What A Day - The Forgotten Victims of Sept. 11

Episode Date: September 10, 2026

Friday marks the 25th anniversary of 9/11. And earlier this week, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced the release of records related to the government’s response in the aftermath of the attacks, as well as the settlement of two lawsuits brought by 9/11 Health Watch. On today’s show, Jane speaks with Andrew Carboy, an attorney for 9/11 Health Watch, about the survivors of 9/11 and the devastating health problems they have faced over the past two and a half decades.Show Notes: Check out the NYC 9/11 Document Portal  Call Congress – 202-224-3121 Subscribe to the What A Day Newsletter – https://tinyurl.com/y4y2e9jy What A Day – YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@whatadaypodcast Follow us on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/crookedmedia/ For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail]

The mantra that was repeated again and again and again, as we detailed in our court papers, you know, from primary sources, the air is safe and acceptable. Any contaminants that are of concern are measured within or below acceptable limits. Over and over, and it was the drumbeat. And you know what? When I heard those words, I didn't second guess it. I felt relief. It's Thursday, September 10th.

I'm Jane Koston, and this is what a day. So I'm asking you to pretend that I'm on the ballot. I'm on the ballot. I'm on the ballot. Sure. Wednesday night was the first night of the GOP midterm convention in Dallas, otherwise known as Trumpapalooza. And President Trump spent nearly two hours trying to convince Americans to vote for Republicans

by pretending that they're him. Vice President J.D. Vance spent his night trying to walk back Trump's promise of $5,000 checks to every American adult if Republicans win the midterms. Trump has spent a lot of time this week telling stories, like where he was 25 years ago on September 11th and the days after. But I want to talk about the real survivors of 9-11 and the devastating health problems they've faced for the last two and a half decades. Joining me to talk about how the city of New York is just starting to tell the truth is Andrew

Carboy, an attorney for 9-11 Health Watch. Andrew, welcome to Waddey. Thank you so much for having me today. We really appreciate the attention to this important issue. So thanks again. It's so important. I'm going to start in kind of a strange place because I know that this is deeply personal for you. Where were you on 9-11?

Oh, geez. I was two blocks away from the towers. My office was 120 Broadway, right next to Zuccotti. Park, which was right next to the South Tower. We were so close, we didn't even appreciate that two towers were involved. I thought it was a single tower. And it wasn't until I made my way up Broadway that I saw and appreciated. Both towers were involved. And remember two thoughts, Jane. First, my God, how many firefighters are responding? How will they get up there? And then, you know, as I made my way north, thinking I'm just in the way, if I'm gawking, I'm going to get out of here and walk over the bridge and go home to Brooklyn.

And that's when I appreciated that people were, you know, jumping to their deaths. And by the time I made my way to park row to make my way east over the bridge, I heard a like a train roaring. And it was the South Tower collapsing. So among tens of thousands, we all took off running. Yeah. Yeah. I think that, you know, I watch this on television. You know, I was a freshman in high school.

There happened to be a television in my school library, and they had like Good Morning America on. And so I saw the second plane going because they'd gone to a live shot of the towers. And because they were like, you know, the first one, it seemed like a terrible accident or something like that. And I don't think I understood the magnitude of what was going on. And I think that for me and, you know, pretty much any millennial, there is kind of a before that day and after that day as a country. But for you and for thousands of New Yorkers, this has been a almost life-altering, life-damaging story that has not ended. It has continued. And so I'm curious, when did your work with 9-11 survivors?

