Telling Time in a New York Minute

"New York Minute" 

Don Henley

Middletown Township, New Jersey had thirty-seven of its sons and daughters killed on September 11, 2001.  Thirty-seven.   An eerie symbol of the loss was seen in the parking lot of the train station, where dozens of residents who had parked a car there that morning to catch the train into Manhattan, where they worked, never returned to hop into the car for the drive home to their family. 

Two of the thirty-seven were members of the Lang family. 

Rosanne Lang, 42, was the only daughter in a family of twelve siblings from Brooklyn, New York.  Six brothers preceded her.  Five followed her.   Marriage took her west, to Los Angeles, California, with her infant son, Michael.  Divorce brought her home to the east coast where she, like a great many members of her family, settled in Middletown Township, raising Michael as a single mother and forging a successful career at Cantor Fitzgerald as an equities trader.  

Her oldest brother, William, summed up his sister beautifully, "Rosanne was a self-made, successful woman.  She was this amazing woman, always smiling."  His only sister, forever his little sister, was his "princess".  Her son, Michael, was just seventeen at the time of his mom's death.  

As if it is not cruel enough for a family to lose one loved one to the deliberate machinations of murderous cowards, on September 11, 2001, the Lang family was unnecessarily punished.  Brendan Lang, thirty years young, and recently married, also died that morning at the World Trade Center.  Brendan Lang was William's son. 

Brendan Lang was a construction manager for Structure Tone and was doing work at the World Trade Center that morning.  After the first plane struck the North Tower, where he aunt Rosanne worked, he telephoned his parents to tell them what had happened and that he had a plan.  It is the family's belief that knowing his Aunt Rosanne was in her office in the North Tower, when Brendan hung up with his parents, he made it his mission to go help his aunt.  Neither of them made it out of the North Tower.  Brendan Lang's wife, Sandy, survived him.  

In a New York minute, everything can change.  Sometimes it does in the most tragic of ways.