Every Sept 11th I post these 'missing person' fliers.
Danny Lewin’s brilliant but brief life is largely unknown because, until now, those closest to him have guarded their memories and quietly mourned their loss.
This year I'd like to highlight the extraordinary life of Daniel Lewin, who was very likely the first person to die on September 11th. The above quote is from the biography
No Better Time: The Brief, Remarkable Life of Danny Lewin, the Genius Who Transformed the Internet by Molly Knight Raskin
He went down fighting By Judy Maltz Nov. 11, 2011 | 10:34 AM
The first boy in his neighborhood to own an Apple II home computer, Lewin later distinguished himself by rising to the rank of captain in Israel's elite Sayeret Matkal commando unit after immigrating with his family. He eventually went on to invent, along with his professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an algorithm that revolutionized how content is delivered over the Internet, which helped him become one of the world's richest high-tech entrepreneurs before he was even 30.
CNN: Lewin was sitting in seat 9B. With his Israeli military training and understanding of Arabic, he may have figured out what was going on, perhaps even tried to stop it. According to flight attendants' calls relayed to authorities on the ground, the first passenger to be killed was seated in 9B. He was stabbed to death.
Marco Greenberg, one of Lewin's closest friends, described meeting Danny:
Sixteen-year-old Lewin had moved to Israel two years earlier with his parents, Charles and Peggy, both doctors, and his two younger brothers, Michael and Yonatan. "I saw this kid in the corner squatting 300 pounds, and I could just see that this was a superstar," he said. "Only later did I discover that he was a genius as well. Just for the fun of it, he decided to take his SATs and PSATs, and got perfect scores on both."
-snip-
Although he was chief technology officer at Akamai and effectively ran the company, said Netzer, Lewin remained a kid at heart. "If he saw you in the corridors, he'd give you a nice whack on the shoulder, or if you happened to be sitting down, he'd give you a kick in the thigh and expect you to come running after him and wrestle him," he said.
source
Danny's memorial page in the New York Times on Sept 13, 2001, illustrates that his extraordinary innovation has, in fact, changed the world:
Daniel Lewin, Technology Executive, 31
By SETH SCHIESEL Published: September 13, 2001
Using technology and algorithms developed by Mr. Lewin and others, Akamai devised one of the most efficient systems for accelerating the delivery of Internet information, especially Web pages. When a company becomes an Akamai customer, Akamai generally distributes significant information for the client's Web pages to a network of server computers around the nation.
Then, when a user tries to view one of the client's Web pages, the information can be sent from a server closer to the user's location rather than from a central point that could be on the other side of the continent. Such a setup can allow the client to save on overall server capacity while also delivering Web pages to users more quickly. Akamai has counted Apple, BestBuy.com, Nasdaq and Novartis among its customers.
He met his wife Anne in Israel after she immigrated from Belgium. She still lives in Massachusettes with their two sons, Eitan and Itamar.
Photo above taken from the 14th floor of the Transportation Building, Sept 28, 2001.
Most photos here are the flyers from St Vincent's Hospital in late Sept 2001. Note: The flyers have been photoshopped to hide phone numbers and email addresses.
[UPDATE]
Like St. Vincent’s Itself, Missing Wall Means Much
The 9/11 fliers are now preserved in plastic and arranged alphabetically, from Terence E. Adderley Jr. to Ken Zelman, in four loose-leaf binders. Copies were made for future display at a center for 9/11 families that is to be part of the memorial and museum being built at ground zero.
The binders are in storage, emerging rarely save for one day a year. “We have a memorial Mass every Sept. 11 in the chapel, and we bring the books there,” Sister Kevin said. “We let people look through them, and then we take them back” — out of sight but never out of mind.
Inside the Polo Ralph Loren store on Broadway, Sept 2001.