their families. You've worked with firefighters who responded on that day. When did that work begin? By December of 2001, we were aware my former firm Sullivan Papan, Block McGrath and Canavo, as it was known then, was longtime counsel to the UFA, the Uniform Firefighters Association. That's the union for most New York City firefighters. There's an officer's union as well. And we did, two things. We filed the first claims against the city for failing to provide appropriate respiratory protection. As I would learn eight years later in sworn testimony I took in the lawsuits that spawned, there were approximately 700 respirators, not the Scott Pax, which are appropriate for a fire, but respirators, which are appropriate for a building collapse, 7,000 respirators available for 11,000

members. So there was a severe shortage. We had to file these notices of claim against the city within 90 days. Thereafter, we represented the families of, it was close to 250 deceased firefighters to the first federal victim compensation fund. We did that voluntarily pro bono. That was an effort that took us well into 2004. When the first Victims Fund closed, we then brought on behalf of 700 firefighters who were foreclosed from making a claim for federal.

compensation in the lawsuits against the city of New York and the Southern District of New York. And that case took until, oh my gosh, 2011 to resolve. As it settled, which was the appropriate thing to do, but it was a huge, it was a huge fight. Most of my time for a decade, the Victims Fund reopened and the World Trade Center Health program was expanded to address not only first responders and recovery workers, but anyone affected by September 11th. But I want to just point out really quickly. The community that I and so many other attorneys work for and represent and we do our best to help,

the lawyers have the easy part. They have the hard part. The people who live through it and are dealing with these issues today. And of course, the people who are lost that day. So it is the least that we can do. do. And to those who gave their absolute best and what mayoral administration after mayoral administration. And I'm going to start with Bloomberg. Mayor Giuliani, you know, as you know, left office on January 1st. He was there essentially for about 9,500 days after the collapse.

The Bloomberg administration fought health care, fought compensation. They fought our lawsuits against the city for years. Mayor Bloomberg called James Zedroga, the first first responder whose death was connected to 9-11 exposure, a drug addict. He later apologized, but the damage was done. Mayor de Blasio, in response to the request of sitting Congress members, Maloney, Nadler, and Goldman for the records that are now being disclosed by Mayor Mamdani and his Corporation Council, completely indifferent. There was no response. He and his reps are quoted in the media

back in 2020, 2021, oh, we're going to take a look at this in response. They never did. Can I interrupt you for just a second? Because I think it's important to give a little bit more context. Yeah, of course. So we have

the absolute horrifying events of 9-11. Yes. But something that I think now looking back, seems absurd to me, is that you have thousands of photos showing powder everywhere. The air is clearly just full of the residue of what would happen when two massive buildings collapse, two planes are destroyed, and thousands of people are killed in a matter of moments.

Right. And you have that powder, and you can see photos. You can look online. you see photos of that powder, it looks like gray snow. It fills buildings. It fills the buildings that were near the Twin Towers. It fills the parks. It's everywhere.

Yes, it was. But you have city officials saying in October of 2001, it's cool, go back to work. Everything's totally fine. But what were New Yorkers being told about the air quality in Manhattan in October, November, December? because you would think, you know, this is a massive environmental disaster, one that would logically impact anyone with, I mean, lungs, basically. So what were you being told? Very good. The mantra that was repeated again and again and again, as we detailed in our court papers, you know, from primary sources, the air is safe and acceptable.

any contaminants that are of concern or measured within or below acceptable limits over and over, and it was a drumbeat. And you know what? When I heard those words, I didn't second guess it. I felt relief. And my business, my profession is, you know, to handle claims of people who are exposed to dangerous substances. I took comfort in that. Like many, others, the government knows best, Right. You know, that's that's sort of what we heard and what we believed. And we all wanted to return back to, to normalcy, if I can use that phrase. Yes. When did people who were not first responders and the people that you've been working with, when did people start putting the pieces together as to what might be causing their health problems? Because I can imagine for some people, you'd be thinking, you know, I wasn't, I wasn't there. I'm not a first responder. Sure, I live. Manhattan, but so do millions of my fellow Americans. When did people start thinking, like, maybe this had something to do with that? It was nearly immediately. You know, Juan Gonzalez, you know, now with Democracy Now, the broadcast and with the Daily News back in the fall of 2001,

was among the first reporters, if not first, to report the so-called World Trade Center call and bring it to the attention of the public. And, you know, it began. manifesting as a technical term, but showing itself among people who lived in lower Manhattan, even that early. You know, dust is an irritant. You vacuum your house, you empty the vacuum cleaner bag. You're going to cough. Well, think of that chronically, day in, day out, and much higher levels.

