A note: The following piece was originally published by the Shoreview Press on 9/8/2026 and republished here with the permission of the author, Brooke Hennessey.
Twenty-five years ago, Brooke Hennessey (neé Bushman) '03 (BFA, Drama) was an NYU Tisch student living just blocks from the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan when the events of Sept. 11, 2001, changed her life forever. Today, Hennessey calls White Bear Lake home, where she lives with her husband, Joe, and their two sons.
A graduate of New York University Tisch School of the Arts, Hennessey built a career in the wine industry and has worked as a professional voice-over actor for more than a decade. But her most enduring connection to that September morning is a story she has carried with her for 25 years. It’s a story of survival, survivor’s guilt, resilience and, ultimately, healing. As the 25th anniversary of 9/11 approaches, Hennessey reflects on what it meant to live through that day as a young New Yorker and what it means now to tell that story to a new generation.
"That’s what I believe about 9/11. That’s what I believe about all moments that shake the world. We must tell our stories. Even the painful ones. Especially the painful ones. Because when we don’t talk about what we survived, the memories don’t disappear, they bury themselves deeper. And the people who lived the stories vanish twice."
My story
The smell of banana bread. That’s what my childhood smelled like. I grew up in a home my father built with his own two hands … every wall measured, every nail pounded in on his weekends and evenings after work. My mother filled that house with warmth, with love, and with the scent of something always baking in the oven.
My family is very close. Growing up, I had this unshakable confidence …this feeling that the world was wide open and that I knew exactly who I wanted to be. Since I was a little girl, I loved stories. I’d get lost in watching “Annie” and would lock myself in my walk-in closet and sing. I would create characters and practice them in front of the mirror. So, when I told my parents I wanted to sing and be an actress, they didn’t laugh. They just nodded, the way parents do … thinking I’d probably grow out of it. But I never did.
At 17, I booked my first feature film, “Drop Dead Gorgeous.” I was a junior in high school, standing on a set next to some of the biggest names in Hollywood, thinking, this is where I belong. When I got accepted to my dream school, NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, I thought the universe had laid out the red carpet.
In the fall of 2001, I had just started my junior year at NYU. I was living on the 22nd floor of a building on Water Street, just blocks from the World Trade Center. On the morning of Tuesday, Sept. 11, I woke up at 6 a.m. to do laundry. I planned to go for a run but for some reason, decided to crawl back into bed. Not long after, my phone rang. It was my friend Greg. He lived in the same building.
He said, “Look out the window and turn on the TV. I’m coming up to get you.” I walked to my window; it faced north and saw the first tower engulfed in clouds of smoke. On the television, anchors’ voices cracked as they tried to make sense of what none of us could believe. Greg arrived, and we stood there together, watching in silence. I remember whispering, “It’s going to fall.” And moments later, it did. At that point, I knew everyone was dead. It was the closest thing to being on a battlefield, without enlisting.
The building we were in shook. Everything went black. Smoke and rubble rushed toward us, and blew our industrial windows open. Alarms blared. I grabbed my keys, my cell phone, and a fifty-dollar bill. I ran down 22 flights of stairs in flip-flops past students screaming, “Get out!” Campus security was tearing bed sheets into strips and dipping them in water, handing them out. “Put this over your mouth and walk north or over the Brooklyn Bridge.” I pressed that damp sheet to my face. People wandered aimlessly, holding cell phones in the air, trying to find service. We clustered around parked cars, listening to the radio for direction that never came.
We decided to walk north. I didn’t know anyone in Brooklyn, and I was panicked. I was in my pajamas, clutching my phone and my keys. As we walked, we passed Chinatown, Little Italy, and Soho. The smell of gas hung in the air, sharp and terrifying. The collapse of the WTC had set off explosions throughout the city. People were panicked and started pushing one another. I didn’t know which direction to run and was scared to run into one of those explosions.
Then I remembered I had my keys to the tanning salon on Bleeker Street where I worked in Greenwich Village. That small thought, “I have keys,” felt like a lifeline. I sprinted through the streets, fumbling with my keys, banging on the door. The owner, James, let me in. And for that moment, I felt safe. That salon became my shelter. Over the next week, I floated from place to place, trying to find somewhere to sleep. Nyack, Chinatown, a dorm room, a couch, sometimes a tanning bed. I made a blanket out of hand towels and mailing tape in the tanning salon. It was heavy, and it was warm. I borrowed clothes from friends.
My parents were desperate to reach me, but no one could get in or out of Manhattan. They asked what I needed. I said, “Sneakers.” That might sound strange, but jogging was the only thing that made me feel human again. They mailed me care packages with sneakers and snacks, and I held onto that $50 bill for dear life. I didn’t know when I was going to return to my dorm room, so I didn’t want to spend my cash. I would walk to Radio Shack and ask to use a phone charger to charge up my phone for the day.
When NYU finally found us housing at the Sheraton Hotel in Times Square, it felt surreal. A full week had gone by. They gave us $300 to buy clothes, which does not buy you much in Manhattan. The weather was turning cold too, and I needed warm clothes. For a while, the Sheraton became home. I became friends with the concierge behind the desk, and they allowed me to access the continental breakfast. So, I would run in the gym every morning just to outrun the anxiety. I’d head up to the breakfast, eat and then take the complimentary apples and oranges from breakfast. I would grab a New York Times, roll it up and stuff the newspaper full of fruit, and that’s what I ate for the remainder of the day. It wasn’t glamorous. It wasn’t brave. It was survival.
