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WTC Window Washer
Thursday
October 25, 2001
They are images from a world that no longer exists, memories of a true character that is no longer with us. Almost from the time the World Trade Center opened, Roko Camaj cleaned windows at the Twin Towers. He was such an institution that he was even featured in one of a series of children's books called “Risky Business.”
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Roko Camaj’s son, Vincent, says of his father, “People have asked me what his hobby was, and I’d say washing windows. That's how much he enjoyed his job up there.”
Roko had just returned from vacation the day before the September 11 attack. The last anyone heard from him was just after the second plane hit, when he managed to get a call out to his wife. Vincent recalls that phone conversation, “He told my mom not to panic, that he was with about 300 people on the 10th floor, but we're going to be ok.”
Whatever fate befell Roko that day, it's a safe bet he was helping others at the time. Roko helped others the first time terrorists struck the World Trade Center, back in 1993. Vincent remembers his father’s heroism, “On his way down, he had put a sponge, a damp sponge, over his mouth and he helped a pregnant woman down the rest of the stairs.”
Roko was back at work next day.
Devotion like that made him a much-loved figure with World Trade Center regulars, including Port Authority cop David Lim, one of the few people to be pulled from the rubble alive. Lim says, “He was a real friendly guy, he always said hello. He was always laughing. He was a good man.”
Although Roko may be gone, his spirit lives on in that children's book. Vincent says, “In the book he says, ‘It's just me and the sky up here. I don't bother anybody, and nobody bothers me.’ He loved every minute of it.”
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