In remembrance of the fateful day 20 years ago, Jiri Boudnik, a Czech-American architect and author of the book Towers – 9/11 Story, will share his first-hand experiences at Ground Zero.
On the morning of September 11, 2001, Jiri Boudnik wanted to warn rescue teams of a potential collapse of the World Trade Center Towers. Crossing the Brooklyn Bridge on foot, he reached the World Trade Center site too late. In the early hours of the next day, he helped recover bodies and began surveying surrounding buildings for collateral damage. Within days, Boudnik started developing a series of 3D physical models of the ‘aftermath’ World Trade Center site as a communication tool for all the rescue and recovery teams involved.
As a form of a PTSD therapy, he wrote the book Towers – 9/11 Story, recently published as an audiobook narrated by Daniel Hauck and including the voice of an FDNY fireman, Tiernach Cassidy, who saved thirteen survivors out of the Towers' debris.
Watch: Unsung heroes-ABC News-September 11, 2002. 9/11 from within. Jiri Boudnik and Michael Bellone, two volunteers at Ground Zero, the WTC site after the collapse of the Twin Towers. Their work protected lives during the rescue and recovery as well as the debris removal process. ABC News has produced this piece called UNSUNG HEROES, introduced by Peter Jennings and produced by Michele Norris in 2002, for the first anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York.
Jiri Boudnik, born in Pilsen, emigrated from the Communist Czechoslovakia in 1987, just turned seventeen, with his mother and ten years old sister. They arrived in the USA in 1989. Jiri was educated first as an artist at the Munson Williams Proctor School of Art in Utica, NY, and later transferred to The Cooper Union in Manhattan, where he received his degree in architecture. He later worked as a structural engineer and architect on many New York high-rise buildings, including NYU Palladium and the Federal Courthouse in Brooklyn. Since then, Boudnik has worked as an architect, specializing in high-rise residential buildings in Manhattan. He has recently relocated to Pilsen, Czech Republic, working as an architect and a designer for Czech and American clients, keeping close ties to New York, his second home.
The talk will be livestreamed on Zoom. RSVP through Eventbrite to receive the Zoom link.
Free and open to the public. Suggested donation $5.
This event is organized by the Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences, New York Chapter, with support of Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Association (BBLA).