For many of us, there was one book that affected us deeply at a very impressionable time in our lives, adolescence. This book both signaled the autumn of our innocence and spoke to us profoundly about the hopes and disillusionments of life to come. That book is Catcher in the Rye. Considered one of the best novels every written, the story of its reclusive yet genius author, J.D. Salinger, is still shrouded in mystery. Many people don't realize that Catcher in the Rye was the one and only novel Salinger ever published, that he lived the second half of his life in complete isolation, or that the cultish-popularity of its character, Holden Caulfield, was the twisted inspiration behind the murder of John Lennon and the assassination attempt of President Ronald Reagan.

Here is the remarkable story of J.D. Salinger and Catcher in the Rye;


Early life.

1. Jerome David Salinger was born January 1, 1919 in New York to a comfortably affluent family of European and Jewish descent.

2. He went to an elite private high school, where he was an average student, then New York University and later Colombia University later on.

3. He started calling himself “Jerry” in high school, while his family always called him “Sonny.”

4. In 1941, Salinger dated the young debutante Oona O’Neill, daughter of the famous playwright Eugene O’Neill. Salinger was head over heels in love but later on she abandon him for Charlie Chaplain. They got married, though he was her senior by many decades, Salinger was embarrassed and crushed.

5. In November of that same year, Salinger sold a story called “Slight Rebellion Off Madison,” to the New Yorker, which featured the character Holden Caulfield. However, it was shelved when the war broke out and editorial needs changed, and wouldn’t appear in the magazine until 1946, after the war. A few other stories featured Holden Caulfield, even 10 years before the Catcher in the Rye was published.

Wartime.

6. J.D. Salinger’s comfortable, safe, and predictable world was shattered when he was drafted into WW II in the spring of 1942, only a few months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

7. His first action was during the D-Day Invasion at Utah Beach.

8. He served all the way through to VE Day (Victory in Europe Day,) including fighting in the Battle of the Bulge and the Battle of Hürtgen Forest, where he saw the heaviest of combat and most of his units slaughtered.

9. Salinger actually started writing Catcher in the Rye as he served during the war, and he carried 6 chapters of the original manuscript with him as he rushed the beaches during D Day. He later said that the will to preserve those chapters is what kept him alive.

10. Friends of his from his unit always joked that they’d get nothing done when out on patrol because Salinger always insisted they pull over so he could write more of Catcher in the Rye.

11. The one and only photo of Salinger writing his only novel comes from while he was serving overseas in the war.

12. During his time fighting in WWII, he arranged a meeting with Ernest Hemingway, a big influence of his, who was working as a war correspondent. Hemingway was impressed with Salinger and his writing and they remained in correspondence.

13. In April 1945 as the Germans surrendered, Salinger’s unit liberated a Nazi concentration camp in Dachau. What he saw there changed him forever. He later told his daughter, "You never really get the smell of burning flesh out of your nose entirely, no matter how long you live."

14. He was sent to a psychiatric hospital after the war for combat stress reaction.

15. After the surrender, Salinger stayed in Germany for six months where he was assigned to work with the Counterintelligence Corp during the “Denazification” of the country.

Post-war.

16. In Germany after the war, he met a young woman named Sylvia Welter. Even though she was a former member of the Nazi party, they fell in love, were married, and she came accompanied him back to the U.S. But the marriage lasted only 8 months until it was annulled and Sylvia returned to Germany.

17. After the war, Salinger wrote with renewed gravity and determination. He was obsessed with the New Yorker Magazine and submitted numerous short stories to them, all to be rejected. He was published elsewhere but considered the New Yorker his manifest destiny.

18. He was finally published again by the New Yorker in 1948 when his story, “A Perfect Day for Bananfish,” was released after a year of editing. The story hit it big and Salinger was vaulted to national prominence.

19. In 1949, a movie version of his story, "Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut" was released, called “My Foolish Heart.” The movie was a flop and Salinger hated it, vowing never again to allow a film to be made from one of his stories.

