9/11 Anniversary

ny-911-sg

East Islip elementary school students will observe a moment of silence on 9/11 next year, putting to rest a protest that erupted after the district superintendent banned the observance for younger students this year for fear more "fragile" youngsters might have been emotionally harmed. 
The moment of silence was reinstituted by a school board vote last week that approved the recommendations of a committee of staff and residents formed by Superintendent Wendell Chu last month to study the issue. Other recommendations approved include referring to 9/11 as Patriot Day, emphasizing existing curriculum called "Symbols of Citizenship" - such as reciting the Pledge of Allegiance and singing patriotic songs - and encouraging staff and students to wear red, white and blue. 
"We wanted to commemorate Sept. 11 with a moment of silence, but we wanted to come up with something that was children-friendly, age-appropriate and wouldn't frighten children," school board president Kim Phillips said. 
Chu said he barred the moment of silence in elementary schools because he feared it would have sparked discussions about terrorism, which some younger children could not handle emotionally. 
"My decision-making process is to try to protect the most fragile of our kids," he said. 
Chu said though he supported the board's vote, he felt he made a good decision but wished he had notified parents in advance about the change. 
"If I had been able to communicate to parents in advance that we were not going to have a moment of silence, some of the controversy would not have happened," he said. 
Peter Carino, who said he retired from the New York City Fire Department on a 9/11-related disability, said he still would have protested the decision. A petition started by Carino, who has a first- and sixth-grader in the district, netted nearly 1,300 signatures on a national Web site. 
Carino said he is ecstatic about the school board's vote: "I only asked for a moment of silence, but they offered so much more." 
He said he also asked for an apology from Chu and got that as well. 
Less than two weeks after 9/11, Chu posted an open letter of apology and explanation on the district's Web site, saying he had formed a committee to examine the issue. He said Tuesday neither was in response to Carino's actions. 
Carino said he wants to take his moment-of-silence campaign statewide.

Long Island

Suffolk

LIEISL14

East Islip elementary students to observe 9/11 next year

0KQCDX0C.JPG

At first glance, kickboxing may not seem to have anything to do with a 9/11 memorial. But for one Lindenhurst woman, a kickboxing tournament has become a unique way to honor her late father. 
Jennie Nedell, 31, lost her father Laurence Nedell on Sept. 11, 2001. 
The 52-year-old employee of Aon Corp. was last seen helping an elderly man in Tower Two. 
In the weeks before he died, father and daughter had started taking kickboxing lessons together. Jennie Nedell kept it up, and Sunday was the star attraction at a 13-bout kickboxing and martial arts event at Overlook Beach in <a href="/topics/Babylon%2C_NY">Babylon</a>. 
The proceeds from the tournament were to go to the beachside 9/11 memorial in the Town of <a href="/topics/Babylon%2C_NY">Babylon</a>. 
"It just means so much more than any fight," Nedell said before her match. "I'm honoring my father." 
Nedell, who works at MacArthur Airport, said it was years before she felt able to contribute to the memorial, which includes an etching of her father's portrait, alongside poems and a medal that loved ones had left for him. But now she hopes the tournament will be a way to fund the upkeep of the site, which is mostly paid for through donations, although Town of <a href="/topics/Babylon%2C_NY">Babylon</a> employees are also sent in to help maintain the property. 
Her father, Nedell said, would be proud. 
"It's why the sun is shining down - he's happy," she said. 
Around the ring, volunteers grilled hamburgers and swirled cotton candy around paper cones as the crowd of about 300 watched amateur boxers, kickboxers and Muay Thai fighters battle. 
Jennie Nedell's mother, Lorraine Nedell, 59, of Lindenhurst, watched, wearing a T-shirt printed with her husband's photo. She said it is difficult to watch her daughter go into the ring and grapple with an opponent - especially when she's on the receiving end of a kick. But, Lorraine Nedell said, "she did kickboxing with her dad. This is her way of honoring him." 
<a href="http://www.newsday.com/news/new-york/ground-zero-today-1.1419575">&gt;&gt;PHOTOS: Ground Zero ceremonies</a> | <a href="http://www.newsday.com/news/new-york/september-11th/long-island-remembers-9-11-1.1437341">Long Island remembers</a> 
<a href="http://www.newsday.com/long-island/photos-wtc-relics-1.211196">&gt;&gt;PHOTOS: Relics and wreckage from Ground Zero</a> | 
<a href="http://www.newsday.com/september-11-eight-years-later-1.1419180">&gt;&gt;COMPLETE COVERAGE: September 11: Eight years later</a>

