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Undoubtedly, the hardest hit corporate entity in the World Trade Center terrorist attack in New York City on September 11, 2001 were financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald, whose corporate headquarters and New York City office, situated on the 101st–105th floors of One World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan, bore the brunt of the attack on the building.
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The fatalities at Cantor Fitzgerald numbered 658, more than two-thirds of their total workforce, amounting to a quarter of all those killed in New York during the attacks, and considerably more than any of the other World Trade Center tenants and of the the New York City Police and Fire Departments.
Since that tragic day, Cantor Fitzgerald CEO and chairman Howard Lutnick, who lost his brother Gary in the attack, has dedicated his considerable energies to helping the company survive the tragic blow, and to make good on the pledge he had made just a few days after the attack.
In a televised interview with CNN’s Larry King on September 19, 2001, Lutnick confessed: “I lost everybody in the company… I don’t have any money to pay their salaries.” In that same interview, Lutnick went on to say that while paychecks had been stopped, he would distribute 25 percent of the firm’s profits for the next five years among the families of employees who died in the attack. He also committed to paying for ten years of healthcare for them.
In 2006, Howard Lutnick, on behalf of Cantor Fitzgerald completed the first stage of the company’s promise, having paid a total of $180 million to the bereaved families.
Since then, Cantor Fitzgerald and their affiliate BGC Partners, who operate from more than 60 offices in 20 countries, continue to donate to the relief fund. In 2013, the two companies raised a total of $12 million on “charity day, ” and have succeeded in raising a total of $101 million to fund the foundation.
In recent years, running the fund has been gradually transferred to Edie Lutnick , Howard’s sister, who had relinquished her promising career as a labor attorney to play her part in helping to run the Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund. Since she began her involvement, Edie Lutnick reportedly has never cut back on her efforts to provide whatever aid necessary and possible for the families of those whose lives were cut so tragically short.
Each year, Edie Lutnick supervises the organization of the Cantor Fitzgerald annual private memorial service, and in addition continues to be involved hands-on basis on in every issue affecting the families.
In a recent interview Ms. Lutnick remarked that she had never been given or accepted an opportunity to not be reactive, referring to the fund’s support not only for 9/11 families, but also for victims of Superstorm Sandy, which ravaged the East Coast of America in 2012, and other large-scale emergencies.
According to Lee Ielpi, co-founder of the 9/11 Tribute Center, who lost his son, a firefighter, in the attack, said: “My gut feeling is if it wasn’t for Edie and her ability to speak from the heart, the World Trade Center site might not be as powerful as it is today.”
