The Loss of a True Leader
John C. Whitehead, Founding Chairman of the 9/11 Memorial & Museum, has died at age 92.
“In the wake of 9/11, amidst devastation and loss, our great city and nation needed a true leader to help guide the recovery and revitalization of lower Manhattan. We were blessed to have John take on that charge,” said 9/11 Memorial President and CEO Joe Daniels. “Every one of us at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum is deeply saddened by the loss of our Founding Chairman.”
Bloomberg.com chronicled Whitehead’s remarkable career, including a look at his work on the World Trade Center site:
“As point man until 2006 for Lower Manhattan’s recovery, Whitehead helped guide rebuilding at Ground Zero, waging a rocky effort to include a memorial and museum at the site. He also oversaw efforts to lure companies, residents and cultural institutions back downtown. ‘The new Lower Manhattan will not operate just at the hours of the Stock Exchange, but around the clock, seven days a week,’ Whitehead wrote. ‘It will be thriving and vibrant, just like the rest of this city I love.’”
Find additional photos, information and an oral history from Whitehead here.
By Anthony Guido, 9/11 Memorial Director of Communications
The 9/11 Memorial Museum will hold a new program on the first Saturday of each month in which children will have the opportunity to interact with Chance, a trained disaster relief canine, and his handler and certified trauma responder, Frank Shane.
Ellen Karas, who was working in the U.S. embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, when al-Qaeda bombed the facility in 1998, shared her experiences during a talk at the 9/11 Memorial Museum on Feb. 6, 2015.