Nassau

LIKICK14

Daughter gets in the ring to honor dad killed on 9/11

Jennie Nedell

The crowds near the World Trade Center site were sparser than usual. The weather was worse. The once-searing memories of that day loomed a little more distant. 
But for those who lost loved ones, whether they remembered in a cold rain at <a href="/topics/Ground_Zero">Ground Zero</a>, or at a quieter gathering closer to home, the grief was as present as it has always been. 
"We are still feeling, and will for generations to come, the impact of that horrible day," said Horacio Aponte of <a href="/topics/Bedford%E2%80%93Stuyvesant%2C_Brooklyn">Bedford-Stuyvesant</a>, <a href="/topics/Brooklyn">Brooklyn</a>, who came to the World Trade Center ceremony Friday despite recent knee surgery to honor the memory of his family friend, <a href="/topics/New_York">New York</a> Fire Department Lt. Dennis Mojica, 50, of Rescue 1. 
On what President Barack <a href="/topics/Barack_Obama">Obama</a> declared a day of remembrance and service, Americans paused to recall the moments eight years ago when terror struck out of a clear blue sky. In Washington, <a href="/topics/Barack_Obama">Obama</a> laid a wreath at the <a href="/topics/The_Pentagon">Pentagon</a> and pledged to continue to defend the nation as well as to summon "that ordinary goodness of America . . . to strengthen our country and to better our world." In <a href="/topics/Shanksville">Shanksville</a>, Pa., bells tolled in memory of the 40 people who died aboard the hijacked plane that crashed there. And in <a href="/topics/New_York">New York</a> City, a litany of names, and of grief, streamed from the podium at the Ground Zero memorial ceremony. 
"We miss you and love you more and more each day." 
"We'll meet in a better place and never part again." 
"Whether it's eight years or 800 years, you'll never be forgotten." 
"I love you and miss you, Daddy." 
On <a href="/topics/Long_Island">Long Island</a>, hundreds gathered for the annual beachfront ceremony - moved this year from Point Lookout to a tent on Lido Beach because of the driving wind and rain. New York City firefighter Kenneth Haskell of Wantagh, whose two brothers, firefighters Timothy and Thomas Jr., died at Ground Zero, told the crowd the ocean has always been a source of comfort for Long <a href="/topics/New_York_Islanders">Islanders</a>. 
"Water has been instrumental in the healing process of the past eight years," he said. 
&nbsp; 
Carrying photo of her friend 
As she does each year, Leslie Chin, 51, of Mineola, carried the photograph of her best friend, Kumkum Giralamo. 
Giralamo, 37, was on the 99th floor of the South Tower when a plane crashed into it. "All I have are my memories," Chin said. "I miss her every day." 
The whipping wind prevented the East Northport Fire Department from hoisting the American flag up from the ladders of two fire engines and releasing 12 white doves beneath a flyover by a <a href="/topics/Suffolk_County%2C_NY">Suffolk</a> County police helicopter, but about five dozen firefighters still stood side by side in the rain to pay tribute to those lost. 
"We still did what we were supposed to do," said Lt. Frank Giovinco. "We honored the folks who died Sept. 11, we honored their families and we honored the walking wounded." 
By the end of the <a href="/topics/Manhattan">Manhattan</a> ceremony, which was held adjacent to the World Trade Center site at Zuccotti Park, the number of mourners had dwindled to a few dozen. Perhaps it was the weather, or the passage of years, but Carmen Tulier, 52, left the service early for her own reasons. 
"So many people died there, it just didn't feel right to be there," said Tulier, who moved from New York to the Poconos after her niece, Monique DeJesus, was killed in the attacks. "Peace, that's what I'm looking for, but I haven't found it yet." 
Don Truitt, 44, of Chelsea, stood near the site for the moments of silence and tolling of bells. Truitt was working at Aon on the South Tower's 105th floor in 2001. But the morning of Sept. 11, he had not yet arrived at work. 
"Year by year it's getting easier, but it's still hard," he said. "I have many friends who perished in the tower." 
In keeping with tradition, politicians - including Vice President <a href="/topics/Joe_Biden">Joseph Biden</a> and former Mayor <a href="/topics/Rudy_Giuliani">Rudy Giuliani</a> - read poems or inspiring quotations instead of speeches. 
&nbsp; 
Victims' names read aloud 
Representatives from city volunteer groups joined family members in reading the 2,752 names of people who died at the Trade Center, as a flute and cello played in the background. 
"Eight years ago, countless people played a part in history by doing something to help another person, probably someone they didn't even know," said Mayor <a href="/topics/Michael_Bloomberg">Michael Bloomberg</a>. "Each act was a link in a continuous chain that stopped us from falling into cynicism and despair." 
Jeff Perlman, 54, of Holtsville, was working for Dean Witter on the south tower's 52nd floor at the time of the attacks. Each year, he said, it becomes easier to come to grips with his memories. "But every year I call my co-workers and we meet and we wish each other 'Happy Birthday,' because we were given a new life," he said. 
Perlman, who is moving to <a href="/topics/Allentown">Allentown</a>, Pa., to be closer to his grown children, said Friday marked the first time he'd come to Ground Zero for the ceremony. 
"This is kind of my goodbye to New York," he said. "I just wanted to be here today. I'm trying to purge the sadness so I can say goodbye and move on."