Any particulate matter, when inhaled, will induce irritation and long-term inflammation, setting aside how poisonous it is, which we now know it will. was. So it was fairly early on that you had these signs and symptoms of these problems. The most publicized death, again, Mr. Zedroga, you know, later in that decade. And I know, too, there was an earlier case against the individual federal officials, Director Whitman of the EPA, that was ultimately dismissed and upheld as a dismissal under grounds of governmental immunity. That was in the mid part of the 2010s, about 2005, 2006. But that issue, of course, affected everyone, not just the responders working on the 16-acre World Trade Center site.

Tell me about Robert Klingen. Yeah. I met Robert in 2019. He was a long-term resident of Lower Manhattan. He went to Amherst College. He went to the University of California, Berkeley, Bult Hall, for his law degree. Real studied intellectual type guy and had worked for a number of large commercial firms, had judicial clerkships, and was very much a social activist and interested in everything. Well, he lived in Lower Manhattan. He returned to his apartment that fall in October, cleaned up the dust himself that blanket his apartment, right?

He wasn't trained or certified as an asbestos abatement technician. He did it himself with wet rags and towels, just as the city was telling everyone to do. And in 2018, this is what Robert and his family told me. I didn't know him then. He was in his late 50s, and he fell while crossing his street in Manhattan, and he had a seizure. And that led to the discovery that he had a form of brain cancer known as glioblastoma. Highly aggressive. It basically grows and grows and displaces the healthy tissue of your brain.

So your brain starts, you have dysfunction and you have motor problems, you have cognitive problems, all host. And he enrolled in the World Trade Center Health Program, which was very supportive of him, gave him the care that was that was needed but he suffered for it so by the time i met robert you know i knew what he was all about and what he did and what his interest were but he was struggling and uh his sister karen who i'm in touch with today she was one of the requesters who joined us in our freedom of information request to the adams administration really helped put his claim together. Unfortunately, Robert passed in 2020 at the age of 61 due to his illness. We were able to conclude the claim before he passed with Karen's help.

And the one thing I'll remember about him, two pieces of information. The second, I did not learn until after he died. He would tell me when he was going for his treatments, radiation, he'd put on headphones and he'd bring his own mix of music, MP3, at the time. And he'd listened to African music and world music. That was his joy and his delight. He was able to appreciate and hold on to that, even though so many details and facets of his life

he'd simply lost contact with. It was awful to see. Second thing, Karen showed me video in photos of Rob before his diagnosis, and there's just this spark, this glow in his eyes that I never saw. He's healthy. He's happy.

He's living his life. So that really brought home the cruelty of this whole situation to me. And it's my joy to work with Karen. And I'm so glad she was at the press conference with Mary Mamdani the other day. She stood behind him with her husband and an old and dear friend of Roberts. It was very meaningful for them to be there. And I'm so glad they made the drive. They live in Rhode Island to do that.

So that's Bob Klingon. We'll be right back with my conversation with Andrew Carboy. What a Day is brought to you by Bookshop.org. Would you be surprised to learn that we're living in a resurgence of independent bookstores? More than 1,000 new stores have opened in the last five years. Independent bookstores do more than sell books. They take care of and pour back into their communities, creating safe spaces that foster

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Right now, save up to 30% on mattresses and up to 35% on everything else when you go to Casper.com. One last time, that's C-A-S-P-E-R dot com, and save up to 30% on the mattress you deserve. Let's get back to my conversation with Andrew Carboy. So you were talking about how the city says in October 2001, air is fine. Everything that's toxic is below. What we would be concerned about, the levels we would be worried about.