Have you ever gone through something that changed you? Something that split your life in two before and after? For me, 9/11 was that line. I started to second-guess everything. I was sitting at my dream school in acting studio and contemplating the meaning of life. How was I sitting in class memorizing a monologue, when New Yorkers were digging through rubble looking for bodies? It felt foolish. I was so depressed and felt like I wasn’t deserving of feeling that way because I was fine.
When I finally returned to my apartment weeks later, I found my laundry still hanging on the drying rack, my computer still on my desk, but some things were missing. Cash. Jewelry. My camera. The environmentalist that was sent to clean out our refrigerators and check for asbestos had looted us.
I remember riding the subway again for the first time under the WTC. The train was silent. Everyone just stared straight ahead. You could feel the grief in the air. When firefighters got on, they smelled of burnt rubber. I wondered who they’d lost that day, what they’d seen, what they’d carried home in their hearts. The subway walls were plastered with missing person posters, thousands of them. Faces of mothers, fathers, sons, daughters. There wasn’t enough wall space for all the people who never came home.
When I left New York that Christmas, I looked out the taxi window as we crossed the Brooklyn Bridge, and I sobbed. The skyline was broken. The world I loved was changed forever. For a long time, I didn’t talk about it. When people asked, I’d change the subject. I told myself, “You weren’t in the towers. You’re fine. You have no right to be sad.” But inside, I wasn’t fine. I carried this quiet guilt, for surviving when so many didn’t.
There’s a name for that … survivor’s remorse. It’s a symptom of PTSD, but back then, I didn’t know that. I just thought I needed to “get over it.” If you’ve ever felt that, the guilt of being okay when others aren’t, please hear me: it doesn’t mean you’re broken. It means you’re human. For years, I pushed everything down. I didn’t want to burden anyone. I didn’t want to be broken or a victim. I wanted to keep moving, keep achieving, keep performing. But silence is heavy. It sits on your chest. It steals your breath. And for a long time, that silence was my companion.
You know, people talk a lot about PTSD, and thank God we talk about it more now. But what we don’t talk about enough is the quiet version … the version where you get up every day, go to work, smile and carry a weight no one can see. Millions carry their story alone. I was one of them. But here’s the beautiful part of my story… The part where life, in its strange and winding way, brings you back to yourself.
Before 9/11 … before the chaos, before the fear, before the numbness that followed, I was an actress. A storyteller. A girl with unstoppable confidence, BIG dreams and a fire to bring characters to life.
And even though my path was derailed, even though trauma knocked me sideways, that little girl with the loud voice and the big dream never fully went away. Today, I am a wine professional and voice-over actress. Both allow me to tell stories for a living. It reminded me that even broken voices can speak truth. Even shaken voices can carry power.
Even quiet voices deserve to be heard.
My grandfather was a World War II veteran. Growing up, I remember the way he told his stories, not to glorify, not to dramatize, but to remember. To honor the people who didn’t come home.
To pass truth down to the next generation. To make sure nothing important was ever forgotten.
That’s what I believe about 9/11. That’s what I believe about all moments that shake the world. We must tell our stories. Even the painful ones. Especially the painful ones. Because when we don’t talk about what we survived, the memories don’t disappear, they bury themselves deeper. And the people who lived the stories vanish twice.
When my oldest son turned 6, I sat him down and shared my story. He listened and then said, “So I might not have been here today.” That response was unexpected but very true. How wise he was in his younger years.
Every year on the anniversary of 9/11, we hear people say: “Everyone remembers where they were when the towers fell.” And I believe the anniversary is a day for ALL of us, survivors, witnesses, the entire country to tell that story. To pass it down to our children. To share it with the next generation, so they understand the weight, the resilience, the unity that came after.
We honor by remembering. We heal by speaking. We connect by sharing our stories in honor of the mothers, fathers, sons, daughters who vanished. The first responders who ran toward danger.
The firefighters who climbed stairs they knew they might never climb down. The police officers, EMTs, volunteers and everyday heroes. The people we never got to meet, but who remain part of who we are as a nation. May their courage and their memory continue to guide us.
If there is one thing I want you to take away from my story, it’s this … You don’t have to earn your pain. You don’t have to compare it. You don’t have to justify it. You don’t need permission to feel it or to heal from it. Trauma looks different on everyone. But healing begins the same way, with a single, brave decision to speak.
For years, I believed I wasn’t “worthy” of being sad. I believed others had lost more, suffered more. But pain is not a competition. And surviving does not make you weak. It makes you responsible. Responsible to live, to honor, to speak, and to share the truth of what you’ve been through. Telling my story today is part of my healing and part of my purpose. Part of how I honor those who didn’t get the chance to speak for themselves. If sharing my story helps even one person feel seen, feel understood, feel less alone, then it’s a win.
So, I ask you: What story have you been afraid to tell? What truth have you carried alone?
Who in your life needs to hear it? To learn from it? To feel less alone because of it? Because your story, just like mine, is part of someone else’s survival.
Brooke Hennessey has called White Bear Lake home for the past 15 years, where she lives with her husband, Joe, and their two sons, Hawkins, 12, and Hanks, 6. A proud hockey mom, Hennessey has also worked as a professional voice-over actor for 13 years and has spent her career in the wine industry, currently representing Crimson Wine Group. To learn more about Brooke and her voiceover work, visit BrookeVoice.com.