NYWTC12

9/11 sadness renewed at World Trade Center

9/11 battery

As raindrops knocked on the windows of the courtroom at Hempstead Village Hall Friday, students, firefighters and others came together to remember four residents who died in the 9/11 attacks. 
"We shed our tears in a common bond of grief for those we loved and lost," Hempstead Fire Department chaplain Keith Ericksen said as he led mourners in a prayer. Members of the Jackson Main and Franklin Street school choirs also performed. 
Village residents and fire volunteers Durrell "Broncko" Pearsall Jr., an ex-FDNY captain for Rescue 4, and Michael Kiefer, of Truck Company 132, died in the attacks. Village residents Dorothy Morgan and Alva Jeffries Sanchez also died. 
"We journey through a dark valley, but your light has led us to a place of hope," Ericksen said. "You have turned our grief into determination. We are resolved to do what is good and right and just." 
Around <a href="/topics/Long_Island">Long Island</a>, the bad weather caused some organizers to alter their plans. But ceremonies were held nonetheless in honor of the nearly 3,000 people who were killed, with Long Islanders huddled under a tent in Lido Beach, forming a human flag in a school in Malverne and pausing for reflection at Mass in Garden City. 
The East Northport Fire Department's 9/11 memorial plans included hoisting a huge American flag from the ladders of two fire engines, releasing a dozen white doves and a flyover by a <a href="/topics/Suffolk_County%2C_NY">Suffolk</a> County police helicopter. 
But even though wind and rain halted those events, the department still remembered the victims, with about five dozen firefighters standing side by side in the driving rain in solidarity with those who died Sept. 11, 2001. 
"We still did what we were supposed to do," said Lt. Frank Giovinco. "We honored the folks who died Sept. 11, we honored their families and we honored the walking wounded." 
Alison Day, 25, of East Northport, slowly sang "God Bless America," an American flag whipping in the wind behind her. 
Day said the message of remembrance and prayer touched her heart. "I prayed that it would hit other people's hearts," she said. 
At St. Anne's <a href="/topics/Catholic_Church">Catholic Church</a> in Garden City, the Rev. John Gilmartin mentioned in his homily eight parishioners who died in the attacks, said Ellen Redding, a retired schoolteacher. Garden City was a community hit especially hard - 21 residents died. 
"Today was beautiful," said Redding, who emerged from the 9 a.m. service dwelling on the positive. 
"I'm just thankful for the people who survived," including her daughter, who was an investment banker in the second tower, she said. She was about to enter an elevator when people warned her of the attacks. 
"Now she has three beautiful children," said Redding, who attends Mass daily and was in her classroom at Herricks Middle School when the towers were hit. 
Kathy <a href="/topics/Keane%2C_Inc.">Keane</a>, 44, spends every Sept. 11 attending Mass at St. Anne's. "I come to pray for all the victims and their families," she said. "I'm lucky I didn't lose anyone that close." 
In Malverne, students aimed for an uplifting tone at Howard T. Herber Middle School, where they donned red, white and blue to form an American flag. 
"It's to get the kids excited about coming together as one and remembering something that affected a lot of peoples' lives," said principal Steve Gilhuley. 
About 500 students crowded into the gym, wearing red, white and blue clothes and holding up construction paper for a group photograph. 
The flag event was the latest in several character education projects at the school. Others included a food drive and sending mail to the troops overseas, Gilhuley said. 
In Lido Beach, hundreds gathered under a tent for an annual ceremony, where the sound of water pouring from the ceremony's fountain and Twin Towers replica mixed with that of rain during a moment of silence. 
<a href="/topics/New_York">New York</a> City firefighter Kenneth Haskell of Wantagh shared memories of his older brothers, Timothy and Thomas Jr., also FDNY firefighters, who died at Ground Zero. 
The ocean has always been a source of comfort, especially for Long Islanders, he told the crowd. 
"Water has been instrumental in the healing process of the past eight years," he said. 
After the ceremony, attendees threw white carnations into the fountain's pool and put American flags into sand around it. 
Leslie Chin, 51, of Mineola, carried her best friend's photo, which she had glued to two sticks, and placed it in the sand. 
When Chin first arrived, she worried she wouldn't be able to carry out her yearly ritual of displaying a photo of her friend, Kumkum Giralamo. 
Giralamo, 37, of Kew Gardens, was on the 99th floor of the second tower when a plane hijacked by terrorists slammed into it. 
"All I have are my memories," Chin said. "I miss her every day. Friendships with women are hard to come by." 
Long Beach couple Elaine and Jack Pearlman usually spend Sept. 11 at home, remembering their son who died in Tower One. 
"This is our first year here," said Elaine Pearlman, 70. They had been reluctant to go to a public event to remember their son, Aram Iskenderian, 41, of Merrick. 
"It's still private," she said, clutching a white carnation and small American flag. 
With Carl MacGowan, Jennifer Sinco Kelleher and Keith Herbert 
<a href="http://www.newsday.com/news/new-york/ground-zero-today-1.1419575">&gt;&gt;PHOTOS: Ground Zero ceremonies</a> | <a href="http://www.newsday.com/news/new-york/september-11th/long-island-remembers-9-11-1.1437341">Long Island remembers</a> 
<a href="http://www.newsday.com/long-island/photos-wtc-relics-1.211196">&gt;&gt;PHOTOS: Relics and wreckage from Ground Zero</a> | <a href="http://www.newsday.com/long-island/photos-tribute-wtc-visitors-center-1.210832">Victims </a> 
<a href="http://www.newsday.com/september-11-eight-years-later-1.1419180">&gt;&gt;COMPLETE COVERAGE: September 11: Eight years later</a>

