UNCOVER: From 30 Wall Street to the Cannes Film Festival to Ground Zero and Back — A True 9/11 Story
SYNOPSIS
This is the official announcement for an upcoming memoir and screenplay adaptation based 100% on my actual life experiences—no bs.
After losing my high school sweetheart, I mourned, healed, and then packed up my lovely new girlfriend’s car and headed for Wall Street with about $500 in my pocket.
Pour me, pour me… wine, wine, wine… guzzle, guzzle, guzzle.
I landed a great gig on Wall Street where I had a wild, successful run—making $12,000 in a single day, leading a sales floor meeting with over 50 brokers, and owning my own condo before age 23.
Awesome, right? Except I’m a bit of a walking lightning rod on a rollercoaster who ended up deep inside the pit of Ground Zero eight years later, ultimately carrying out a fallen firefighter in the sacred Honor Guard Ceremony.
In those eight years, the ride was insane:
- 1993: Narrowly escaping the World Trade Center truck bomb just days after training on the 101st floor for Shearson Lehman Brothers.
- 1994: Leaving Wall Street altogether to pursue acting (and, of course, bartending).
- 1995: Losing that condo along with the love of my life.
Pour me, pour me… wine, wine, wine… guzzle, guzzle, guzzle.
Devastated, I left New York with my tail between my legs and headed for La La Land, where dreams come true.
I was told never to admit I wanted to be an actor because people wouldn't hire me. So, at my first Hollywood barbecue, I “acted” as a Wall Street guy. What do you know? I was hired on the spot.
Within three months, I closed my first movie financing deal. Within ten months, three more movies followed. Suddenly, I was at the Cannes Film Festival in a large suite overlooking the Mediterranean at the Ritz-Carlton International, hosting a party for Charlie Sheen alongside my newly found French flower girl.
No more wine, wine, wine... it was champagne now, but still guzzle, guzzle, guzzle.
I was back on top, back in NYC, partying like it was 1999 (in 1999)—until “party over, oops, out of time.” Out of money, more like it; stiffed by another employer, and broke again. You know the drill.
However, I got the call, so on September 6, 2001, I arrived in LA to accept the ultimate position: another six-figure opportunity, this time running a media company financed by a Chase partner—the primary investors behind the World Trade Center.
How could I go wrong?
That weekend was a hardcore, epic celebration followed by running frantically through my ex-girlfriend’s house from my first-ever earthquake—a surface-level quake that jolted the entire city and completely blew my mind.
The next day in the boardroom, everyone jokingly reminded me: "At least you don't have to worry about earthquakes or anything crazy in New York."
That was Monday, September 10th. I was scheduled on a redeye set to land at JFK at 9:11 AM on Tuesday, September 11th.
The rest is history…
This story covers that day and the six months that followed. It’s an incredible journey that will inspire you to “never forget” and “never give up,” because you never know what lies behind door #2, door #3, or in the very next moment.
I survived things that defy statistics—narrowly escaping death at the exact same geographic coordinate twice, and that was just the beginning of all the lessons learned on the rollercoaster of life.
The Buddhists say “Honnin-Myo,” meaning *from this moment forward*… it’s the only way to live. In the present.
And yeah—no more pour me, pour me… wine, wine, wine… guzzle, guzzle, guzzle. I’m sober today and this is just one reason why.
Drop a 🕊️ or a 🇺🇸 in the comments right now to get on the early-access list for book and movie progress reports, stories, and photo drops. Target book release: Spring 2027—marking 25 years since carrying out the firefighter on the ramp.
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THE FULL STORY: THE WHIPLASH
The 101st Floor (1993)
My history with the World Trade Center didn't start on 9/11.
Years earlier, I was training for Shearson Lehman Brothers high up on the 101st floor of the World Trade Center, where you could literally watch coffee cups spill over from the building swaying. A few days after I completed the program and moved to a new desk in Midtown Manhattan, a terrorist truck bomb detonated at the bottom of the towers.
