Key facts
- A Brooks Brothers store at One Liberty Plaza served as a makeshift morgue after the 9/11 attacks.
- The store was located next to the World Trade Center.
- Victims' remains were held at the store before being moved to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.
- The store sustained heavy damage when the Twin Towers collapsed.
- The store reopened one year after the attacks.
- The store closed in 2018 and relocated.
In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a Brooks Brothers store located at One Liberty Plaza, adjacent to the World Trade Center, was transformed into a makeshift morgue. The store, which had previously been a place where job candidates prepared for interviews in the Twin Towers, became a holding area for victims' remains until they could be identified by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. The store itself sustained significant damage from the collapse of the towers but reopened exactly one year after the attacks. Michael Bastian, the current creative director of Brooks Brothers, who joined the company in 2020, was flying back to New York from Paris on 9/11 and was diverted to Halifax, Canada. He recounted to Business Insider that it took him four days to return to a New York City that was profoundly changed. The One Liberty Plaza store closed in 2018 and relocated, but the events of that day continue to deeply affect Bastian.