In Memory of

Michael "Weaser" Duffy F'90

In the darkest of hours our faith has been tested,

In the bleakest of moments we must search for the light.

A Call to a Friend Cut Off on the 89th Floor

By Sandra Peddie
STAFF WRITER

September 14, 2001

Kyle Kennelly was at his job as a financial consultant at Salomon Smith Barney in Manhasset when he saw the television footage of a plane ripping through a tower of the World Trade Center. His first thought was to call his best friend, Michael Duffy, a broker at Keefe Bruyette & Woods, a brokerage in Tower Two.

"I called him to find out what was going on," Kennelly recalled yesterday. "I said, 'Is there a fire in the other building?'"

Duffy calmly told him that he had just seen a plane crashing into the other tower.

Kennelly said, "Are you serious?"

"This is no joke," Duffy replied.

"Oh my God," Kennelly said. "Are you OK?"

"Yeah, we're OK," Duffy said.

"What floor are you on?" Kennelly said.

"The 89th floor, eye level," Duffy said. "I just saw somebody fall out of the other building."

Frozen with disbelief, Kennelly asked him what he meant. Duffy told him there was a "huge hole" in the other building. Kennelly could hear the public address system in the background but couldn't make out the words.

Then the line went dead.

Frantic, Kennelly tried calling back. He got nothing. There was no ringing, no busy signal.

Meanwhile, Duffy's mother, Barbara Duffy of Fort Salonga, was in her family room watching the morning news as she waited for a ride to her job as Suffolk County's deputy commissioner of jurors. She saw that the first plane had hit the tower.

"Oh, my God!" she said to her husband, District Court Judge John Duffy. "That's where Michael works!"

Michael Duffy, 29, had just gotten his job at Keefe Bruyette & Woods five weeks ago, and she still didn't have his office phone number. She called her older son, John, who works nearby. John told her, "I just had Michael on the phone, and he's in the other building. He's OK."

Barbara Duffy walked back

into her family room and saw the second plane hit. She realized that Michael's office was above where the plane hit.

Desperate to find out if he was safe, she started making calls. Up all night, she heard nothing from Michael. On Wednesday, she and her family went from hospital to hospital, searching for him. Convinced that he had put his wallet in his desk and thus had no identification with him, she checked the "unknown males" at

St. Vincent's Hospital. They found nothing.

Later, she stood in line four hours to file a missing person's report at Bellevue Hospital. It was a nine-page report, with questions about height, weight and dentist's name - for dental records. She gave them a hair sample she had gotten from his hairbrush.

She ran into two of Michael's co-workers. They told her everyone had been told to stay at their desks but that they had left anyway. When they left, Michael was at his desk.

Yesterday, Barbara Duffy said

she had not given up hope. Nor have his friends, a group of 10 who met

at St. Anthony's High School in Huntington.

The friends are such a close-knit group that they see each other almost every weekend. Michael Duffy was the glue. He was the one they called on Friday nights to make their plans, Al Mugno said.

Friends have gathered at Mugno's home in Huntington since the attack. Kennelly has been sleeping on the couch. They recalled a trip to Ireland Michael planned for the group, another to Florida and frequent golf games. "We'd be playing golf and we'd be playing horribly, and Michael would look at me and say, 'Isn't life great? Who's got it better than us?'" Mugno recalled.

"He's got a group of friends sitting around so positive because he's so strong," said Mugno, who described Duffy as his first friend. "We're still waiting to see footage of him swimming across the river."

Mugno last saw Duffy Saturday night. The friends had planned a surprise party for Duffy because his 30th birthday is coming up on Tuesday. But they'd called it off because Duffy's father is terminally ill with brain cancer. Instead, they gathered for a few quiet drinks.

"The last thing he told me when I was leaving, he hugged me and told me that he loved me," Mugno said, pausing to take a breath.

"I have a message on my machine from him. I've been playing it to hear his voice. I'll keep playing it," he said.

"He just won't be forgotten."