Catcher in the Rye

20. Catcher in the Rye was released on July 16, 1951 by the publisher Little, Brown and Company.

21. It was an immediate success. Within two months it had been reprinted eight times, and Catcher spent 30 weeks on New York Times bestsellers list.

22. It was J.D. Salinger’s one and only published novel.

23. It’s been translated into all of the world’s major languages and sold around 65 million copies. It still sells about 250,000 copies per year, even 63 years after its release.

24. It’s considered one of the best American literature, along side “Of Mice and Men,” by John Steinbeck and “Huckleberry Finn,” by Mark Twain.

Backlash.

25. However, it’s attracted its fair share of criticism. In 1960, a teacher in Oklahoma was fired for teaching the book in his class. Between 1961 and 1982, the Catcher in the Rye was the most banned book in the U.S.

26. It’s been estimated that there are 237 uses of the word "goddam" in the book, 58 of "bastard," 31 of "Chrissake," and six of "fuck."

27. It also contained subject matter pertaining to sexuality, homosexuality, suicide, and defying authority. That was all extremely controversial subject matter for the 1950’s (and 1940’s, when it was written.)

28. In 1978, it was banned in high schools in Issaquah, Washington as part of an "overall communist plot.”

29. By 1981, it was both the second-most most taught book in U.S. public high schools and also the most banned book.

Reclusion

30. In 1953, Salinger moved from his apartment in New York City to a simple house on a mountain in Corning, New Hampshire, where he’d live the rest of his life.

31. Salinger lived in seclusion in Cornish, preferring a life of total privacy though he kept careful tabs on the outside world.

32. After the initial success and critical acclaim of Catcher in the Rye, the book’s popularity hit a lull in the late 1950’s. However, in the 1960’s the book experienced an explosive revival, as it became the manual of youth rebellion for the counterculture generation.

33. After that, he had many young readers, soul searchers, malcontents, voyeurs, photographers and reporters seek him out, though he unceremoniously dismissed almost all of them.  

34. Salinger became an avid follower of Buddhism, and later a practitioner of Zen Yoga, Hinduism, and even Dianetics.

35. While he lived in Cornish, he produced mostly short stories and some novellas, with the New Yorker Magazine holding a first-right of refusal for all his work.

36. He went through several relationships with much younger women, which usually ended in disaster as he treated them poorly and alienated them completely, preferring the solitude of his typewriter and the characters he created.

Dark days.

37. Salinger became a victim of his own fame as Catcher in the Rye reached iconic status. He withdrew more later in life as there was speculation he never fully recovered from his experiences during the war.

38. He dealt with numerous lawsuits to suppress unauthorized biographies, tell-all’s from past flames, and scathing memoirs, including one from his own daughter.

39. Producers in the movie business never stopped hounding him to make a big screen adaptation of Catcher in the Rye. Jerry Lewis was obsessed with playing the part of Holden Caulfield and over the years, Marlon Brando, Jack Nicholson, Tobey Maguire, and Leonardo DiCaprio all tried to make the film adaptation, though Salinger never wavered.

40. On December 8, 1980, Mark David Chapman gunned down John Lennon of the Beatles in front of the Dakota Hotel in New York City. At the crime scene, Chapman was found with a copy of Catcher in the Rye he’d bought that day. Inside was the inscription, "To Holden Caulfield, From Holden Caulfield, This is my statement." He later professed that he killed Lennon because of the book.

41. In 1981, John Hinckley, Jr.'s shot President Ronald Regan and others in his entourage. He stated that he attempted the assignation to impress actress Jodie Foster, who he was stalking. When they searched Hinckley’s apartment, they found a well-read copy of Catcher in the Rye.  

42. In 1989, Robert John Bardo stalked and then shot to death actress Rebecca Schaeffer at her Hollywood home. He was carrying a copy of Catcher in the Rye when he was arrested.

