Daniel Mark Lewin (Hebrew: דניאל "דני" מארק לוין; May 14, 1970 – September 11, 2001), sometimes spelled Levin, was an American–Israeli mathematician and entrepreneur who co-founded internet company Akamai Technologies. A passenger on board American Airlines Flight 11, it is believed that Lewin was stabbed by one of the hijackers of that flight, and was the first person murdered during the course of the attacks.[1][2][3]
Daniel Lewin
Born
May 14, 1970
Denver, Colorado, U.S.
Died
September 11, 2001 (aged 31)
On board American Airlines Flight 11, approximately in the air over Worcester, Massachusetts, U.S.
Cause of death
Stabbing
Education
Technion – Israel Institute of Technology (BA, BS)
I had already moved to Massachusetts several years before I sold my Long Island house to a New York City cop and his wife in the summer of 2001. We were supposed to close on Monday, September 10, but at the last minute, the bank postponed until the 14th. My plan was to go down to LI for the closing and stay with my neighbors, so I alerted them to the change of plans.
On the morning of the 11th, I got to my office at UMass around 8:25. Colleagues told me a plane had just hit one of the World Trade Center towers, as soon as I got in the door. I told said, not to worry, that’s been done. In plane vs. World Trade Center, the plane always loses. They said, not this time.
While somebody dug up an old television to set up in our conference room, I listened to Jim Miklaszewski report on the Pentagon’s reaction to what had happened in New York. He didn’t have much to say. It was too early to assess. So I went next door to get some coffee. While I was gone, a second plane hit another tower.
At that point, I left an urgent message for my son in Arlington, Virginia, who worked out of a hospital basement as an IT guy for Georgetown University. He called back in obvious distress. While he was outside the hospital entrance talking to a friend, he said, two planes flew over their heads, really low. The first was a commercial jet full of passengers, and the two guys could see people looking out windows. The second was a fighter jet, which appeared to be chasing the first plane. Both were headed across the river. Within minutes, the earth shook and the two took an elevator up to the rooftop heliport to see what happened. My son described a mushroom cloud expanding over the city, rising from somewhere on the other side of the Potomac, maybe the Pentagon.
I told him we might be under attack because two planes had already hit the Towers. Everything was upside down and in flux. I was surprised how tongue-tied my usually talkative son was, so I calmly said he should hit every vending machine he could find on his way to his office, load up on food and water, keep his phone charged and a flashlight handy, then wait for instructions from the university.
DC quickly announced a plan to evacuate the city by noon. Buses, subways and roads were shut down. His boss held him back to go out in a van and check on some of the University’s properties around the city. At 4 that afternoon, he walked alone four or five miles across Key Bridge and home to his empty apartment.
The neighbors I planned to stay with later that week, owned a commercial bakery. Their biggest customer was Windows on the World, which had placed a special order for a big meeting on Tuesday, including Cantor Fitzgerald executives. The bakery had another big job for the same day in New Jersey, so they made and delivered the food Monday afternoon to avoid going crosstown very early Tuesday. Cantor, of course, lost 658 of its 960 employees that morning. Windows lost 72 staff and several dozen guests. My friends were spared, but lost their friends at Windows.
My housebuyers and I held our closing in early December after the banks were back up and running, and the cop was able to take a day off. He had been working continuously for months either at Ground Zero or the dump on Staten Island, where they took debris. I hadn’t heard much from my lawyer before the closing but while we signed papers, he told us his son had just started his first job out of college on September 10 at Cantor. At 8 that Tuesday, his boss sent him down to Dunkin Donuts across the street to buy food for staff not attending the Windows meeting. The kid was in line outside Dunkin when the first plane hit. Confused, he started back to the building but was turned around by cops. He stood outside in the crowd until the second plane hit, then ran for his life uptown, and kept going. He tried to reach his family, but cell service was knocked out when one of the towers took down the New York Telephone building across West Street. So he kept going, all day and into the night. By nighttime, his parents assumed he was lost with the others at Cantor Fitzgerald, and were in agony.
My future daughter-in-law worked the lobster shift at Deutsche Bank across the street from the Towers. She did data processing and left the building a little before 8. After grabbing a coffee, she wound her way down to the subway station below the towers and hopped on an uptown train, just as the first plane hit. Later that morning, one of the towers hit her building.
So, at the end of 2001, five strangers closed on a sale of an unremarkable house, forging an otherwise unlikely bond between New Yorkers who both won and lost more than anyone could ever imagine on a beautiful sunny September day, which otherwise might have gone unnoticed.
