They Survived 9/11 Separately, Then Found Each Other at Ground Zero

Bianca Figueroa-Greco was checking signatures of workers entering and leaving World Trade Center 7 on the morning of September 11, 2001, when she heard what sounded like an elevator slamming into the basement. Minutes later she watched United Airlines Flight 175 hit the South Tower, and by the end of the day WTC 7 itself had collapsed. Across the city, a union welder named Rafe Greco felt the impact from a scaffold above 42nd Street and rushed downtown that same afternoon to volunteer.

Figueroa-Greco had been hired by Turner Construction to fix mechanical rooms and was stationed at WTC 7 that morning, according to Spectrum News NY1. She took shelter under a car as debris fell, and a maintenance worker guided her and colleagues out through the smoke. She helped a person whose clothing was on fire but never learned who that person was, the station reports. She was in the North Tower basement and lost several friends that day, and she still struggles with loud noises decades later.

Greco entered Ground Zero at 11 p.m. that night to begin cutting steel with an oxyacetylene torch, according to the National September 11 Memorial & Museum. A metalworker affiliated with Laborers' International Union of North America Local 79 who grew up in Lower Manhattan, he spent three initial consecutive days at the site before landing a formal job clearing debris from WTC 7 and the Twin Towers footprints. He would ultimately spend more than eight months there, cutting wreckage during the rescue and recovery effort, per NY1's account.

A Torch, Hundreds of Crosses, and a Final Beam

During those months, Greco built hundreds of crosses from World Trade Center beams, creating small memorials for grieving families. Firefighters asked him to cut crosses for their deceased brothers, NY1 reports. One of those crosses went to the family of Andrea Haberman, a 25-year-old who worked for Carr Futures and had arrived in New York for a meeting scheduled on the 92nd floor of the North Tower, arriving about 20 minutes early that morning. Haberman's parents later helped establish the Wisconsin 9/11 Memorial in Kewaskum to honor her and others lost that day, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Greco and Haberman's family became like family themselves, NY1 reports, bonded by the cross he sent to Wisconsin.

On May 30, 2002, Greco was one of four people who cut down the final beam removed from Ground Zero, an emotional moment he has described in those terms since. That column, designated 1001B of Two World Trade Center, stood 36 feet tall and weighed 58 tons; it was ceremonially escorted off the site on a flatbed truck to mark the formal end of the nine-month cleanup, according to the 9/11 Memorial & Museum. It now sits in the museum bearing statistics about the civilians, firefighters, and NYPD members lost, and Figueroa-Greco was there to watch him cut it. Greco later engraved those same loss statistics on the handle of the torch he used, alongside the words “You are always in our hearts,” per the memorial.

Throughout the recovery, St. Paul's Chapel across from the site offered workers like Greco a 24-hour refuge — a kitchen, sleeping quarters, medical clinic, and place of spiritual respite during long shifts, according to Trinity Church. Greco also turned four-inch-thick iron salvaged from the fallen towers into a welded sculpture of the pre-9/11 skyline, which was later selected for the memorial and museum's permanent collection and public preview site, as reported by Untapped New York.

Two Survivors Find Each Other

Figueroa-Greco eventually returned to work for Turner Construction. At some point, Greco asked her to have lunch, and she agreed. They married eleven years after meeting, according to NY1's reporting. Figueroa-Greco had a young daughter when she met Greco, and the couple now has a 12-year-old son they call their Ground Zero baby.

The two say they talk regularly about their World Trade Center experiences and lean on one another. Greco carried a recurring nightmare about the World Trade Center, per the station's report, and the couple describe themselves as grateful to have found each other. Each year, Figueroa-Greco watches the reading of the names of those killed on September 11 — an attack that took more than 2,700 lives.

The Recovery Never Fully Ends

Twenty-five years on, the forensic work Greco's crew began is still not finished. Medical examiners have officially identified 1,651 World Trade Center victims out of nearly 3,000 killed as of this month, leaving roughly 40 percent of victims still unidentified, Hoodline previously reported. Forensic investigators continue analyzing 21,905 retrieved human remain fragments using advanced investigative genetic genealogy techniques, since extreme heat and structural damage badly degraded the DNA recovered from the site.

The health toll on recovery workers has also proven long and unresolved. Enrollment in the federal World Trade Center Health Program surpassed 100,000 members this month, providing no-cost monitoring and treatment for certified cancers, respiratory illnesses, and mental health conditions tied to Ground Zero exposure, according to the CDC World Trade Center Health Program. A study of 28,430 responders published in the Annals of Epidemiology in March found that those enrolled in the program had lower overall mortality than non-enrolled responders, which researchers attributed to ongoing monitoring, early preventive care, and specialized treatment access.

That unfinished reckoning was on display two weeks ago, on May 30, when first responders gathered at Ground Zero to mark the 24th anniversary of the formal end of rescue and recovery operations. Greco spoke there about the importance of recognizing workers suffering delayed health impacts, telling attendees that dedicated recognition ceremonies remain critical for honoring those who sacrificed their long-term health during the cleanup, as reported by Newsday.