Later in life.

43. J.D. Salinger published his last original work in 1965 and gave his final interview in 1980.

44. On January 27, 2010, J.D. Salinger passed away of natural causes at his home in Cornish, New Hampshire.

45. But his story continues; in his will, Salinger left specific instructions to publish the bulk of his unreleased work on a timetable between 2015 and 2020. There is speculation that very well might include a follow up to Catcher in the Rye and Holden Caulfield. 

I've just started writing my next book, The Queens of Dragon Town, about my year in southeast Asia. No matter how many times I've done it, putting pen to paper to start writing a book is an intimidating undertaking. Frankly, it scares the shit out of me. So by trial and error, I've mapped out a 2-part process the makes the whole thing more manageable. Your process may be totally different, but I wanted to at least share it with you in case it helps . Good luck - and look out for the sharks.

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Part I

1. Brainstorm a list of details.
I make a master list of details – the little nuisances and idiosyncrasies that absolutely make the book. They can be anything; nicknames, events, sayings, food I ate, how the sun felt, what street I lived on, the mangy dog on the street, or just about any items of verisimilitude I’ve observed and remember about my story world. Those are pure gold and a whole storyline or the destiny of a character can change based on a few treasured details you remember. I open and save a Word document dedicated to this list of details, and one for each of these next steps. 

2. Separate the actions.
I separate out a list of the actions – things people are actually doing. Something needs to happen in your book, there needs to be movement and conflict and competition for limited resources, whether that’s money, power, survival, love, redemption, etc. Just like in life, nothing and no one stands still. As the author, your job is to essentially have 5 characters and 4 chairs and start playing some music as they circle around. Start and stop the music and document the chaos that ensues. By the way, 3 chairs for 5 characters is even better.

To make your story flow logically and smoothly, I like to set up a cause-and-effect chain. A happened so this character did B, which led to C and then D, etc. It will give cohesion to your plot.

3. Profile your characters.
I make a list of interesting, fun, picturesque, and very quirky human beings that are a part of my story. I document their values, their dreams, how they’ve been hurt, what they want, what’s holding them back from that, and take a lot of time with their flaws. I give them names and histories and mothers and fathers and funny sayings and nervous laughter and cracked teeth and mismatching shoelaces. Then, I scratch about half of them off the list because it’s only worth keeping essential characters. You’d rather have too few than too many but you can’t ever really have too few.

The rest of them could make appearances but keep it tight. Some of the best advice I’ve read is that your best and most interesting character should also be your hero, or main character.

One of the most important – and most forgotten – aspects of characterization is defining the character web. Put a lot of thought into how these characters live and breathe and act in relation to each other. That will bring out conflicts, problems, alliances, misunderstandings, love affairs, unlikely allies, and other relationships that add a level or richness and depth to your story.

4. Define each character's weakness and need.
All characters – but definitely main character and main opponent – should have well-defined needs and weaknesses. This is the genesis of all conflict and action that sets everything in motion throughout the story. They need something and also want something (sometimes they’re different,) and the whole story is the quest to achieve those goals, but something is holding them back – a moral or character weakness as well as external circumstances.

5. Plan the story timeline.
How will the story in the book proceed? Note that this isn’t a chronological list of how it all went down in real life. For instance, usually you don’t start a book at the very beginning and go step by step from there. Usually you start somewhere in the middle in the midst of a crazy and important scene, then catch the reader up with backstory, and then proceed until you come full circle and finally resolve (or not) the story. I write in critical junctures of the storyline like where it will jump off, where the reveals and surprises are lurking, where the battles and conflicts will occur, and finally the timing of epiphanies and moral decisions. Like everything, you’ll tinker with this. I use an Excel spreadsheet because it’s more conducive for moving things around and even mapping out simultaneous or overlapping storylines or events.

