When the Planes Hit on 9/11, a World Trade Center Daycare Was in the Middle of Drop-Off. Its Story Hasn’t Been Told Until Now.

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At 8:46 a.m., when Flight 11 hit the north tower, the daycare was filling up.

On that morning of Sept. 11, 2001, children and and teachers were in the middle of drop-off at Children’s Discovery Center, a daycare in building five of the World Trade Center. A couple minutes’ walk across the plaza from the 110-story Twin Towers, the center was a second home of sorts, a nurturing and loving environment where young children were eager to return every morning. But on that late-summer day, as the towers collapsed, airplane parts fell on their building, crushing the roof, causing severe fire and structural damage. The story of the teachers and children who were there that day has not been fully reported—until now, when, for a documentary produced by Retro Report , I tracked down as many of them as I could.

Prior to the first plane hitting, teacher Tara Jones was busy getting several toddlers to sit down to breakfast. A usual day might have included a trip out to the World Trade Center Plaza for fresh air. A little later in the day, and the children might have been there when the attack happened. But the morning had just begun when a sudden loud noise reverberated throughout the area. Jones remembers a “swooshing” sound, perhaps the plane approaching before impact.

When she and her colleagues looked out the windows, which faced west and not toward the towers, they saw a scene of chaos. They saw people running frantically in every direction and workers covering their heads with briefcases, their faces contorted with fear.

When a mother in the center yelled, “It’s a bomb,” Jones momentarily stood in disbelief. Then she had a highly unlikely response. She recalls going into “robotic mode,” becoming entirely focused on getting the children out of the building. The kids who could walk knew to line up next to her when she yelled, “Emergency, we’ve got to go!” They had been practicing the drills regularly, a result of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. As for those too young to walk, she and her co-workers scooped them up and carried them. Purses, wallets, and cellphones were left behind. The only thing that mattered was getting the kids out.

The teachers didn’t have their IDs to swipe through the turnstiles to exit the building, so Jones told the children to crawl underneath. Then the group headed one block east, gathering near St. Paul’s Chapel, the 18 th -century outpost of Trinity Church—which miraculously survived destruction and later became a refuge for volunteers. Sitting the children on the ledge of the ancient cemetery, one teacher made a sign with the school’s name on it and held it up. They hoped parents would hear the news and head down to collect their little ones soon.

But as they waited, the horror was unfolding before their eyes. Twenty-five years later, Jones hasn’t been able to shake the image of one man hemorrhaging blood from his head, trying desperately to stanch the wound with his shirt.