That's right. And you, for a very long time, have been saying, this isn't true, and we know it's not true. So in you have, you file a lawsuit in, I believe, 2024 on this. And because you're, you're having to fight administrations for, again, more than 20 years. Get the people who came before us. Yes. Right. Who have been stonewalling you on this issue.

But you knew there had to be more to the story. So at first, the city is saying, we have no information about any of this. We don't even know what, where it would be. We don't know what's happening. Tell me what happens next. So we file our, what's called an Article 78, not to get technical and legal, but, you know, that's what we do, right? And an Article 78 under New York law, a citizen or a, you know, organization here, 9-11 Health, watch my client, challenges the government determination. And the threshold we have to meet, it's pretty high because the government's allowed to do all sorts of things.

It enjoys immunity, that is protection from legal second-guessing. claims, we have to show the government's action is, quote, arbitrary and capricious. There was no rational or reasonable basis for the decision. So even a 1% reason, if the other 99% are completely wrong and off base, 1% gets the government over the line and they get a pass. So that was our burden. And we showed the judge, Justice Klein's of New York State Supreme Court, listen, how can the Department of Environmental Protection, the agency tasked with responding to releases of

toxic contaminants, it's in the city charter. That's New York City's Constitution. How can they deny they have any records? If you look at their own website, DEP, there are pictures of DEP workers' air sampling in Lower Manhattan after 9-11. DEP brags about it on its website and is testified as to its role. So it made no sense. sense. But the burden under New York state laws, we had to prove they actually had the records we sought. How can we do that? We don't know. All we had was this, we'll call it circumstantial evidence. So the city's position, Jane, was the records do not exist. Judge Klein's throw out the lawsuit of 9-11 Health Watch. It's frivolous. It's baseless. It is a meaningless fishing expedition.

We don't have the records. I repeated our same arguments. Simultaneously, about six months later, the city council authorized New York City's Department of Investigation, which is one of the United States premier law enforcement agencies, to investigate why there had been this stonewalling. They were all rebuffed. As soon as that legislation passed, lo and behold, DEP finds 68 boxes. Some 340,000 pages of records tells our judge they made a mistake. They don't want to dismiss our case anymore.

That led to the judge ruling in our favor this May. And not only did we win, he found the city violated the public records law in making these absurd denials when the truth was otherwise. There was never really a search done for records. That's the takeaway. So that's what changed everything. So what have we learned from those documents that you didn't know before the lawsuit, before the testimony, before the city council made this decision?

What do we know now that we didn't know a couple of weeks ago? Great. Number one, in 2002, the New York City Law Department, the legal agency representing the city in all litigation, undertook a systemic collection effort of World Trade Center-related documents from every city agency and department. We have the order from 2002 that we got when we finally got to look at the DEP files. And it advised these agencies,

give us all of your documents. We're going to scan them, catalog them, digitize them, and return them to you for safekeeping in perpetuity. So for the city to deny this archive, what I call shorthand, a secret September 11th archive exists, We know otherwise.

This is the blueprint for its creation. That's number one. Number two, the city had denied the existence of a memo written in October 2001 to Deputy Mayor Robert Harding. We call it the Harding memo. Anthony DePama in his book, City of Dust, and Wayne Barrett, now deceased in his book, The Grand Illusion, both referenced this memo. They did not publish copies of it.

of it if they even ever had it. But there were references. So we wanted this memo. And in the memo, the city supposedly was warned of tens of thousands of toxic tort claims from exposure. Wayne Barrett died in 2017. I learned that he had bequeathed his personal papers to the University of Texas. We did a search of the University of Texas archives with their help.

Their research librarians were tremendous. And lo and behold, we found the memo, the so-called Harding memo. We assume that to protect his sources, Mr. Barrett never disclosed it during his lifetime. And sure enough, the memo, and this is weeks after the collapse, warn the city it faced up to 30,000 claims. And one of these claims would most certainly be people being told to return to Lower Manhattan when the air was safe when it actually wasn't. So the city knew as early as then, if not earlier, there was a problem with the air quality messaging that the air was safe and acceptable.