6. Map out a list of scenes.
Once you have your actions and story timeline mapped out, you can start filling in a list of the scenes. Remember that a good writer zooms in and zooms out – at times you’ll document the most intimate scenes between a few people in a very confined space and time, the reader hanging on their every guilty pause and bead of sweat on their brow. I think of these scenes so up close, personal, and isolated that it’s like writing about people stuck on an elevator. Other times, you’ll zoom out and assume a 10,000-foot high view to so you can see all the chess pieces on the board at once. These zoomed-out scenes are usually when summary or exposition occurs. They are necessary, but don’t have too many of them, and be careful about jumping too far ahead in time or you’ll lose the reader. By the way, most of the good stuff in your story will occur when your characters are stuck on the elevator.

7. Write the first line of the introduction and first chapter.
This is the fun part, crafting the knock out punch you’ll throw at the reader the moment they open your book and their eyes touch the page. But with that importance comes pressure - and far too many writers have written crappy first lines because they’re “trying too hard.” So I recommend have a separate Word document just with first lines for your introduction and your first chapter. Brainstorm, write different versions, try totally new alternatives, but never edit your work. If you do this throughout the whole writing process, you’ll know without a shadow of a doubt what your first lines should be when it comes time to put together a final manuscript. And I’m betting that a few of the opening lines you don’t use show up in the beginning of other chapters.

8. Who are the opponents?
This is where so many writers get it wrong and their stories become flat and unbelievable. In real life (non-fiction or well-written fiction) your opponents aren’t necessarily purely evil people, villains who sit around twirling their mustaches while plotting how to off nuns and baby seals. A good opponent is actually just like anyone else – just like the main character – with good qualities and lots of flaws and good reasons for doing things based on their past and often do bad things for good reasons. Make your opponents real and likeable by making them just as balanced and complete as human beings as your main characters. It’s just that they have different agendas – in fact, the only thing that makes them the main opponent in your book is that they’re in direct competition for the same goal as your hero! Or, they’re goal intersects and inhibits your hero. A good opponent could very well be the hero in someone else’s book.

9. Designate a narrator.
Who is telling the story? Will it be written in first person or third person? How omniscient or biased is the narrator? And are they the main character? (Usually.) How involved are they in story? What’s their relationship to the other characters?

10. Form a general premise.
How could you wrap up the theme of the story in a couple sentences?

11. Summarize.
When it comes to your story, crawl before you walk before you run. Writing 500 pages with grand, eloquent, and complex happenings will fall apart like a house of cards if you can’t identify the real foundation of the story. No – that’s too general – you need to carefully place your cornerstone, first. So I summarize my book in one sentence. I think about a couple in bed at night and the wife finish my book, closes it, takes off her reading glasses, put them both on her nightstand and turns off her reading lamp, turns to her husband and says, “That was a great book, it was about…” Whatever comes next is what you’re book is really about.

But once I have that one-sentence summary – that cornerstone – I can move on to a one-paragraph summary. And then a summary about one page long. After that, you’re just writing chapters.

12. Determine who knows what.
Of course you want a lot of things happening in your story, but that all doesn’t need to be new information. A fantastic way to enrich your plot is to map out what a particular character knows – or doesn’t know. Sometimes the most devious antagonists are just going off of incomplete or incorrect information – or protecting a secret. All of the action doesn’t have to be new occurrences; it can come in waves with revelations as past truths are put together like pieces of a puzzle. It’s fun as hell to see your characters absorb juicy new info and respond, accordingly.

13. Propose a moral argument.
What are you, the author, trying to say about the world with this story? If you don’t have a moral argument – a commentary on human existence that gives your work a greater meaning – then it’s not worth writing. But moral arguments don’t have to be (and shouldn‘t) be patronizing lessons wrapped up neatly with a bow. The author’s exploration of morality should be a conversation about two equal and opposing choices with no one clear, prescriptive answer. That’s preaching, not writing. As an extension of the author’s moral argument, the main character(s) will have to make difficult moral choices within the story.  

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Part II

Write. 
Write a lot.