LIWTC12

LI firefighters mourn loss of 9/11 victims

liMEM

A firefighter, an administrative assistant, a nurse and a government bond broker whose paths may have never crossed now share an eternal connection as their four glass panels sit side by side embracing the Gardens of Remembrance -- Suffolk County's first 9/11 memorial. 
A crowd of more than 400 friends, family, elected officials, media and 9/11 Memorial Commission members gathered under and around three tents on the front lawn of the Armed Forces Plaza in <a href="/topics/Hauppauge%2C_NY">Hauppauge</a> Thursday afternoon to dedicate the new memorial and to pay tribute to those lives lost eight years ago. 
"From the most simplistic memorial we can truly believe the 178 innocent lives lost from our county on September 11th is not just etched in glass here today, but etched in our hearts and our souls as we continue to move forward," said County Executive <a href="/topics/Steve_Levy">Steve Levy</a>. 
The memorial was created by a <a href="/topics/New_York%2C_NY">New York</a>-based team: Barry Berger of Barry <a href="/topics/David_Berger">David Berger</a> and Associates, and Barry Silberstang and Nicholas Agneta of Silberstang Architects. The 179 panels of glass -- one extra to honor the volunteers who built the memorial -- enclose a garden filled with plants and flowers indigenous to Suffolk County, according to Silberstang. Each panel displays the name, age, profession and town of those who perished. 
"I wanted to create a garden you can see but not get in as an apt metaphor for loss," Silberstang said. Plants on the outside will be maintained, while the ones inside will grow untended. 
The $1.4-million memorial took five years of planning and nearly six months to complete. 
Standing next to their loved ones' panels, those present reflected. 
"We never found him," said Michael Stack, 40, of <a href="/topics/St._James%2C_NY">St. James</a>, a lieutenant in Ladder Company No. 176, speaking of his father, <a href="/topics/Lawrence%2C_NY">Lawrence</a> T. Stack, 59, a battalion commander from <a href="/topics/Lake_Ronkonkoma%2C_NY">Lake Ronkonkoma</a> who perished trying to help a man who had severed his Achilles' tendon. "It's great to have something like this memorial." 
<a href="http://www.newsday.com/september-11-eight-years-later-1.1419180">COMPLETE COVERAGE: September 11: Eight years later</a> 
<a href="http://www.newsday.com/long-island/photos-wtc-relics-1.211196">PHOTOS: See fire trucks, steel beams, and other relics that survived at </a><a href="/topics/Ground_Zero">Ground Zero</a> 
<a href="http://www.newsday.com/long-island/photos-tribute-wtc-visitors-center-1.210832">PHOTOS: See victims and personal items from the </a><a href="/topics/World_Trade_Center">WTC</a> Tribute Museum 
<a href="http://www.newsday.com/news/new-york/ground-zero-today-1.1419575">PHOTOS: See the latest photos of </a><a href="/topics/Ground_Zero">Ground Zero</a>