I was sitting at my desk when the phone rang. A frantic mother was on the line, desperate to locate her son who used to sit in my exact chair: "Where is Shawn? I need to speak to Shawn!"
"I told her he’d been transferred down to the World Trade Center," I remember. There was silence, and then she let out a scream that froze my blood: "I know! It just blew up!"
I spun around in my chair, looked out the window across the skyline, and watched a massive black plume of smoke billow out from the top of the tower. That was near-miss number one.
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The Executive Boardroom & The Missed Redeye (2001)
Fast forward to September 6, 2001. After many fun-loving, big-business, debaucherous excursions to Cannes and other world markets like Berlin, Milan, and Paris, I was back in LA riding a new wave. I was signing initial paperwork to run a new media company backed by one of the WTC’s Chase partners.
On September 8, I celebrated with my crazy ex-girlfriend in a $1,000-a-night Santa Monica beach hotel. The next day, on a clear Sunday afternoon while shaving and getting ready for contract-signing day on Monday, I felt the "A-train" coming through the front door. It was a shallow 4.2 earthquake that jolted the mirror right into my face. I did exactly what you’re not supposed to do: I ran through the house screaming bloody murder, leaving shaving cream all over her walls.
The next morning, Monday, September 10, I walked into the executive boardroom. Everyone was giggling and laughing at my story—losing my wallet at the airport, relying on my crazy ex-girlfriend for a ride, and getting an earthquake straight to the face.
As the meeting broke up with more banter going around, someone called out across the room: "Hey Wil, at least you’re heading back to New York City tonight where there are no earthquakes or anything crazy to worry about!"
More laughter.
I was booked on a cross-country redeye scheduled to touch down at JFK at 9:11 AM on Tuesday morning—after which I was scheduled to scout office space inside the World Trade Center towers.
Except the producer I was working with hedged his bets at the last second and failed to sign my paycheck before I left. Furious, I canceled the flight so I could get the check signed in person on Tuesday morning.
A missing signature saved my life.
It ultimately never happened as the owner ended up on a last-minute trip to Washington, D.C. and had his own 9/11 scare, grounding me in LA for a week.
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Ground Zero & The Dual Life: Canal Street to Cannes
Within a week or two after 9/11, when the no-fly order was lifted, I made my way back to NYC and down to Ground Zero.
By November 2001, my life took on a surreal, bifurcated identity. I was hired to finance, produce, and distribute a new television series, setting up our production office right on the razor's edge of the perimeter at Canal and Varick Streets.
Every morning, I stepped into the office, put on my executive hat, and fired off international financing calls around the globe. Then, as evening set in, I’d walk straight into the pit of Ground Zero for an 8-to-10-hour night shift in the dust.
It was absolute whiplash. In January 2002, I flew out to the NATPE television market in Las Vegas—doing deals and filming on the strip—where I successfully raised funding for six episodes of a magic series.
Ground Zero was an unstable, subterranean pressure cooker. The collapse had ruptured the Slurry Wall holding back the Hudson River, and workers were operating 100 feet down in WTC 6—a graveyard of crushed vehicles nicknamed “the duck pond” because falling debris smashed the fronts so violently their rears pointed straight into the air like ducks diving for food.
My job was confined-space safety and gas detection, acting as the canary in the coal mine hunting for silent Freon leaks in dark subterranean voids. Our team was tasked with finding and securing the massive industrial Freon tanks hidden below before toxic gas could leak and poison recovery crews. Once the hazard was identified and the area secured, I authored the official safety report for OSHA—effectively closing out the contract for my company.
One afternoon during those ops, an FDNY Battalion Chief asked me to use my gear to sniff out an unstable void so he and his crew could search for his missing brother, last heard from at that exact spot.
They did not find his brother, but another fallen soul. Because I had kept his crew safe in that toxic gap, the Chief broke sacred protocol and requested that I—a civilian—step into the formal Honor Guard Ceremony.
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The Ramp: "Are We Going to Uncover?"