And forget Part I, completely.

As I’m starting a book, I find it impossible to just begin at the beginning and start writing it all out from A to Z, especially if my head is ringing with mechanical thoughts of structure. My writing comes out completely contrived and lacks any authenticity as I try too hard. (Basically, it sucks.)

Instead, I journal. I have a Word document and I commit about one half of my dedicated morning writing time to this journaling. I start writing and I don’t stop. There’s no agenda or rules or structure – I just write whatever comes to mind in stream-of-consciousness form. I consider that no one will ever see this writing and none of it will be used in the actually book. I’m not allowed to stop or edit or erase anything. I journal about anything I want – the bird outside my window if that’s what’s on my mind – but usually my thoughts start circling around the storyline, like sharks circling a lone stranded swimmer. At first, it’s all excruciating. My ego and conscious mind want to take over the writing process and make sure its good and clean and makes sense, blah blah blah. But after a week of journaling, it gets easier to let go and just unburden my subconscious about everything and anything that has to do with the storyline. I document scenes, memories, smells, sounds of laughter, whole frivolous conversations. It becomes a pleasant form of self-hypnosis. The sharks start moving in, bearing their teeth.

I journal about the characters, writing about their lives and who they are, while comforting myself that 99% of it probably won’t appear in the book so there’s no pressure or judgment. But just by doing all this, there will be richness and depth to your story, like the reader only sees the tip of an iceberg though they know there is something far more monumental below the surface. You’ll start liking and even loving some of what you write. The rest of it? Who cares? You just won’t use it. You’ll feel free, arriving to the point where some of the phrases and descriptions and dialogue will probably be used later on in the book. And then whole scenes. And before you know it, one day you’ll look up and realize you’ve started your book. You’re actually doing it.

Now, you can forget everything about Part I and just write a damn story. I guarantee you that you’ll refer back to all of the structure of Part I to make sure the story works and you’re on track. But I also guarantee your story and even your characters will change drastically through the process of writing. That’s good. That’s how it should be. That’s how you know your story is coming from your heart, not just your head. The sharks have moved in for the kill and there's no stopping them until the thing is done. 


-Norm  :-)

This is a quick note to parents who have kids that are traveling abroad. I feel compelled to write it after seeing the news yesterday of two young British travelers brutally murdered on the island of Koh Tao in southern Thailand.

More specifically, if you have teens, young adults, or college-aged kids who are traveling in exotic and fun places like Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Cambodia, Thailand, Mexico, etc. Please pay attention for a quick moment because this tip is fundamental to keeping them safe.

First off, please understand that your kids are going to go wild. They’re going to drink and smoke and maybe do ecstasy or MDMA or Molly or whatever crappy new drugs kids are doing these days. They’re going to dance all night and hang out with sketchy people and ride motos around without helmets and jump off of cliffs into the ocean and get bad tattoos and probably have cheap sex more often than not. 

Those are the predilections and impulses of young adults so there’s no use fighting it (and don’t pretend we didn’t do the same things - or worse.) But aside from the obvious, common sense stuff – like don’t get caught with drugs and don’t walk around loaded in dark alleys at 4am, there’s one thing you should implore them, no – plead with them, to understand. Following this advice could be the difference between life and death, as this is where the vast majority of assaults, murders, and even rapes of travelers take place:   

Stay off the beaches late at night.

Why? From what I’ve seen, (and I’ve traveled a fair bit) the vast majority of serious harm towards foreigners occurs late at night on the beaches. This isn’t the kind of harm you can put a Band Aid on – this is the stuff that keeps you up at night worrying, the phone call in the middle of the night that shatters your world, your worst nightmare. Travelers – especially young travelers – are too often naïve and oblivious to their surroundings. They’re drunk and having the time of their lives with their friends, swept away in the perfect moment. They think they’re in a tropical paradise where everything is beautiful and fun, but too often completely oblivious to what’s really happening.

