John Delach

My first encounter with “Say It Aint So” stunned me in 1957 when the Brooklyn Dodgers announced that the team would be moving to Los Angeles forever after this season ended. Even worse, they also convinced the baseball New York Giants to join them on the West Coast by moving to San Francisco. Since I lived in Ridgewood Queens, two blocks from the Brooklyn border, few of my friends and neighbors cared that the Giants were leaving, but they adored the Dodgers.

Walter O’Malley, who owned the Dodgers and who engineered their abandoning Brooklyn, became public enemy number one overnight and his actions became the basis for the following joke:

You find yourself in a room with Hitler, Stalin and O’Malley and you have a gun, but with only two bullets. Who do you shoot?

You shoot O’Malley twice to make sure you kill him.

My next encounter with “Say It Aint So” was in August of 1964 when the Giants head coach, Allie Sherman, traded our hero, Sam Huff, to the team that used to be called the Washington Redskins. Giants’ fans were so out raged that they began to serenade Sherman at the many losing games with:

Good bye Allie,

Good bye Allie

Good bye Allie

We hate to see you go.

Repeat, repeat, repeat, etc.           

In March of 1971, Mayor John Lindsay announced that the City of New York would buy Yankees Stadium so that needed improvements could be made to retain the Yankees and the Football Giants. Almost three weeks later, New Jersey Gov. William T. Cahill told the press that he had a verbal commitment from Giants to move to a new sports complex in the Hackensack River meadowlands.

This set off all kinds of frustration, noise and disbelief across the Metropolitan area. Wellington Mara reacted by side-stepping whether or not he intended to move his team. “We have a commitment to stay in New York until 1974. By then we’ll have the luxury to sit back and see whether New York or New Jersey has the best offer. We’ll go wherever it is best for our fans.

“Bullshit!” This became my biggest “Say It Aint So” in August when Mara committed to the move. Red Smith commented on the move in his classical fashion:

 “There is rich poetic justice in the decision to haul the New York Giants across the Hudson to a New Jersey garbage dump. It is a move made in heaven.

“When he (Mara) finally defected, the only surprising thing was Lindsay’s indignatio. Evidently, Fun City’s burgomeister has been so busy wondering whether he’s a Republican or a Democrat that he hasn’t read the football scores for six or seven years.

“Selfish, callous and ungrateful’ were his words for Well Mara. That’s pretty strong language to use about a guy who came into this world naked and had to inherit everything he’s got.

“With no football team as a tenant of Yankee Stadium, opposition is growing to Lindsay’s plan to sink $24 million into that playground. The Yankees may have to move perhaps only to Shea Stadium, possibly as far away as Dallas.

“The Jets, Mets and possibly the Yankees would operate in Flushing Meadow and the Giants wouldn’t be far away. Maybe not far enough.”

I was totally against the move and I even wrote to the mayor because I strongly believed the team belonged here in the five boroughs. Long story short, Lindsay kicked the Giants out of Yankee Stadium in the fall of 1973 as soon as the baseball season ended forcing them to relocate to Yale Bowl for the remainder of that season and for all of the 1974 season. They lost every game played there. With Lindsay gone in 1975, Mayor Abe Beam didn’t have a grudge allowing the Giants to play all of their home games at Shea Stadium.

The Giants moved into Giants Stadium in 1976 and its replacement, Met Life Stadium in 1991.

Looking back at my opposition in 1971, I now know I was right, but for all the wrong reasons.

The Giants should have stayed in New York City. They could have remained in the Bronx, moved to Long Island City, or even the West Side Railroad Yards in Manhattan. And if they had, do you know the one thing that I would have missed and been so happy that I missed?

“Traffic,” TRAFFIC,” that “f****ing TRAFFIC” both in New Jersey and on the bridges  going back to Long Island that turns what should have been a forty-five-minute drive into a two-hour slog!

I could have taken the Long Island Railroad and, even if I drove, I would have avoided any and all bridges.

(This is my last piece for two weeks. I will resume in August with a to a two-part piece on our June trip to Alaska.)        

I wrote this in October of 2001. I recently made minor changes to my story, but the actual tale remains intact. As we approach the 25^th Anniversary of this terrible day, I am reissuing it in honor of all the folks I knew who died at the World Trade Center that day.

September 11, 2001, should have been one of the 10 best days of the year weather wise in New York City. Seasonably warm, but clear without haze and free of humidity, Manhattan shined in all its glory living up to one of its nicknames, Babylon on the Hudson.