LIMEMO11

Suffolk unveils 9/11 memorial for 178 victims

Suffolk 9/11 Memorial

For Barbara Jackman, the foundation she and her family started in memory of her daughter Brooke saved her life.
In the six months following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the mother said, she left her Oyster Bay home for only two reasons: to meet with support groups, and to work on getting the Brooke Jackman Foundation off the ground.
Brooke Jackman was a voracious reader who always had a book in her backpack, her mother said. She enjoyed helping people and volunteered regularly at a soup kitchen and a school for developmentally challenged children.
Though in 2001 she was working as an assistant bond trader at Cantor Fitzgerald in the World Trade Center, Brooke was applying to graduate schools to pursue a master's degree in social work.
The foundation, formed one month after Brooke's death at age 23, melds her passions: It creates and supports programs that enhance the literacy and self-esteem of disadvantaged children and their families.
Through the nonprofit, her mother said, Brooke lives.
"I know that somehow she is with us," said Barbara Jackman, 63.
Erin Jackman, Brooke's sister and the foundation's executive director, said giving children the tools to learn how to read seemed the best way possible to honor Brooke.
Every year since 2002, the foundation has given away Brooke Packs - each one a backpack filled with school supplies, a new book and audio versions of the book. In earlier years, that meant a Walkman and audiotapes; these days, the backpack holds an MP3 player to play the audio version of the book, which is available for download on the foundation's Web site.
The first year, the foundation gave away 100 Brooke Packs; this year, the packs numbered 2,700.
"All communities may not have the same access to books, so we wanted to give children the same opportunities," said Erin, 36.
The <a href="/topics/Manhattan">Manhattan</a>-based foundation also has family literacy programs, provides camp scholarships to low-income children and establishes libraries, the latest at the Family Justice Center in downtown <a href="/topics/Brooklyn">Brooklyn</a>.
And on Aug. 28, 2008, what would have been Brooke's 30th birthday, the foundation began a new tradition of giving a book to children in each of its programs on that day.
"Our foundation truly embodies Brooke's spirit," Erin said.
What it doesn't mirror, her mother said, is her humility.
"I don't believe she would want her name out there," Barbara said, "but I think she would be happy that we were helping children."

LIBOOK11

9/11 victim lives on through books, giving, says mom

Brooke Jackman

Whether the 2001 terror attacks were witnessed firsthand or watched on a TV in a living room on another continent, a Web site launched Thursday is storing 9/11 experiences from around the globe.
The National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum created the online project, called "Make History." It's designed to allow the public to directly upload unrestricted images, video and text detailing their personal experiences of the attacks.
It doesn't matter whether contributors were in lower <a href="/topics/Manhattan">Manhattan</a> the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, or huddled around a radio in Tel Aviv.
"We're charging every community with a responsibility," said national memorial and museum president <a href="/topics/Joe_Daniels">Joe Daniels</a>. "Whether individuals were here in <a href="/topics/New_York">New York</a> City during the attacks or watching events unfold in <a href="/topics/Tokyo">Tokyo</a> or stuck in an airport in <a href="/topics/Australia">Australia</a>, people from around the world experienced 9/11 firsthand."
Daniels announced the launch during a presentation of newly released computer-generated renderings of the interior of the planned 9/11 museum, which is more than 120,000 square feet and being built underground. 
The renderings featured exhibition space several stories below ground and an overlook, where visitors can stand and see into the museum. The images also show how designers incorporated the original World Trade Center site's slurry wall that keeps the Hudson River from seeping into the space.
The physical remains, such as the wall, were key to the structure's design, said <a href="/topics/Steven_Davis">Steven Davis</a> of architecture firm Davis Brody Bond Aedas, which designed the museum. "We have been inspired by the site," he said.
The Make History submissions being collected at 911history.org will become part of a permanent digital archive, and may be used in the museum's primary exhibition, officials said. 
Entries are expected from professionals and amateurs.
Each picture will be superimposed on current street-view photos. For example, a picture of people standing on Broadway at Church Street watching the towers collapse would be overlaid on an up-to-date view. 
Daniels said the museum will be open by 2012. The project's builder, the Port Authority, said it will be complete in the second quarter of 2013.