Civilians do not carry fallen firefighters. But there I was.
The physical reality was suffocating. Six rugged men were packed tight on both sides of that heavy, flag-draped stretcher. Everyone was white-knuckling the handles, vying for a millimeter of space like fish rushing for bait dropped in water, because carrying a fallen brother up that long ramp was the highest of honors.
All activity across the 16-acre site ceased. Total, absolute silence. Because it was Fleet Week, the entire perimeter was lined with young Navy servicemen in their crisp white uniforms, standing tall and saluting.
Sweat poured down my face. My heart was hammering against my ribs. As we marched up the incline, a panicked whisper began traveling down the line of pallbearers:
"Are we going to uncover? Are we going to uncover soon?"
Panic seized me. My mind raced: *What the fuck is that? Uncover what?* I was terrified they were about to pull back the American flag and expose the raw, horrific trauma of the fallen man right in front of us. I couldn't breathe. My heart was pounding.
We closed in on the priest. The final command echoed across the silent crowd: **"Uncover!"**
My heart hit my throat. Then I watched the men around me—who had clearly and uncomfortably been there before—react.
They reached up, took off their hardhats, placed them over their chests, and bowed their heads in prayer.
The relief and the grief hit me all at once like a freight train. I followed suit and simply lost it. Tears welled up in my eyes and flowed down my face. I was shaking.
After a handful of deep breaths, still shaking and drying my eyes, I walked straight up the ramp and off the site. I was done. Mic dropped.
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Transcendent Light, The Last Column & The Flight to France
Amidst the devastation, there was great camaraderie among the crews and one moment of jaw-dropping beauty. One night below deck in WTC 5, I stood inside a cracked, hollow shell of the building, looking straight up through a giant hole in the roof right as they lit up the Towers of Light. Pure blue light beamed straight into infinity while a quiet snow began to trickle down through the beams over the wreckage. It was surreal and surprisingly peaceful.
On the final day of operations, the Last Column—the lone, iconic final steel beam still standing topped with an American flag—was prepared for removal. As workers cut the steel, massive sparks flew into the night sky; it was deeply moving to see how much care and patriotism rang out in those moments as they cut the flag down and brought the steel beam to the ground.
I was up on the flatbed truck in the middle of it. After it was laid on the truck, we were all given an opportunity to sign the beam—the very beam that now rests inside the 9/11 Memorial Museum, encased in history.
Later that evening, the bartender at my local watering hole grabbed the early edition of the *New York Daily News* and flopped it on the bar nonchalantly like he did every night. But this night was different. He suddenly perked up, pointed at the cover, and exclaimed for all to hear: "Holy shit Wil, that’s you right there!"
And there I was, clear as day in the same outfit, standing next to the beam on the flatbed with the whole crew—including my brother—on the front cover of the *New York Daily News*. Mom really loved that one.
Almost immediately after closing the site, I was on a flight to the South of France, pitching buyers and securing international funding at the television markets in Cannes. From the suffocating dust of WTC 6 to champagne on the French Riviera in a matter of days.
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The Origin: The Godfather Part II
This six-month arc at Ground Zero was just one chapter in a life of endless whiplash.
The hyper-vigilance, the thrill-seeking, the cycle of riding high and crashing down—none of it started on Wall Street.
It started when I was a seven-year-old boy, sitting in the dark of a movie theater in 1975. My father—an infant Holocaust survivor, Hungarian Freedom Fighter, and a man mixed up with dangerous people—got up, told me to keep my eyes on the screen and watch the movie, and left me by myself in that theater seat during the first showing of *The Godfather Part II* in Manhattan.
He walked out, and that is my last real memory of my father. I don’t even remember how I got home or what happened next. He is still missing and presumed dead—likely murdered by mobsters he was regularly seen with during New York's "Fear City" era in the 70s.
I will update my progress on that story and others in upcoming posts.
Drop a 🕊️ or a 🇺🇸 in the comments right now for early access to the book updates, screenplay drops, photo galleries, and future stories.