Rachel Uchitel Marks 25 Years Since Fiancé Andy O'Grady Died in the 9/11 Attacks

Twenty-five years after the towers fell, Rachel Uchitel is making sure her fiancé’s name is still spoken. Andy O’Grady was a managing director at Sandler O’Neill, working on the 104th floor of Tower 2, when he died in the September 11, 2001 attacks. The two had met in 1998 and gotten engaged just weeks earlier, in August 2001. He was 32 years old.

Uchitel was a producer at Bloomberg at the time. She spoke with O’Grady by phone that morning, and then, from her own newsroom, she watched his building collapse. She has described running to Bellevue Hospital after hearing he might have survived, and the long anguish of not knowing. A photograph of her holding his missing person flyer ran in newspapers around the world, one of the images that became a shorthand for a nation’s grief.

Now 51 and hosting her own podcast, Uchitel shared a tribute video and an Instagram post on the 25th anniversary. She wrote that the loss changed who she was, and ended with a line that sums up a quarter century of love:“It was the honor of my life to have been loved by James Andrew O’Grady.”If this story stirs something in you, we’d love to hear from you. Where were you on September 11, 2001, and who do you remember?