The September 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center and other American targets killed nearly 3,000 people, making it the single deadliest foreign attack on U.S. soil. The world watched in horror as two of New York City’s most recognizable skyscrapers collapsed into piles of dust after terrorists crashed into them with hijacked commercial planes.
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Many iconic images emerged from that tragic day, but one of the most memorable is that of Marcy Borders, a Black woman who later became known to the world as “The Dust Lady,” after a photographer captured a picture of her covered in the dust that filled the streets after the buildings collapsed. But while Borders survived 9/11, the memories of the attack on the World Trade Center haunted her until she passed away in 2015 at age 42. As we prepare for the 24th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks, we remember the life of Marcy Borders.
Borders, who was 28 years old at the time, had been working at Bank of America on the 81st floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center for just one month. Despite being told by her boss to stay at her desk, she ran out of the building to the street below when the plane hit her building. Her daughter, Noelle, who was eight years old at the time, says she was desperate to get home to Bayonne, New Jersey, and her family.
“She said her biggest thing in her mind at the time was getting back home to me,” Noelle told News 12 in an interview.
Borders didn’t know she had been photographed that day, but as her picture went viral, she was worried that she would be a target, something that caused her to spiral out of control and turn to drugs and alcohol.
“I didn’t do a day’s work in nearly 10 years, and by 2011, I was a complete mess. Every time I saw an aircraft, I panicked. If I saw a man on a building, I was convinced he was going to shoot me,” Borders told the New York Post. “I started smoking crack cocaine, because I didn’t want to live.”
She told the New York Post that she checked herself into rehab to get help getting sober, but she wasn’t able to truly find peace until 2011, when the news broke that al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden had been killed.
“[God] got rid of my biggest fear,” Borders said. “I used to lose sleep over him, have bad dreams about bin Laden bombing my house, but now I have peace of mind.”
Tragically, Borders died of complications from stomach cancer in 2015. Family members told News 12 that they believe her illness was related to the toxins she inhaled during the attack.
Noelle Borders says she will always remember her mom as someone who was full of life and did her best to protect those she loved.
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