Written by Paris Christie, Mckinley Corey, Ellie Hart, and Shady Andil<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, nearly an entire nation watched the devastation in New York City on their television screens. Steven Wineburg, owner of Bernard\u2019s Custom Logo and Engraving in downtown Cortland, remembers watching in disbelief as the attacks occurred. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI remember the TV was on downstairs in our living room and I could hear it, and something didn’t sound right. I called my mother. I said, \u2018are you watching today’s show? Turn it on.\u2019 And she goes, \u2018what, are these scenes from a movie?\u2019 I said, \u2018I don’t know, but it’s not actually real.\u2019 So, we’re watching, and watching, we\u2019re like, it can’t be,\u201d said Wineburg. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Like many Americans, Wineburg spent the day glued to the news as the events of 9\/11 unfolded before his very eyes. \u201cIt was the eeriest thing, it was a bad day for America,\u201d Wineburg said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When the first reports of Sept. 11, 2001, attacks spread through the media, current SUNY Cortland professor Sam Avery was sitting in his eighth-grade technology class. He recalls sitting in the basement of his middle school in upstate New York, just hours outside of the city where the tragedy unfolded. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSomething was up,\u201d Avery said. \u201cThe adults were acting very odd and we, as kids, didn\u2019t really know what was going on here, or at least my group of friends didn\u2019t really know.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
School had ended early that day due to the events and Avery\u2019s mother, a postal carrier, picked him up from school, rather shaken herself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMy mother was very upset, which was very rare for her. She\u2019s not a lady who gets upset,” Avery said. \u201cI remember seeing tears in her eyes. She was very distraught which at that point I kind of switched from the teenage boy dumbness to like oh maybe something bad has really happened here.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
While Avery, being from upstate New York, didn\u2019t know anybody personally involved in the attacks, Wineburg’s wife, a Bronx native, had family and friends in the city, some of whom lost loved ones that day.\u201cThere was a fireman my wife\u2019s family knew who died,\u201d Wineburg said. \u201cAnother salesman we knew lost over 30 of his son\u2019s high school friends. He was never the same after that.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wineburg reflects on the changes he perceived in Cortland following the attacks in the years since. Wineburg said he\u2019s noticed both how much and how little has changed in America. Living in the small community of Cortland, he didn\u2019t see major shifts in local business protocols after 9\/11. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019re a small town,\u201d he said. \u201cWe don\u2019t have the nightlife or the crowds that cities do, but I can go to bed at night knowing no one\u2019s bombing the clock tower in Cortland.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, he adds that the attacks left him far more vigilant than he was in the past, which is a mindset he\u2019s carried into how he parents his three children. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou have to have a keen eye now,\u201d Wineburg said.\u201cWhen my twins were teenagers working at restaurants, they saw things like fights, overdoses, and people getting fired. It prepared them for the real world.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Professor Avery also reflects on how the attacks changed the way he saw the world, especially as he was just an eighth grader when the attacks happened, and he describes how the events of 9\/11 altered his view of being in open spaces at big social gatherings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI never was a big fan of airports but even to this day, I don’t go to an airport and not think about 9\/11. It kind of lives forever in my head,\u201d Avery said. \u201cI won’t go to an event in any kind of large space, and certainly not in the city.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Reflecting on the present day, Wineburg expressed concern over divisions in society and how media coverage contributes to fear and anger. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou want to have your far-right and your far-left news channels\u2026 the media spreads hate,\u201d Wineburg said. \u201cThey\u2019re not broadcasting the news, they\u2019re broadcasting opinions. There\u2019s no respect anymore.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Professor Avery also discussed his frustrations with how society, news coverage, and the government itself handled the fallout from the attacks and created so many enemies around the world in the years following 9\/11. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI mean, in short, I think the United States is just a real son of a bitch,\u201d Avery says. \u201cWe\u2019ve equipped people around the world and then abandoned them. We’ve, you know, brought in governments, and then kicked the heels out from underneath them. I’m not a particularly proud American, if you can’t tell. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI feel like the government and the media very much positioned Turbans and Islam as the villains of my generation, which is obviously false,\u201d Avery says. \u201cI would argue, you know, yet another wonderful chapter in American history hasn’t been the result.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
For Wineburg, 9\/11 is more than a historical event. It\u2019s a reminder of fragility, connection, and the responsibility to stay aware. Despite the challenges, Wineburg remains grounded in his community. His family’s business, started by his grandfather in the 1940s, continues to thrive as he embraces resilience by running the store seven days a week, working while sick, and most importantly to him, being a dad. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou do what you have to do,\u201d said Wineburg. \u201cThere\u2019s pluses and minuses to everything, but you keep going because we\u2019ve got to do better, for all the people.\u201d <\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Written by Paris Christie, Mckinley Corey, Ellie Hart, and Shady Andil On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, nearly an entire nation watched the devastation in New York City on their television screens. Steven Wineburg, owner of Bernard\u2019s Custom Logo and Engraving in downtown Cortland, remembers watching in disbelief as the attacks occurred. \u201cI remember […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":251,"featured_media":10578,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-featured-news-article","category-news","entry"],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2026\/07\/ChatGPT-Image-Jul-28-2026-at-01_28_42-PM-600x400.png","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2026\/07\/ChatGPT-Image-Jul-28-2026-at-01_28_42-PM-600x600.png","author_info":{"display_name":"Special Contribution to the Dragon Chronicle","author_link":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/author\/paul-arras\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/251"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10589\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}