News

New York

NYMEM11

9/11 site invites contributors to upload stories, images

Janiece Morgan was just a small child during the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, but now the Copiague Middle School student wants to spend that tragic day doing good.
As a member of the school's "Esteem Team," Morgan is helping to clean used backpacks that will be stuffed with school supplies and given to charities. Her school is taking part Friday in the first National Day of Service and Remembrance, as outlined in the <a href="/topics/Edward_M._Kennedy">Edward M. Kennedy</a> Serve America legislation signed by President <a href="/topics/Barack_Obama">Barack Obama</a>.
Making Sept. 11 a day of public service could mean "people will not think of it as a horrible, horrible thing that happened," said Morgan, 13. "We can build upon it.''
Many schools across <a href="/topics/Long_Island">Long Island</a> have chosen to participate in the day of service. 
In the <a href="/topics/William_Floyd">William Floyd</a> and Valley Stream school districts, students are gathering canned goods and other perishables to donate. In Wyandanch, elementary students will make friendship cards for local seniors. And in Copiague, where Morgan goes to school, middle school principal Andrew Lagnado said the staff came up with the plan to donate backpacks.
Art teacher Maria Ostrofsky is Esteem Team's adviser, and her husband is a <a href="/topics/New_York">New York</a> City firefighter whose firehouse lost 14 members on Sept. 11. Lagnado said the service project will likely continue for years to come. 
"It's a great idea to do something good on such a bad day," said Joseph Amorosino, 13.
Garden City Middle School students are collecting new storybooks and pajamas for The Pajama Program, an organization that serves children awaiting adoption. Garden City was particularly hard hit by the Sept. 11 attacks when 21 residents were killed.
To earn a Girl Scout merit badge, Garden City High School senior Emily Madigan contacted the middle school and launched the project. Collection boxes were placed in classrooms and notes about the drive sent home to parents.
"We are giving pajamas to people who really need it," said Madigan, 17.
Spanish teacher Dina Reilly, who is helping with the service project, said middle school students are also composing poems or short stories to send to The Pajama Program.
In the Valley Stream 13 school district, fifth-graders at Willow Road School will honor the day by starting a food drive to benefit Island Harvest, said teacher Sharon Marrione.
For one week, children will be asked to bring donated food items.
"For a lot of these kids, [Sept. 11] is something they hear about, but can't grasp it in the same sense of poignancy," Marrione said. "I love the idea of making this day something that inspires someone to serve others while making it in the memory of the people who were lost that day."