Overcoming my disappointment of having suffered through an opening night loss by my beloved Giants to the Chiefs  in Kansas City the previous night, I planned to travel to my company’s midtown headquarters at 1166 Avenue of the Americas to have lunch with my old boss, Steve Pires.  But first, I began a 45-minute workout on my treadmill to get my heart started.

Marsh & McLennan, the firm I had worked for from 1971until I retired on April 1, 2000, also had operations in World Trade Center. They occupied eight floors in the North Tower from 93 to 100. As I power walked, I watched as NBC cut away from their regular programming to reveal that an airplane had crashed into the upper floors of the north side of the North Tower. Little did we know at that moment that the high jackers managed to strike every one of the floors that Marsh & McLennan occupied except 100. 

A longtime colleague, Jim H. had an office on 99 facing north. I still wonder if he saw the American Airlines plane as it hurtled in his direction. Flight Number 11 struck his office at 8:46 AM. Coincidently, Jim’s brother-in-law, Bill W, worked for AON on one of the nine floors occupied by that insurance brokerage firm in the South Tower. The folks who worked in that tower above the 85^th Floor had 17 minutes to evacuate before United Flight No. 175 plunged into the south side of that tower. Although many workers did evacuate, Bill chose not to. Neither did Tony D, another former Marsh man who had joined AON. Tony had married late in life and his wife had recently given birth to twin girls. They would never see their father again.   

Two hundred and ninety-five Marsh employees died that day along with 63 contract employees. That total, 358, was the third highest behind the FDNY and Cantor Fitzgerald. Jeff L. was one of those Cantor Fitzgerald casualties. Before joining Canter, Jeff had worked in midtown, and I would often share an early morning cab ride from Penn Station with him.

My niece, Rita, was lucky. Employed by Deutsche Bank at their 39-story building on 130 Liberty Street close to the South Tower, she evacuated when the South Tower was hit. Rita set out for Brooklyn and was about to cross the Brooklyn Bridge when that tower fell wrecking her place of work. She spent the night in a convent. It would take years to demolish that building since it contained numerous human remains from the South Tower.

Michelle G. had worked for me when I was the Manager of Marsh’s New York Marine and Energy operation. She was scheduled to attend an all-day conference at the Windows on the World restaurant on the 107^th Floor of the North Tower. Michelle chose to forgo the pre-conference breakfast choosing instead to meander through the Barnes and Noble bookshop in the lobby.

When American Flight 11 struck the tower, Michelle made a run to the PATH Station to catch one of the last trains to leave the WTC Station for New Jersey. Her train was in one of the 100-year-old cast iron tubes under the Hudson River when the second airplane hit. Michelle told me: “The tunnel moved violently from side to side. The train ground to a halt and the lights went out. I have never been so scared. Finally, the lights came back on and very slowly, the train crept to the Exchange Place Station in Jersey City. I cringed when I emerged into the morning light to see both buildings were burning.”       

Our son, Mike and our daughter Beth both worked for Marsh & McLennan companies at 1166. Beth’s husband, Tom, also worked in Manhattan. The three of them met near Tom’s office on Broadway then made their way to Beth and Tom’s apartment in NoHo on Mott Street safely north of the poisonous smoke pouring from the debris. Mike spent the night with them.  

America shut down to protect the homeland. The FAA grounded every aircraft in USA airspace ordering those airplanes in the air to land immediately. Incoming international flights were instructed to return to their points of origin or find airports of refuge. If you ever see the play, Come From Away, you will discover the story of the jumble of transatlantic flights that landed in Gander, Newfoundland that day.

Emergency rooms geared up to treat the anticipated multitude of casualties that never materialized. There was only the living and the dead and most of the dead disintegrated under the massive pile of debris.

Relatives and friends of the dead created massive bulletin boards throughout the city featuring photographs of the missing with notes pleading for information about their status. Beth, a licensed social worker, volunteered at an armory to council those seeking help to cope with their loved ones who were now MIA.

A sense of loss, anger and absolute sadness blanketed the city. It enveloped me and may have consumed me except that Mary Ann and I and two other couples, the Cruises and the Markeys managed to escape to Ireland in early October on a pre-arranged holiday.

Good craic, the hospitality of Erin, rain, wind, laughter, Guinness and Irish whiskey soothed our souls and raised our morale. It feathered our anger and permitted me to be a human again.

In honor of the 25^th anniversary of that dark day, come this September I will republish my piece about the Club at the World Trade Center that died on what should have been one of the 10 best days of the year for 2001.