Greg Duffy

Post date: Apr 27, 2011 9:37:12 PM

In the ten years after graduation, I graduated from college, attended business school, took my first job in the newly completed World Trade Towers, left after a year, went across the street and started a 22 year stint at Bankers Trust. In 1981 I was working and living in London when Prince Charles wed Lady Diana Spencer. Now Prince William, their son, is set to marry and reprise the pomp and pageantry of his parents’ wedding, thirty years later.

Rolling forward another 10 years to 1991 and I am married for six years to the bridesmaid I was paired with at Mark Beckenbach's wedding. My wife Toni and I have a 2 year old daughter (Katie) and her sister (Haley) is born in June of that year. On the world stage, the first Gulf War in Iraq is fought, and although the war is successfully waged, our military involvement in the Middle East is only just beginning.

Another ten years on and the events of 9/11/2001 are seared into our collective memory. I was in the South tower (2 WTC) the day before and would have been there on 9/11 except that I decided not to go into the city, and work from home. All of the people with whom I shared the office on the 22nd floor were safely evacuated, and thus I too would have escaped the worst. Even so, I am still grateful I lucked out of my Forest Gump moment as an eye witness to, and coincidental participant in, a watershed event in American history.

A decade later, we are in 2011 and while only four months in, the year has already seen the turmoil in the Middle East, (Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Syria) and the human and environmental tragedy resulting from the earthquake and tsunami which struck Japan in the middle of March. Personally, I have moved on from 9/11 having started my own investment advisory business. I no longer commute to lower Manhattan as the world I knew there no longer exists. The twin towers and the Bankers Trust building which later became known as the Deutsche Bank building have been eradicated from the lower Manhattan skyline.

Across the Hudson, the Newark skyline rises up amid the smoke stacks, trestles and super structures of highways, skyways and railways, and while barely discernable, the row of buildings which house the classrooms, the Abbey and the “Hive” as we all know it, stand intact after nearly 150 years.

I still remember the first day in September 1967 walking up Branford Place past buildings gutted by fire during the riots just a few months prior, turning onto High Street walking past the corner building where LeRoi Jones had a store front office. As I approached the newer building, I saw what looked like a fellow freshman (nobody else was wearing a jacket and tie) looking equally ill at ease as I. Approaching me, he flashed that trademark grin albeit nervously and said something………it was John Anderson.

After 40 years much in my life has changed, mostly for the better, and mostly because of, my better half, although there have been losses (family, friends, classmates, places, not to mention some innocence, illusions and idealism) along the way too. But like the buildings on High Street, the spirit of SBP, the shared memories, the lifelong friends and influences endure. What has not changed for me is simply this: I consider myself very lucky and proud to be….a buzzing, stinging (and yes, graying) Gray Bee ‘71.