LISKUL11

For schoolkids, 9/11's a day spent doing good

9/11 students

Ken Sprecht, Mike Valentin and John Feal share a hard-earned belief: The declaration of Sept. 11 as a national day of service and remembrance by congressional passage and presidential signature seemed a gesture that, in real terms, was too late and too little.
That's because the three <a href="/topics/Long_Island">Long Island</a> men - all first responders at Ground Zero - say they, and others like them, already have dedicated their lives toward helping those affected by 9/11. What they need most, they say, is actual deed-doers and coverage of treatment for those with health troubles stemming from Sept. 11 and their time at Ground Zero in the months afterward.
"We do the work every day," said Sprecht, 40, of Levittown, a retired <a href="/topics/New_York">New York</a> City firefighter. "We never need to be told by anybody to remember what Sept. 11 is."
Moved to continue helping long after their work at "the pile" was done, Sprecht, Valentin and Feal all started their own charitable service foundations, primarily aimed at assisting first responders.
Sprecht and fellow Sept. 11 firefighter <a href="/topics/John_McNamara">John McNamara</a> founded the New York City Firefighters Brotherhood Foundation last year. Like scores of other first responders, McNamara suffered health problems he said were caused from breathing in the toxins at Ground Zero. McNamara died of <a href="/topics/Colon_Cancer">colon cancer</a> last month at the age of 44.
During its short existence, Sprecht's foundation has donated more than $15,000 to about a dozen ailing and injured firefighters and their families. But the tiring amount of work and drying-up of donations have made the foundation's future uncertain, Sprecht said.
Like Sprecht, Valentin, of Ronkonkoma, said the biggest help his group, the 9/11 Police Aid Foundation, could receive is the federal government's passage of the James Zadroga Health and Compensation Act. It would provide testing and treatment for those suffering from 9/11-related illnesses.
"What's more important? A national day of service or the guys that are dying?" said Valentin, 44, a retired NYPD officer who has suffered from several respiratory problems since working at Ground Zero. His foundation has helped more than 150 sick Ground Zero police officers and their families pay medical and other bills.
One of the largest Long Island-based foundations aimed at helping Sept. 11's first responders was started by a man who doesn't even consider himself one. John Feal, 42, of Nesconset, was working as a demolition supervisor at Ground Zero when an 8,000- pound steel beam crushed his left foot. 
Feal's struggles to win his workers' compensation and Social Security benefits spurred him to create the Feal Good Foundation in 2005. The group has helped more than 600 first responders with donations and assistance in securing benefits.
He, too, wishes government officials would take over his work in helping the heroes of Sept. 11.
"I don't need the president signing a letter [making] 9/11 a day of service and remembrance for me to remember 9/11," Feal said. "I live it every day."

LIRESP11

9/11 first responders dedicated to helping others

John Feal

There is the dread of leaving the house that morning. People might stare, or worse, yell insults. 
Prayers are more intense, visits with family longer. Mosques become a refuge. 
Eight years after 9/11, many U.S. Muslims still struggle through the anniversary of the attacks. Yes, the sting has lessened. For the younger generation of Muslims, the tragedy can even seem like a distant memory. "Time marches on," said Souha Azmeh Al-Samkari, a 22-year-old student at the University of Dayton in <a href="/topics/Ohio">Ohio</a>. 
Yet, many American Muslims say Sept. 11 will never be routine, no matter how many anniversaries have passed. 
"I get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach every year," said Nancy Rokayak, 45, of <a href="/topics/Charlotte">Charlotte</a>, N.C., who covers her hair in public. "I feel on 9/11 others look at me and blame me for the events that took place." 
Rokayak, a U.S.-born convert, has four children with her husband, who is from <a href="/topics/Egypt">Egypt</a>, and works as an ultrasound technologist. She makes sure she is wearing a red, white and blue flag pin every Sept. 11 and feels safer staying close to home. 
Sarah Sayeed, 41, who lives in the <a href="/topics/Bronx">Bronx</a>, said that for a long time, she hesitated before going out on the anniversary. The morning the World Trade Center crumbled, she rushed to her son's Islamic day school so they could both return home. The other women there warned that she should take off her headscarf, or hijab, for her own safety. She now attends an interfaith prayer event each Sept. 11, keeping her hair covered as always. 
"There's still a sense of 'Should I go anywhere? Should I say anything?' There's kind of that anxiety," said Sayeed, who was born in <a href="/topics/India">India</a> and came to the U.S. at age 8. "I force myself to go out." 
The anniversary brings a mix of emotions: sorrow over the huge loss of life, anguish over the wars that followed, but also resentment over how the hijackings so completely transformed the place of Muslims in the U.S. and beyond. 
A poll released this week by the Pew Forum on Religion &amp; Public Life found that 38 percent of Americans believe Islam is more likely than other faiths to encourage violence. That is down from 45 percent two years earlier. 
It is now common in U.S. mosques for Muslims to preface public remarks by saying they know the government is eavesdropping but Muslims have nothing to hide. 
"It put a lot of Muslim Americans in the position of, 'We don't blend in as much as we thought we did,'" said Ibrahim Abdul-Matin, 32, a native <a href="/topics/New_York">New York</a>er whose college friend was killed in the World Trade Center. 
Some of the Muslims interviewed for this story said they have been subjected to insults, though not on the Sept. 11 anniversary. Sayeed remembers a man walking by and calling her "Taliban." Closer to the attacks, an anonymous caller told Rokayak to get out of the country. 
Abdul-Matin, 32, said he avoids TV news on the anniversary "if it's too much of this drumbeating or warmongering, if the focus is on 'what they did to us.'" He prefers spending the day with his relatives, especially his mother, who was with him in Brooklyn the morning of the attacks. 
"It's a family day," Abdul-Matin said. 
This year, the anniversary falls on a Friday, the Islamic day of congregational prayer, and during <a href="/topics/Ramadan">Ramadan</a>, the Muslim holy month, when mosques are usually packed. Muslims expect their prayer leaders, or imams, will at least mention the significance of the date in their sermons. 
Asim Rehman, president of the Muslim Bar Association of <a href="/topics/New_York">New York</a>, was at the federal courthouse in lower <a href="/topics/Manhattan">Manhattan</a> when the planes hit. He said he passes the day "as a proud <a href="/topics/New_York">New York</a>er" in "prayer and reflection" for the victims, their families and others. 
Not all mosques will commemorate the day. A significant number of U.S. Muslims contend that no one of their faith could have perpetrated the hijackings. They resist suggestions that they should be monitoring their own communities for extremism. 
Kamran Memon, an <a href="/topics/Illinois">Illinois</a> lawyer, has taken a different approach, founding Muslims for A Safe America, which challenges fellow Muslims to learn more about national security. The debates and talks he leads at mosques throughout the <a href="/topics/Chicago">Chicago</a> area start from the position that Muslims were behind the attacks. 
On the anniversary, Memon keeps his work schedule light and prefers to stay home. He reflects on what happened, but his thoughts are more focused on what could be ahead. Some Muslims are convinced that if the U.S. is hit with another terrorist attack, the government will put them in internment camps, he said. 
"There's this fear about what down the road this will mean for my daughter's future. What kind of life will she have here?" he said. "People may be less angry or less hostile toward Muslims in general, but if there's another attack, what then?" 
<a href="http://www.newsday.com/september-11-eight-years-later-1.1419180">COMPLETE COVERAGE: September 11: Eight years later</a> 
<a href="http://www.newsday.com/long-island/photos-wtc-relics-1.211196">PHOTOS: See fire trucks, steel beams, and other relics that survived at Ground Zero</a> 
<a href="http://www.newsday.com/long-island/photos-tribute-wtc-visitors-center-1.210832">PHOTOS: See victims and personal items from the WTC Tribute Museum</a> 
<a href="http://www.newsday.com/news/new-york/ground-zero-today-1.1419575">PHOTOS: See the latest photos of Ground Zero</a>

