Survivor Launches Marriott WTC Survivors' Web site

Joyce Ng, a 29-year-old software engineer whose escape from the Marriott WTC was one of the first accounts posted on NABE’s 9/11 page, has launched the Marriott WTC Survivors Web site. www.Sept11marriottsurvivors.org

Ng created her site as a place where survivors and families from the “forgotten” building can share their stories and learn more about what happened at the Marriott on Sept. 11, 2001. “There is a plethora of information about the twin towers but hardly anything about the Marriott,” she said. “The Marriott had its own personality.

Ng, of Framingham, Mass., said she enjoys reading others’ stories. She searched the web for survivor stories and sent her own story to NABE, where it was posted along with members’ stories. “It’s very healing for all of us to share the experience of that terrible day. We wonder how others got out. Who was that person who helped me?”

A visitor to the site, writing in the guest book, applauded her for “giving total strangers that became family on that day a chance to regain contact with each other.”

Ng’s site includes a 9/11 timeline, information about the Marriott, survivors’ stories, and a series of dramatic pictures and hotel memorabilia. “I’ve been overwhelmed by the interest in the site,” she said in a telephone interview. A story about Ng and the site appeared in the Sept. 10 Boston Herald and she was interviewed by a TV station. Survivors are invited to submit their stories to Story@sept11marriottsurvivors.org

Casualties at the Marriott

The number of people who died at the Marriott is unclear. The New York Times, which produced the most comprehensive article (Sept. 11, 2002) about the Marriott, its role as an escape portal and the efforts of employees to clear the building, estimated that “no fewer than 50 people inside the hotel were killed” and that at least 41 of those were firefighters. Two were hotel employees: Joseph Keller, the hotel’s executive housekeeper who guided “scores of people out of the hotel,” and Abdul A. Malahi, a Yemeni national who worked as an audiovisual engineer for the hotel and was assigned to the NABE meeting.

Among the guests who died was Jim Cleere of Des Moines. He was in New York for a business meeting and was a guest on the 15th floor of the hotel, according to his wife, Jean Cleere.

Jean Cleere and Jan Cleere Peavy, Jim’s sister, emailed NABE recently, asking if any NABE members remember encountering Jim. Jean Cleere spoke to her husband on Sept. 11 and knew that he got to the lobby, had injured his leg and that firemen were tending to his injury. Jan Cleere Peavy, who said the NABE 9/11 stories helped her immensely, wrote that her brother was lost when the second tower fell.

Jean Cleere has many unanswered questions and hopes NABE can help: “The one thing I can’t seem to find out is what happened in the Marriott,” she wrote. “Would any of your members be willing to share with me the details of what occurred inside the Marriott? ….Did the fire alarms go off? Were guests told to get out?…ANYTHING that they could share with me would be helpful to me. I need to know what happened that morning!” Jean Cleere can be reached at jcleere@iowatelecom.net; Jan Cleere Peavy at JANCPV@aol.com.