I know hindsight is 20/20 and all, but it seemed to be somewhat well known that the WTC was a target for terrorism, that terrorists viewed it as a symbol of American hegemony or whatever. Now of course, you can’t not have things of value in the WTC or be overly fearful of what was likely viewed as a more or less remote possibility, but if I was an organization that was holding $200M in gold, I think I might would want to put it somewhere a little less obvious.
The Windows on the World restaurant on the top floor was known to have an extraordinary collection of vintage wines, some worth a thousand or more per bottle.
Now that is a true loss.
It just seems inconceivable to me that they had irreplaceable artifacts like original letters from Helen Keller and did not at least scan those in and create a digital backup copy! You could have done that with a $150 scanner. What carelessness!
What if the scanner couldn’t read the documents?
I was just about to make the same comment. IIRC, NYC put their crisis reponse center there after the first bombing. I’m sure it all made sense at the time, but when you look at it now, it’s one big “duoh!”
Get a better scanner. 
You know who got undercounted? Undocumented immigrant workers. Their families were afraid to report that they were there, lest they all be deported forthwith. Emma’s Revolution did an award-winning song about that, “If I Give Your Name.” Sample verse:
*Mi esposa, my wife, worked on the 80th floor
The company had hired illegals before
She got the job by word of mouth
That’s the way in the north when you’re from the south
They say 3,000 but the counting’s not done
Mi esposa está muerta
Three thousand and one
I have no papers, I have no rights
All my days end in sleepless nights
Missing you, silently
If I give your name,
Will they come after me?*
The verses mention various family members who died there without being counted, and each verse increments the number one by one to symbolize the undercounting. “They gave some ashes to families, but I’ll only have the ones I breathe.”
If you google around you’ll find some people do believe the gold and silver did just that. I don’t know if it’s even possible.
Not really a hijack since it’s 9-11 related: did the terrorists choose “9/11” because it was an emergency number as a little additional insult? Or was the date more or less arbitrary?
There are quintillions of boards with quintillions of threads exactly on this query, as well as many similar ones. Even Google says “Fuck it. I’m tired of this. Use Bing.”
Or was it because this was Election Day in most of the country, and they didn’t like democracy, preferring theocracy as a government?
I’m partial to the theory that it had to do with the anniversary of the Camp David Accords.
nearly 3000 died…
Which were signed on September 17, 1978.
Like Leo Bloom said, this hasn’t been settled and it may never be. To me that indicates there wasn’t any real significance to the date because these guys wanted to be clear about their message. I think it was chosen out of expediency.
What elections were being held that day? The only one I know about was the New York mayoral primary. I doubt the terrorists were aware or would have cared about that.
And most of the other cities in New York State. Also Los Angeles. Also Minneapolis, MN (and most county or municipal elections in Minnesota). And municipal elections in Iowa.
In fact, off-years like 2001 are when most County, City, & School Board elections are held, and many of them are the 2nd Tuesday in September, which was 9/11/2001.
They don’t just hate our freedom…
…they hate our county municipal elections in Minnesota and Iowa!
Yeah, after negotiations started on the fifth. What’s halfway between five and 17?
Except putting the month number before the date is not a world-wide practice. And, who could tell in advance that “9/11” would become the nickname for these events? It could have been something else that caught the journalists’ attention as the nickname, like “Pearl Harbour” instead of “12/7”.