knew what was happening.
When I learned the first Tower was hit, my brain stopped thinking clearly. I couldn’t remember which Tower Windows on the World was in.
Frank and I were so flummoxed, we actually forgot that our colleague, Nicole Jeannette Novellino, was upstairs all alone in our office, likely traumatized. I asked him the other day what his clearest memory of that morning was. He said: “Me calling you at the car dealership. Nicole coming down to our apartment, crying and telling me to turn on the TV before the second plane hit.”
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We loved WOW, as it was affectionately called. As owners of the small, Montclair-based PR firm Diaz Schloss Communications that Frank and I founded in 1993, we were thrilled to represent Windows and its sister restaurant in Rockefeller Center, the famous Rainbow Room. We knew WOW was a special place and spent countless hours there with the in-house PR team and the owners, Joe Baum and David Emil, coming up with creative ways to make everything, including the elevator ride up to the space, ever more exhilarating and guest-friendly.
It took just under a minute to go from the World Trade Center lobby elevator up to the restaurant—and it went so fast, your ears would pop at some point along the way. The elevator, manned by a formally costumed operator, traveled at something like 17 m.p.h., if I recall correctly.
One of our brilliant ideas was to have the elevator operator serve champagne in flutes before guests even entered. Needless to say, once we factored in spillage, we moved on.
The owners’ goal was always to provide a gorgeous theatrical experience, where the food absolutely rivaled the views, because let’s face it: This was going to be a pricey evening for guests, and they wanted it to always be an exceptional experience. And it was that for everyone who visited.
“My first year with Diaz Schloss was 2000,” recalls Nicole, “and our team holiday celebration was held at Windows on the World. The food was wonderful, the service was gracious, and the view of a shimmering New York City was unforgettable. As a young professional, it felt like a very special place. Spotting Annette Bening and Warren Beatty dining across the room was an added thrill.”
Seriously: Annette Bening, Warren Beatty, four kids, two nannies. Anything could happen at Windows on the World.
In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, we were in constant contact with anxious relatives, media outlets and others searching for information. We had no way of knowing who was at work that morning or whether events were being held in WOW’s private function space. We didn’t know who was waiting on tables or in the pastry kitchen.
When we learned a British firm had been hosting a breakfast meeting, our office was flooded with calls—journalists from across the globe all asking the same questions that we couldn’t answer; each a variation on, How many people were in the restaurant? Have you been able to identify them? What do you know?
This half-moon paperweight in a leather case is a memento given to VIP customers at Windows of the World.Photo: Karen Schloss Diaz
Windows on the World memorabilia Photo: Karen Schloss Diaz
We shut down the agency for two months to be of service however we could. We provided networks like CNN with text for their crawls. Ours read something like, “If you were an employee at Windows on the World, please contact this phone number and let us know where you are.”
My parents came from the Philadelphia suburbs to help us field calls. We’d hang up with the Daily News, and Agence France-Presse was on hold. Or the Guardian. Or the New York Times. Or a family member—that was the hardest. I asked my mom what she remembered from that time. She texted: “Yes, we came up and answered many calls. Terrible memories.”
Nicole’s recollections are similar: “In the days following September 11, our agency fielded calls from reporters on our office landlines and sent grim faxes listing the names of the dozens of Windows employees murdered in the attacks. There was a deep sense of responsibility in that work. We wanted to make sure they were remembered not simply as victims, but as people whose lives mattered. Those memories have never left me.”
In the months that followed, we devoted ourselves to fundraising for the Windows of Hope Windows of Hope Family Relief Fund, which raised around $20 million to pay for healthcare and college tuition for the children of the victims in both Towers.
Whether a parent navigated a coffee cart from office to office or was a line cook, it didn’t matter. On October 11, one month after the attack, there were thousands of “Dine Out” restaurant fundraisers across the globe. Each participating venue donated some portion of the evening’s proceeds to Windows of Hope. Over its lifespan, the fund raised $23 million.
“I was deeply moved by how quickly Windows of Hope was established in the aftermath of the attacks,” Nicole says. In a moment of profound loss and uncertainty, the organization came together to support restaurant workers and their families, and to help an industry struggling to find its footing.”
It’s pretty hard to believe that all this happened 25 years ago. And as with other horrific events, there will be generations who won’t know the terror and trauma of that moment in time.
We’d just like to ensure that the story of Windows, Wild Blue, The Greatest Bar on Earth, and all who perished aren’t forgotten.
Dining and Cooking