09/10/2026
My Generations Pearl Harbor 9-11-2001
Tomorrow Marks 25 years of 911. This is my Story of 911 Romano Cotone & RCI Starlite. I remember it like it just happened yesterday. It was my generations Pearl Harbor and I was living it and so close to it. I was working in NYC doing work visas for people going out of the country. I was the guy you went to if you needed to go out of the country and get a work Visa to work in a foreign country. I went to mostly all of the International Consulates that were all located in NYC. I had this client Deloitte and Touché and they were a steady client and was set up for 5 days a week. I lived in Wilton at the time. My days started at 5am every morning at 10 Westport Rd in wilton CT. I had to be at their office at 1515 Broadway (times Square) at 7:45 pick up documents and then straight down to 2 World Financial center by 8:45 am. 2 World Financial center was located across the street for the world trade center and i was a stickler on time. This was Monday thru Fri. I also did work for Breitling watch Company and went to Boomer Esiasons office in the World Trade Center which was the offices of Canter Fitzgerald 63rd floor. This company was located where one of the planes went through on 911. I went to this location every other week. Attached is one of the many IDs I had from World trade center 1. As many may know 9-11 2001 was on a tuesday. It turns out that I was working on my mothers deck at her house and finished up a few days before on the sunday before. Monday came 9-10-2001 and did my job as usual. I got a call monday night saying from my mother saying I needed to come back and check something early in the morning. I got into an argument with my mother over some petty thing on the deck and said I would be up and i said I will come now and she said no the morning. Well morning came as Im going up at 6 am and she called and said forget it. I said you just messed up my work schedule for the day. Well as Im going in late and driving on I95 to NYC and then Bruckner EX. 278. Boy what a beautiful day it was. it was the kind of blue that was a deep blue in the sky with no haze and a perfect temp and small breeze. The news hit right at 855 I got the call and heard on the radio as going over the 3rd ave bridge about the plane hitting the tower. I was Told NYC will go into lockdown and get back over the bridge. Well the rest in history and would have been right at 2 World Financial center (across from the world trade center) if my day went on schedule. Well Mothers know and the bitchiness of my mothers voice the night before was as i look back a kind of God send from preventing me from going to the area on time.
I often give thanks to the Lord Above, to my Mother and to Inez Farkas of Budapest Hungary. Just a month before when I was in Budapest Hungary with Inez she was pleading with me to get out of NYC and drop this job because it was changing me for the worst with the traffic problems and the people...I was really getting some hardcore stress and getting very un-personable. This was not part of my well being and she saw this. We were at a U2 Concert at the Stalt Halla in Vienna Austriain late July 2001 a little over a month before and the conversation we had was mostly getting away from the NYC Job and starting RCI Starlite............A lot was realized and the shock of the reality of what just happened. Inez (my girlfriend) was in Budapest Hungary seeing the news and trying frantically to get a hold of me. she knew I was down there on a daily basis. They were thinking the worst as well as my mother and other family and friends. All the phones lines were busy and could not get through. Cell phones were really not that popular yet as they are now. It wasnt until 7pm that i got a hold of my mother. inez was 2 days on Thursday. Boy the rest is history. This was my generations Pearl Harbor. I give many thanks to God for the Bullet I dodged. Even though it was across the street I still would have been down there only feet from the towers that came down. The next day on 9-12-2001 I left NYC never to go back to work there. This is and was my story of what happened on 9-11-2001.. I thank all of my close family and friends and all the supporters of RCI Starlite International. Things could have been a lot different if my mother never called the night before with that petty issue