More on my cousin: Wiki entry:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Lewin
Daniel Mark Lewin (Hebrew: דניאל "דני" מארק לוין; May 14, 1970 – September 11, 2001), sometimes spelled Levin, was an American–Israeli mathematician and entrepreneur who co-founded internet company Akamai Technologies. A passenger on board American Airlines Flight 11, it is believed that Lewin was stabbed by one of the hijackers of that flight, and was the first person murdered during the course of the attacks.[1][2][3]
Daniel Lewin
Born
May 14, 1970
Denver, Colorado, U.S.
Died
September 11, 2001 (aged 31)
On board American Airlines Flight 11, approximately in the air over Worcester, Massachusetts, U.S.
Cause of death
Stabbing
Education
Technion – Israel Institute of Technology (BA, BS)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Occupation
Entrepreneur
Spouse(s)
Anne Lewin
Children
2
Military career
Allegiance
Israel
Service/branch
Sayeret Matkal
Rank
Captain
Good onya, Greg. I was in Cali watching on the tv but I heard later that my second cousin in Boston’s husband was on the DC-bound plane.
He was one of the passengers who tussled with the terrorists.
Kain y’Hi Razon
I'll share mine, too. Thanks, Greg.
I had already moved to Massachusetts several years before I sold my Long Island house to a New York City cop and his wife in the summer of 2001. We were supposed to close on Monday, September 10, but at the last minute, the bank postponed until the 14th. My plan was to go down to LI for the closing and stay with my neighbors, so I alerted them to the change of plans.
On the morning of the 11th, I got to my office at UMass around 8:25. Colleagues told me a plane had just hit one of the World Trade Center towers, as soon as I got in the door. I told said, not to worry, that’s been done. In plane vs. World Trade Center, the plane always loses. They said, not this time.
While somebody dug up an old television to set up in our conference room, I listened to Jim Miklaszewski report on the Pentagon’s reaction to what had happened in New York. He didn’t have much to say. It was too early to assess. So I went next door to get some coffee. While I was gone, a second plane hit another tower.
At that point, I left an urgent message for my son in Arlington, Virginia, who worked out of a hospital basement as an IT guy for Georgetown University. He called back in obvious distress. While he was outside the hospital entrance talking to a friend, he said, two planes flew over their heads, really low. The first was a commercial jet full of passengers, and the two guys could see people looking out windows. The second was a fighter jet, which appeared to be chasing the first plane. Both were headed across the river. Within minutes, the earth shook and the two took an elevator up to the rooftop heliport to see what happened. My son described a mushroom cloud expanding over the city, rising from somewhere on the other side of the Potomac, maybe the Pentagon.
I told him we might be under attack because two planes had already hit the Towers. Everything was upside down and in flux. I was surprised how tongue-tied my usually talkative son was, so I calmly said he should hit every vending machine he could find on his way to his office, load up on food and water, keep his phone charged and a flashlight handy, then wait for instructions from the university.
DC quickly announced a plan to evacuate the city by noon. Buses, subways and roads were shut down. His boss held him back to go out in a van and check on some of the University’s properties around the city. At 4 that afternoon, he walked alone four or five miles across Key Bridge and home to his empty apartment.
The neighbors I planned to stay with later that week, owned a commercial bakery. Their biggest customer was Windows on the World, which had placed a special order for a big meeting on Tuesday, including Cantor Fitzgerald executives. The bakery had another big job for the same day in New Jersey, so they made and delivered the food Monday afternoon to avoid going crosstown very early Tuesday. Cantor, of course, lost 658 of its 960 employees that morning. Windows lost 72 staff and several dozen guests. My friends were spared, but lost their friends at Windows.
My housebuyers and I held our closing in early December after the banks were back up and running, and the cop was able to take a day off. He had been working continuously for months either at Ground Zero or the dump on Staten Island, where they took debris. I hadn’t heard much from my lawyer before the closing but while we signed papers, he told us his son had just started his first job out of college on September 10 at Cantor. At 8 that Tuesday, his boss sent him down to Dunkin Donuts across the street to buy food for staff not attending the Windows meeting. The kid was in line outside Dunkin when the first plane hit. Confused, he started back to the building but was turned around by cops. He stood outside in the crowd until the second plane hit, then ran for his life uptown, and kept going. He tried to reach his family, but cell service was knocked out when one of the towers took down the New York Telephone building across West Street. So he kept going, all day and into the night. By nighttime, his parents assumed he was lost with the others at Cantor Fitzgerald, and were in agony.
My future daughter-in-law worked the lobster shift at Deutsche Bank across the street from the Towers. She did data processing and left the building a little before 8. After grabbing a coffee, she wound her way down to the subway station below the towers and hopped on an uptown train, just as the first plane hit. Later that morning, one of the towers hit her building.
So, at the end of 2001, five strangers closed on a sale of an unremarkable house, forging an otherwise unlikely bond between New Yorkers who both won and lost more than anyone could ever imagine on a beautiful sunny September day, which otherwise might have gone unnoticed.