There are people waiting for them on the beach. Thieves and muggers and violent gangs and bad people ready to do bad things. And your kids are such easy targets, stumbling around drunk and alone in the dark. These gangs of people with bad intentions – impoverished, wild, and probably on drugs themselves – go to those area specifically because they know they’ll be drunk tourists stumbling around. They’re hunting your children. Or sometimes, robberies or attacks aren’t that orchestrated. But either way, on the beach it’s pitch black, there’s no one around, and the police or anyone who can help are so far away they might as well not exist. The romantic moonlight walk on the beach by a couple of travelers can very quickly turn into something that will ruin their lives. 

Now I’m not saying that all people are bad in these countries or something will always happen on the beach late at night. Not at all. Most people have wonderful experiences when traveling without any incident. And I’d caution people to stay aware and be safe in their home countries of United States or Canada or Australia or England as well, where these kinds of things happen nightly. I’m only compelling people to be aware of their surroundings and exercise common sense, because for some reason, travelers view the beach at night as beautiful safe havens, not dark alleys.

Of course there are times it’s perfectly safe to go onto the beach at night – when they stay within sight of the established hotels, bars, and tourist areas. And they should always go out at night or to the beach in a large group. Befriend locals. Tell people where you are going before you head out there. Leave a copy of your passport with your hotel and tell them every night where you are headed and with whom. 

Maybe I’m just being over cautious. I certainly hope so. Your kids will probably roll their eyes and dismiss your warnings as nagging parental paranoia. But show them this newspaper write up about the British kids who were just brutally slain on the beach at night in Thailand. And let them read this article I wrote about staying safe while traveling abroad. And if you think they’re still going to be reckless and foolhardy, I’ll forward you the horrific and graphic photos of those two kids. Unfortunately, someone emailed them to me. They made me sick to my stomach and kept me up all last night. 

Please hit me up if you have any other questions about traveling, as it’s definitely something I encourage that will also change their lives for the better. 

-Norm   :-)

On September 11, 2001, two planes hit the World Trade Center towers in New York City, another crashed into the Pentagon, and a fourth hijacked plane went down in a field in Pennsylvania en route to the White House. The world as we know it changed that day, as the horrible images of destruction and devastating losses of life will never be forgotten. Every year since 2001, September 11 is a day of remembrance, mourning, and national pride for the many people who lost their lives that day. 

To honor 9/11, we present 25 Facts about 9/11 you probably didn't know. It's important to distinguish that while there are many conspiracy theories and far-flung claims about the events that day, we stuck to verifiable facts from sites like CNN, the New York Times, Wikipedia, the UK Guardian, etc.

1. September 11, 2001 resulted in the largest loss of life from a foreign attack on American soil, far more than Pearl Harbor.

2. A total of 18 people were rescued alive from the rubble after the World Trade Center collapse.

3. After the first plane hit Building 1 of the World Trade Center, employees in building 2 were instructed to stay in the building – not evacuate. The New York City fire evacuation procedures called for evacuations only of those floors directly adjacent to a fire.

4. Video accounts of the World Trade Center attacks were aired on news stations all around the world almost instantly. However, video footage of the Pentagon attack wasn’t released to the public until 2006, 5 years later.

5. On the average day, about 50,000 people worked in the WTC towers and another 40,000 would come and go through the building complex.

6. Many people forget that the 9/11 wasn’t the first time terrorist target the World Trade Center. In 1993, a car bomb exploded, killing 6 people. 

7. Of the casualties resulting from the WTC attacks on9/11, 343 were New York City firefighters, 23 New York City police officers, and 37 officers at the Port Authority. As others ran away, these brave men and women ran into the buildings.

8. Few people realize that another World Trade Center collapsed that day, not just the Twin Towers. In fact, Building 7 of the WTC complex fell later that afternoon. It was not publicized and a lot of information was not shared with the public. It was concluded that the structure came down because of fire damage. Reportedly, never in the history of construction has steel melted to the point of collapse due to a fire.  The structural failure of construction-grade steel is 90% at 800° C (1432°F).

