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Mark interviews radio legend Scott Shannon. · The Mark Simone Show

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  Speaker 1: On 710 wor this is the mark simone show well
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  Speaker 1: it's the 25th anniversary of uh 9-11 uh on the
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: air that morning and uh every morning back then was
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  Speaker 1: scott shannon the radio legend of course he was on
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  Speaker 1: wplj back then uh he's on the line with us
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  Speaker 1: now scott shannon how are you good.
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  Speaker 2: Morning mark uh What a day, huh? 25th anniversary. You know,
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  Speaker 2: this is the first time that I've ever gone public
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  Speaker 2: and talked about our experience on that day.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, you were the big morning show in New York, WPLJ,
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  Speaker 1: every morning, 6 to 10. And I'm sure like we do,
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  Speaker 1: you had TV screens on in the studio. So how
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  Speaker 1: did you first learn of it?
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  Speaker 2: Just like what you said, the TV screens, it's kind
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  Speaker 2: of funny, too, because, not funny, but I've never listened
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  Speaker 2: back to one minute of that show we did. We
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  Speaker 2: were on the air 15 straight hours. Wow. 15 hours.
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  Speaker 2: Got there at 6 a.m. in the morning. We left
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  Speaker 2: right after 9 o'clock that night. five five i'll say
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  Speaker 2: one two three four people in the studio myself my
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  Speaker 2: partner todd pettengill patty steel and our producer a fellow
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  Speaker 2: named joe part of vila they called him the monkey
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  Speaker 2: boy any of our listeners yeah who the monkey boy
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  Speaker 2: was and we also had uh tv weatherman bill evans
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  Speaker 2: but he was not in the studio he was at
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  Speaker 2: channel seven that morning so it was uh Obviously, it
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  Speaker 2: was funny, too, because I remember Todd had been out
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  Speaker 2: late that night. Sunday night, he went to the Jackson's
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  Speaker 2: reunion concert at Madison Square Garden. He took his daughter,
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  Speaker 2: I believe, and he got about, I guess, four or
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  Speaker 2: five hours sleep. And you know, it's, it's, when you
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  Speaker 2: don't live in the city, it's difficult to go to
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  Speaker 2: sleep in the city, in a hotel, because there's so many,
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  Speaker 2: so much noise and horns honking and sirens and all that.
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  Speaker 2: So he could not wait to get to 10 o'clock
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  Speaker 2: so he could go home. And he, unbeknownst to him
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  Speaker 2: at that time, he didn't get to go, he didn't
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  Speaker 2: get to go home at all, but we worked till nine.
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  Speaker 1: Wow. Uh, Back in those days, it was WPLJ and WABC.
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  Speaker 1: They were the same place. You were at one end
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  Speaker 1: of the floor, and we were at the other end
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  Speaker 1: of the floor. And it was quite a traumatic day there.
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  Speaker 1: And you played music, of course. Did you stop playing
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  Speaker 1: music at some point?
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  Speaker 2: Oh, we didn't. We probably played one song an hour,
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  Speaker 2: maybe two at the most, or a bathroom break or something.
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  Speaker 2: But it was always something like, Ray Charles doing America
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  Speaker 2: the Beautiful, or, of course, any of the songs that
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  Speaker 2: were fit for airplay at that particular time. We had
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  Speaker 2: TVs on, just like you did, and you looked and
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  Speaker 2: you saw the plane, 945, 946, and you looked there
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  Speaker 2: and you go, what the hell is that? Like you
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  Speaker 2: said earlier, it's a beautiful day.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: It was just a gorgeous day.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and we didn't know where the story would go.
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  Speaker 1: You remember that as soon as it happened, they set
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  Speaker 1: up a lot of doctors on the west side and piers.
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  Speaker 1: They put hundreds of doctors ready to treat the victims.
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  Speaker 1: And it turned out there weren't.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, but there were no victims.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, nobody came.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, there were no victims that came to the hospital. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: I said 946. It was 846 when it happened originally,
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  Speaker 2: and not later on. It was just so sad to watch.
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  Speaker 2: It was almost like watching a movie, and you think
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  Speaker 2: you're going to wake up and the movie's over, but
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  Speaker 2: it wasn't over. You know, the one thing we did
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  Speaker 2: different from a lot of the other states, a lot
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  Speaker 2: of people weren't prepared for, like, a horrible... event like this.
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  Speaker 2: And we did something just a little bit different. We
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  Speaker 2: opened the phone lines to anybody who wanted to call in.
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  Speaker 2: And there was great news coverage, but like you said before,
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  Speaker 2: it was so many different situations going on. Nobody had
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  Speaker 2: any clue what the hell was unfolding before our very eyes.
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  Speaker 2: A beautiful day like that, and a plane runs into
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  Speaker 2: the World Trade Center. That's a movie. Go ahead. Well,
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  Speaker 2: I remember people were calling in initially just describing how
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  Speaker 2: they felt and the things that they were worried about.