But the city doubled down on making that assurance over and over and over and over again into 2002. So I give a lot of credit to Wayne Barrett for getting that document. And, you know, he's deceased. He's been gone nine years now. He passed in 2017. It's astounding that his work, 20-something years ago or more, we don't know when he got it, of course, is helping today. So the Wayne, the Harding memo is front and center on Mayor Mamdani's portal for the public to view. It's an acknowledgement that this is a real document, and it is a city document.

That's in the documents of interest section that's available to the public today on the September 11th portal. We also learned that Representative Nadler, during the early days of the Bloomberg administration, warn the Bloomberg administration, you can't have private citizens who, like Robert Klingon, my client, remediating asbestos when they're not trained and they're not certified, it's illegal. Stop giving them, telling them to use wet towels and cloth to do work that certified professionals need to do. And it's one of the documents of interest. You'll see an internal city discussion. The author is a person by the name of Esther Fuchs.

This is, maybe he's got a point. Maybe we should stop telling people to do this. That's in O2. We didn't know about this until now. I think I want to close with asking you. For the families, for the survivors, for the first responders, many of them are enrolled in the U.S. Center for Disease Controls World Trade Center Health Program. So many of them have been getting some assistance. I think that the articles I've been reading about this argue that because responders and survivors have been getting help from the World Trade Center Health Program and the 9-11 Victin Compensation Fund, they've already signed waivers agreeing not to sue over their illnesses.

That's right. So what can we learn from this information that is hopefully beneficial to not just the survivors, not just the first responders, but to everyone, what can we learn from all of this? It's a really good question. And I'm just going to preface my answer with the following. Unlike most disaster responses where the federal government takes the lead with respect to Manhattan and the 16 acres of the World Trade Center site and all of lower Manhattan, New York City took the lead. It was the lead agency. So as a result, you did not have federal

enforcement of respiratory protection, except to the extent that were federal officials present. So that was sort of unprecedented. And I understand it. City Hall is right there. The city has agencies and resources. But I think these records, it's my hope, will inform future disaster response for better coordination with local authorities if those local authorities are taking the lead because there were some regulatory lapses, law enforcement lapses as a result of it. And I'm not saying the city didn't do its best. I'm not here to second guess what happened in those days. Number two, in the future, if a government actor here, the city of New York, but it could be

others, it could be state, it could even be federal. is going to deny and fight the contention that people have been sickened and prevent the creation of programs like the health program you just mentioned, or the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, and actually fight their creation. They need to come clean about what they know as to why the people are sick in the first place. It's disingenuous to fight such programs,

but at the same time not reveal the truth. Number three, and I don't know the answer to this. I'm not, you know, I don't have clairvoyance on this. I'm just an advocate. It could inform healthcare. Mechanisms of exposure, durations of exposure. It could inform the research that continues to this day. You know, most importantly, I think this will bring some closure to these families,

and it's honoring the legacy of those gone and the situation of those who, were, you know, basically fighting to survive at this point. It's the right thing to do, and it honors their service and their sacrifice. And I hope it brings a measure of closure, so we as a society can move on and realize just how important transparency is and that the government really should consist of public servants, not people who work against the interest of the public. That's what I'd like to see from this. Andrew, thank you so much for your time and for joining me. Thank you so much for having us.

It's been my pleasure. And thanks for the work that you do. That was my conversation with Andrew Carboy, attorney for 9-11 Health Watch. Before we go, if you're looking for rigorous analysis with no hot air and no false certainty, look no further than our newest series, still counting. There's so much data and information coming at us pretty much all the time, and so much of it is misunderstood and manipulated. Nate Silver, Claire Malone, and Galen Drook are data journalists who have spent their careers breaking down polls and data.

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