{"id":341581,"date":"2026-09-09T08:19:18","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T08:19:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/341581\/"},"modified":"2026-09-09T08:19:18","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T08:19:18","slug":"love-took-over-brooklyn-woman-remembers-the-quiet-job-that-kept-ground-zero-connected-and-the-kindness-that-followed-brooklyn-paper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/341581\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Love took over\u2019: Brooklyn woman remembers the quiet job that kept Ground Zero connected, and the kindness that followed \u2022 Brooklyn Paper"},"content":{"rendered":"

Twenty-five years later, Gina Ruberto remembers 9\/11<\/a> through two very different images.<\/p>\n

The first is the one most people know: the towers falling, Lower Manhattan disappearing beneath the smoke and debris and a city suddenly thrown into unimaginable chaos.<\/p>\n

The second is what happened next.<\/p>\n

It was strangers helping strangers across the Brooklyn Bridge. People shouting for others not to panic. Water bottles passed between exhausted New Yorkers. Men helping women in heels climb over a chain-link fence to reach the bridge. Businesses on the Brooklyn side waiting with water for the thousands of people making their way home.<\/p>\n

For Ruberto, who was living in Windsor Terrace at the time, those moments became inseparable from her memories of that day.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got hit with hate that day,\u201d she told Brooklyn Paper. \u201cFull-blown, pure, unequivocal hate. But here\u2019s the deal: for the people on the ground, love took over.<\/p>\n

Ruberto had been working for Nextel<\/a>, the wireless company best known at the time for its push-to-talk walkie-talkie service, at 55 Maiden Lane, across from the Federal Reserve, when the attacks happened. From the plaza, she watched the second plane hit the World Trade Center.<\/p>\n

But her story didn\u2019t end when she made her way home across the Brooklyn Bridge.<\/p>\n

\"\"Firefighters comb through the wreckage at Ground Zero in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks. Photo courtesy of REUTERS\/Peter Morgan<\/p>\n

In the weeks and months that followed, she found herself back in Lower Manhattan, this time as a Nextel representative helping keep the people at Ground Zero connected.<\/p>\n

At the time, Nextel phones had a two-way radio function that did not rely on traditional cell towers. With the communications infrastructure around Ground Zero destroyed, the technology became a lifeline<\/a> for firefighters, ironworkers, construction workers, the Salvation Army, Red Cross workers and others working at the site.<\/p>\n

Nextel provided hundreds, and eventually thousands, of phones. But there was a problem: There was no electricity at Ground Zero to charge them.<\/p>\n

So the company brought in a trailer with battery-charging stations.<\/p>\n

Ruberto was the person responsible for keeping that operation running.<\/p>\n

The trailer was staffed 24\/7 by Nextel employees, with workers from across the tri-state area taking shifts. Ruberto handled the schedule. And when someone canceled, even in the middle of the night, she would leave Windsor Terrace, travel to downtown Manhattan and take the shift herself.<\/p>\n

\"9\/11\"Ruberto\u2019s ID card as a Nextel employee on Ground Zero.Photo courtesy of Gina Ruberto<\/p>\n

The operation continued for months, through the end of December and into January 2002.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy whole role was just to ensure the fact that everybody had a charged battery so they can continue using the technology while it was happening,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

On paper, it was a small job.<\/p>\n

To Ruberto, it was a small piece of something much larger.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was just this little girl from Brooklyn, just a young woman. I was in my 30s at the time, and I was a part of it. That was my little piece of making it \u2014 helping it to come together so that there was continuity going on,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

From the trailer, she could see the recovery effort unfolding just a block away. She watched bulldozers and rescue operations. Workers would come to replace their batteries and sometimes quietly tell her about what they had seen that day. <\/p>\n

Ruberto listened. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was also a therapist to a small, small degree. I don\u2019t want to overemphasize it, because I feel humble about it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

During those late-night shifts, workers would sometimes sit with her, eat some of the food in the trailer and take a moment to breathe. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey would just sort of open up and be able to take that deep breath and be like, \u2018This was my day yesterday, and I\u2019m back again today. What\u2019s gonna happen now when I start my shift?\u2019\u201d she recalled.<\/p>\n

The stories were often horrific. The workers were witnessing the transformation of a rescue effort into a recovery effort, as hopes of finding survivors gave way to the grim task of recovering remains. <\/p>\n

But alongside the devastation, Ruberto kept seeing people stepping forward to help. <\/p>\n

Oil trucks arrived from other states to keep generators running. Firefighters traveled across the country to work shifts. Hotels made rooms available for ironworkers and first responders. Food poured into Ground Zero from throughout the region. <\/p>\n

And at Nextel, employees made their own decisions to help. <\/p>\n

The company\u2019s New Jersey warehouse cleared out phones and sent them toward Ground Zero. Employees filled their cars with equipment and navigated checkpoints, explaining why they needed to get the phones to the site. <\/p>\n

Ruberto remembers being grateful that the company supported those efforts. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew what needed to be done as employees, and we knew we had the ability,\u201d she said. \u201cEveryone, again, just stepped up.\u201d<\/p>\n

