Writer shares astonishing story about receipt issued 9 minutes after World Trade Center attack

Little did the Americans know that September 11, 2001, would be a day that would go down in history as one of the most horrific days. Many were casually walking in and around the World Trade Center until a hijacked plane crashed into the building. Among all the memorabilia, a receipt of what seemed to be the last sale at the WTC from the day has cropped up on the internet. It belonged to a journalist, Joanne Lipman, and the back story was described in the book "September Twelfth” by award-winning author Dean Rotbart. Poynter shared an excerpt of this book's chapter "Project 2002," abridged by Roy Harris, and it's mind-blowing.

As seen in the receipt shared by u/anon37391619 on Reddit, the purchase was made at a Lechters Housewares store at 8:55 a.m. - 9 minutes after the first attack on WTC. As per Rotbart's book, Joanne Lipman, who was then a senior editor at The Wall Street Journal, went into the store located in WTC's concourse to buy refrigerator magnets for her daughter Rebecca's eleventh birthday. She bought a violin-shaped magnet with a button in the middle that, when pressed, played a tune along with a magnet shaped like a flip mobile phone. As she approached the cash register, she heard the sound of chaos happening in the building's corridor.

As people were rushing to the exit, the Lechters cashier worriedly told Lipman, "Everybody’s running. Maybe we should get out of here." But the journalist refused to go without her daughter's gift and replied, "Ring this up first. I’m not leaving until I pay." Eventually, the purchase was made with Lipman handing over $20 and the cashier returning the $9.17 change back. Apparently, this sale was one of the last to happen in WTC while the entire area was getting wrecked by the attacks. Only after leaving the store did Lipman realize the gravity of the situation and her Lechter's receipt went on to become a memorabilia of that tragic day.

The 9/11 attack left many lives impacted. A widowed woman treasured the memory of her husband's last call from the WTC. Beverly Eckert was waiting by the phone on the day of the attack knowing that her husband Sean Rooney was one of the thousands of people stuck in the building. In what became the last call between them, Rooney informed his wife that he was trapped on the 105th floor of the building and the stairs were filled with smoke. Knowing that he had little time left, Rooney kept on saying, "I love you," to his wife and reminisced about their happy times together.

Speaking to StoryCorps, Eckert said, "There was a building in flames underneath him, but Sean didn’t even flinch. He stayed composed, just talking to me the way he always did. I will always be in awe of the way he faced death. Not an ounce of fear—not when the windows around him were getting too hot to touch; not when the smoke was making it hard to breathe. By now we had stopped talking about escape routes." Rooney's story was both inspiring and heartbreaking at the same time.

Editor's note: This article was originally published on March 14, 2024. It has since been updated.