9. Every Tuesday morning, NYC Mayor Rudolph Giuliani had a recurring meeting on the 23rdfloor of the WTC building 7. His meeting the morning of 9/11 was cancelled just a few hours earlier.

10. Likewise, President Bush’s cousin, Jim Pierce, was slated to attend a conference that morning on the 105th floor of the South Tower. But the group was too large so the conference was moved at the last minute to the Millennium Hotel across the street.

11. There were plenty of warnings about 9/11, including that received by San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, who is on record saying he received a warning late Monday evening from airport security, telling him not to fly.

12. The death toll for the 9/11 attacks rose for years, even after all of the rubble was cleared and all of the bodies exhumed. That’s because there were a handful of subsequent deaths due to dust exposure, smoke inhalation, lymphoma, and other lung diseases caused by the attacks, all ruled homicides.

13. To date, only 1,632 victims have been identified, leaving as many as 1,121 unidentified.

14. The Victims Compensation Fund was set up almost immediately after 9/11, operating from December 2001 to 2003. The VCF received 7,408 applications for personal injury and death claims, awarding funds in 5,560 of those cases.

15. Ten years after the attack, on January 2, 2011, President Obama signed the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act of 2010, empowering the scope and work of the original VCF to help more victims.

16. The economic loss due to the attacks is staggering. It’s estimated that the price tag comes to $123 billion, including lost wages and suspended commerce during the 2-4 weeks immediately after the attacks, decline in air travel over the next few years, etc. Other price tags from 9/11 include the $60 billion cost from WTC site damage, including damage to surrounding buildings, infrastructure and subway facilities, $40 billion to fund the emergency anti-terrorism package approved by Congress in 2001, $15 billion aid to the airlines, and $9.3 in insurance claim payouts.

17. To clean up the WTC site, it took 3.1 million man-hours and $750 million, clearing 1.8 million tons of wreckage.

18. The Homeland Security Advisory System was introduced on March 12, 2002 to monitor and caution the public to terrorism threats. The color-coded system includes (in ascending order) green, blue, yellow, orange, and red threat levels. It has never been below yellow since 2001 but it was raised to orange five times and red once, in 2006, when flights from the UK to the United States expected an imminent attack.

19. Exactly nine months after 9/11, the birthrate at New York City hospitals was 20% higher than the same month in 2000. It’s reported that alcohol consumption in New York City rose 25% the week after 9/11 compared to the previous year. Church and synagogue attendance was up 20% as well.

20. There are many stories of bravery and humanity coming out of the attack that day, but one of the most touching is that of Michael Hingson and his dog, Roselle. Hingson, who is blind, was in the North Tower that day with his guide dog, a yellow lab. When the plane hit, Roselle led her owner down 78 stories of stars, out to the street, and down to a friend’s house to safety.

21. New York City fire fighters couldn’t extinguish all the fires caused by the 9/11attack for 100 days.

22. At Princeton University, a computer-generated algorithm program called the Random Event Generator predicted a “cataclysmic event was about to unfold.” That was three hours before the attack.

23. The week after the 9/11 attacks, the top searches on Google were: 1) Osama bin Laden; 2) The World Trade Center; 3) CNN; and 4) Nostradamus.

24. Cantor Fitzgerald is a financial services firm that operated out of WTC and lost 658 employees that day. Since then, they’ve dedicated the proceeds from their efforts every September 11 to world wide charities, raising upwards of $101 million for good causes and honoring their fallen comrades. 

25. There is a growing movement to make 9/11 a national holiday, serving as a day of remembrance and tribute the victims and honoring those who sacrificed their lives to save others. It is currently designated as a Day of Remembrance, not a national holiday, similar to Pearl Harbor Day on December 7.

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Please note; I originally wrote and posted this article for the Alfano Real Estate Group blog.