"Acre in the sky."

On the morning of Spetember 11, 2001, high up, on the 85th floor of 2 World Trade Center, the law firm of Harris Beach, LLP was hard at work. The firm was still weeks away from completing the renovation of its new offices here. As they said in their brochures, "We're expanding our services. And the view." The $4 million renovation would be well worth it, and leaders of the firm referred to the new offices as their "acre in the sky."

From the ABA Journal:

"We believed this was our future, this big beautiful building," says litigation partner Abbie Fuchs. "You could see forever and we'd be there forever."

Working that morning, up on the 85th floor, was Mark A. Brisman. An associate of the Harris Beach firm, the 34-year-old resident of Armonk, NY, had just recently been nominated to become a partner in the firm.

After the plane hit 1 World Trade Center an attempt was made to clear the offices of Harris Beach, by Andrew Zucker, an attorney at Harris Beach.

The ABA Journal article continues:

Immediately after the first plane hit, Zucker—who had trained for a year as a volunteer firefighter in his hometown of North Massapequa, N.Y.—recognized the threat and walked through the halls with attorney Julissa Gomez and secretary Anne Pampinella, telling people to leave the building.

Once they reached an emergency exit, Pampinella "tried to stop Andrew Zucker, but he returned to the office, apparently to make sure that Joanne Weil and Mark Brisman evacuated," according to the report. Ultimately, the investigator could not determine whether the five Harris Beach employees were killed on the floor, on the stairs or at the express elevator landing on the 78th floor when the second plane hit at 9:03, taking out floors 77 through 85.

Five people working at the offices that morning were lost. Among them Mark A. Brisman, soon to be a partner in the firm.