For months, people at Ground Zero used the phones without being charged. Eventually, as the recovery operation settled into a different rhythm and the need for the temporary communication system diminished, the trailer was shut down. <\/p>\n

Ruberto never considered herself one of the central figures in the recovery. In fact, when workers and others would thank her, she struggled to understand why. <\/p>\n

She would travel downtown from a command center in Midtown, riding buses along the West Side Highway. People lined the route, clapping and cheering and saying thank you.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I would just be sitting there like, \u2018It\u2019s just me.\u2019 You know? Like, I\u2019m a nobody. I\u2019m just manning one trailer kind of a thing,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

But one worker eventually made sure she understood that her contribution had mattered.<\/p>\n

In January, ironworker Charles Lyon came looking for her at 59 Maiden Lane. He brought with him a Time magazine hardcover and a cross that had been recovered from the World Trade Center. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe went out of his way to find me at 59 Maiden Lane to ask for me by name and to provide this for me as his way of saying thank you for doing the work that I had done,\u201d Ruberto said.<\/p>\n

\"photoRuberto still keeps the 9\/11 commemorative magazine and cross Lyons gave her in 2002. Photo courtesy of Gina Ruberto<\/p>\n

She had rarely told this story in the years since.<\/p>\n

Part of that was humility. She worried that talking about her role would feel like boasting. Nextel itself did not advertise what it had done in the aftermath, even as thousands of phones remained in use for months.<\/p>\n

But 25 years later, Ruberto believes there is a reason to tell the story.<\/p>\n

The history of 9\/11, she said, cannot only be about destruction and death. It must also include the people who survived, the people who helped and the communities that came together in the aftermath. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe history of it isn\u2019t all the destruction and the death. The history of it is also that those that survived, and those of us that were either a part of it in some way, working downtown Manhattan or just worked anywhere in the country, it had an impact for those that were alive during that time,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

For Ruberto, that impact is perhaps clearest when she thinks back to her walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. <\/p>\n

She recalls the fear, the smoke and debris. She recalls people collapsing and others stopping to help them. She recalls the panic that would ripple through the crowd whenever something happened \u2014 and the voices that immediately answered it.<\/p>\n

She heard it again and again: \u201cDon\u2019t run. Just keep walking.\u201d<\/p>\n

People kept moving. They helped one another over fences. They shared water. They watched for people who needed assistance.<\/p>\n

And somehow, amid one of the darkest days in New York City history, thousands of strangers made sure one another got home.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat love really took over immediately after the hate,\u201d Ruberto said. \u201cTruly, the hate didn\u2019t win. It just didn\u2019t win that day.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"groundAn American flag flies near the base of the destroyed World Trade Center in New York on Sept. 11, 2001, as firefighters and other workers began the daunting recovery effort that would continue for months. REUTERS\/Peter Morgan<\/p>\n

There is another detail Ruberto wants preserved in telling her story.<\/p>\n

She chose to be known by her maiden name, Ruberto, rather than the married name she uses today. She wants the woman who walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, returned to Ground Zero and spent months keeping the recovery effort connected to be remembered as the woman she was then.<\/p>\n

\u201cI also feel very protective of her \u2014 that was Gina Ruberto that did all of that,\u201d she said. \u201cThis was before I was married. This was my life beforehand. And she\u2019s the one that made it happen.\u201d <\/p>\n

It was Gina Ruberto who answered the call.<\/p>\n

Gina Ruberto who kept the trailer running.<\/p>\n

Gina Ruberto who listened to workers talk about the things they could never forget.<\/p>\n

And Gina Ruberto who, decades later, still believes that the most important part of the story is not what hate destroyed, but what love built in its aftermath.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy experience from 9\/11, that day, to my experience working at Ground Zero, was a lot of love. It was a lot of caring for one another. It was a lot of camaraderie,\u201d she said. \u201cJust everybody working together and watching out for one another.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read Gina Ruberto\u2019s story alongside 24 more voices from across Brooklyn in Brooklyn Paper\u2019s \u201c25 Voices, 25 Years Later\u201d<\/a> series, exploring the people, memories and moments that shaped how Brooklyn remembers 9\/11.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Twenty-five years later, Gina Ruberto remembers 9\/11 through two very different images. The first is the one most…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":341582,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[128192,126246,5301,111557,128193,2603,98,11198,100,99,128194,94768,1882,195,17685,53833,128195,59548,9,24,66143,12,370,128196,63,128197,84426,24269,7037],"class_list":["post-341581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-25-voices-25-years-later","tag-25th-anniversary","tag-9-11","tag-9-11-anniversary","tag-9-11-memories","tag-acts-of-kindness","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-bridge","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-brooklyn-voices","tag-communications","tag-community","tag-firefighters","tag-first-responders","tag-ground-zero","tag-ground-zero-recovery","tag-local-history","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-history","tag-news","tag-newsletter","tag-nextel","tag-nyc","tag-recovery-workers","tag-september-11-attacks","tag-windsor-terrace","tag-world-trade-center"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/341582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}