Sidley Austin - Sidley Austin During 9/11/01

Sidley Austin During 9/11/01

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 personally affected the employees of Sidley Austin. Prior to the merger creating Sidley Austin Brown & Wood, which took place just four months before the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, the head office of Brown & Wood was in the World Trade Center, while Sidley & Austin was located in offices on Third Avenue. Out of 600 employees who worked in the World Trade Center at the time of the attacks, one perished, a switch board operator named Rosemary Smith.

Sidley Austin reopened its New York office on Monday, September 17, 2001 in the old Sidley & Austin office on Third Avenue that it had planned on closing on September 16. Instead, it leased four additional floors in that location, in a deal completed less than three hours after the collapse of the World Trade Center. Sidley Austin later opened its permanent new office in the Equitable Center building on Seventh Avenue in July 2002.