# The Brooks Brothers store that became a morgue

> A 208-year-old menswear shop next to the Twin Towers spent 9/11 holding the dead, and its creative director still can't face the photos.
- Title: The Brooks Brothers store that became a morgue | Shortify
- Summary: A 208-year-old menswear shop next to the Twin Towers spent 9/11 holding the dead, and its creative director still can't face the photos. The recovery after…
- Keywords: 9/11, new york, brooks brothers, retail history, memory, business, technology, Brooks, Brothers, store, became, morgue
- Source: Business Insider — https://businessinsider.com/brooks-brothers-9-11-store-ground-zero-2026-9
- Author: Talia Lakritz
- Published: 2026-09-11T16:38:12.304+00:00
- Read time: 1 min
- Topics: 9/11, new york, brooks brothers, retail history, memory, business, technology
## Stuck in the air
Michael Bastian was flying home from a Paris trade show when the attacks happened. His plane was diverted to Halifax, Nova Scotia.

> 9/11 is personal for me. I was in the air on 9/11.
## The sky shut down
After the planes hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the FAA grounded every flight and closed US airspace for the first time ever.
## Four days to get home
Bastian needed four days to reach New York, and the city he landed in was not the one he had left.

> It really changed everyone's life.
## A shirt department turned morgue
The Brooks Brothers at One Liberty Plaza sat next to the towers. In the aftermath, its men's shirt department became a holding area for bodies and body parts.
## Held until they could be named
Remains stayed in the store until they could be moved to the city's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner for identification.
## Twenty-five years on
The damaged store reopened exactly one year after the attacks, then closed in 2018 and moved a few blocks away. Bastian still avoids the photographs.

> If you were here, it really affected you, as a New Yorker, as an American.
## Key takeaway

The recovery after 9/11 ran through ordinary rooms, including a shirt department that held the remains of the people pulled from the rubble.