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  Speaker 2: I had a friend of mine, a fellow that worked
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  Speaker 2: at Columbia Records with Bruce Springsteen and Mariah Carey, who
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  Speaker 2: was the vice president of promotion, a guy named Charlie Walk.
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  Speaker 2: And he lives right near the towers. He could look out.
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  Speaker 2: He called me from his balcony. And he was saying,
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  Speaker 2: I can't believe what I'm watching. They're breaking the windows
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  Speaker 2: out and throwing things out of the windows, you know,
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  Speaker 2: 100 floors up. And it looked like, you know, maybe
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  Speaker 2: it was, I guess they thought it was computers or anything,
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  Speaker 2: just a break. And then all of a sudden he
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  Speaker 2: stopped for a second. And we had him on the air.
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  Speaker 2: And he goes, oh, my God, those aren't things. Those
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  Speaker 2: are people. Wow. Jumping out of the windows. And that
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  Speaker 2: was the first time that we had heard or even heard.
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  Speaker 2: thought about people that were in that building that didn't
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  Speaker 2: want to burn to death and they chose their own.
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  Speaker 1: Way to go.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, it was just so emotional. And then as the
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  Speaker 2: day went on, we started getting calls from, from wives and, and,
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  Speaker 2: and kids who had parents there and they wanted to know,
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  Speaker 2: they just wanted to go on the air and announce that,
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  Speaker 2: you know, if, if you know my dad or if
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  Speaker 2: you know my husband, you know, like Sherry or they
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  Speaker 2: would give the names and they would tell me what
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  Speaker 2: floor they were working on. And by that time, we
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  Speaker 2: pretty much knew what floors were below the plane and
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  Speaker 2: the jet fuel and the fire and the smoke and
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  Speaker 2: all that. I mean, you could, it was just, these
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  Speaker 2: people were just so desperate to know that their loved
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  Speaker 2: one was still alive. It could have been mothers and
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  Speaker 2: fathers and kids.
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  Speaker 1: Who worked there.
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  Speaker 2: I saw our Secretary of Commerce, Howard Ludnick, on TV
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  Speaker 2: this morning. He had two floors of employees and he
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  Speaker 2: wasn't there. He had to take his daughter to kindergarten
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  Speaker 2: and He was on the way back anyway. He lost
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  Speaker 2: 658 people. And other, you know, several other companies were
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  Speaker 2: wiped out that day. Wow. And I'll never, one of
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  Speaker 2: the things that I want to tell you, when we
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  Speaker 2: all walked out, Todd and Patty and the monkey, but
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  Speaker 2: when we walked out for the first time, Because the
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  Speaker 2: building was evacuated other than WABC and us. We're the
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  Speaker 2: only people in the damn building. Yeah. Because they were afraid.
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  Speaker 2: So at 915, when we walked out, we had a
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  Speaker 2: hotel across the street. I walked out there, and I
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  Speaker 2: looked up at the sky, and there's no planes. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And there was no traffic. I remember that.
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  Speaker 2: Nothing. There were no planes, no taxis. And when I
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  Speaker 2: stepped off the curb, I felt something, and I had
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  Speaker 2: ashes up to my ankles. So that's how close. And
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  Speaker 2: you could smell the jet fuel in the air.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: But the most terrible thing was talking to people who
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  Speaker 2: were so desperate to find out how their loved one was.
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  Speaker 1: Wow. Hey, we only got about a minute left. What
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  Speaker 1: did you do the next day and the day after?
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  Speaker 1: It was a long time before you went back to normal, right? Programming-wise.
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  Speaker 2: Right. Well, you know, one of the most powerful things
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  Speaker 2: that I can remember was, other than see, we would
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  Speaker 2: get calls from people that were coming in from other
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  Speaker 2: places in a van or a car or SUV. They
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  Speaker 2: just drove there. And remember, they had a parking lot
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  Speaker 2: across from the Jacob Javits Center. Remember they set up
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  Speaker 2: parking places where these people that are coming from all
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  Speaker 2: over the country, they just want to help. They want
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  Speaker 2: to do whatever they can do. They brought supplies and everything.
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  Speaker 2: And the other image that was burnt in my mind
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  Speaker 2: was the first day I drove back to work, going
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  Speaker 2: down the West Side Highway. Remember when they were working
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  Speaker 2: on something where the ships are and all that? But
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  Speaker 2: they had a big fence up over there. And on
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  Speaker 2: that fence was pictures of all these people who never
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  Speaker 2: came home. Oh, my God. You'd break out in tears.
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  Speaker 2: It was so sad to see.
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  Speaker 1: Well, Scott Shannon, thanks for everything. We'll have you back
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  Speaker 1: under normal circumstances next time, but thanks for the great call.
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  Speaker 2: Thanks.
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  Speaker 1: Take care.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you, Mark.
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  Speaker 1: Scott Shannon, he runs the True Oldies Channel. You can
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: listen to that. Just go to trueoldieschannel.com. We'll talk to
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  Speaker 1: more people throughout the morning, and we've got a lot
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  Speaker 1: to get to on the 25th anniversary of 9-11, right
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  Speaker 1: here on 710WOR.