ny-muslims-9/11

US Muslims: backlash fear builds each 9/11

muslims

Jo Ann Lagone watched reverently as the color guard marched in Eisenhower Park against a backdrop of two steel towers representing the World Trade Center. She reflected on the loss of two giants in her life: her husband, Thomas, a police officer, and her brother-in-law, Peter, a firefighter. 
Both men died at Ground Zero after responding to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. 
So Lagone, 51, of Williston Park, gathered with about 150 people, some in lawn chairs and some sitting on ledges near the memorial fountain, at a sunset ceremony Wednesday to commemorate the eighth anniversary of one of the nation's darkest days. 
She said it was the second time that she had attended the <a href="/topics/Nassau_County%2C_NY">Nassau</a> County-sponsored event in the East Meadow park. 
"It's a very draining, long day," Lagone said of the annual service she will attend Friday, in <a href="/topics/Manhattan">Manhattan</a>, nonetheless. "This one is nicer." 
Four uniformed Marines carried the American flag up to the podium, where Janet Wexler Magee, whose husband died in the attacks, led the <a href="/topics/Pledge_of_Allegiance">Pledge of Allegiance</a>. 
"September 11th will last in our hearts forever," said <a href="/topics/Nassau_County%2C_NY">Nassau</a> County Executive Thomas Suozzi. "Those memories don't fade with the people here. We will pray for them. We will pray for each other." 
Men and women called off the names of the 344 <a href="/topics/Nassau_County%2C_NY">Nassau</a> residents who died on Sept. 11. Each read a few dozen names and ended their list with the loved one they lost. 
Some broke down in tears, including a woman who spoke about how much she missed her brother, her hero. 
Ten gray plaques on the cement walls around the fountains bear the name, age, town, employer and tower where each of the <a href="/topics/Nassau_County%2C_NY">Nassau</a> residents died. 
Some observers put pictures of their loved ones next to their names on the wall. 
Beth Mahon, 44, of Locust Valley, lost her husband, Thomas, who worked for Cantor Fitzgerald on the 105th floor of the North Tower. They had just celebrated their third wedding anniversary when he died, leaving her to raise their daughter, Shay, then 21 months old. 
"It's very difficult to go to these types of things, but I came and I was really amazed at the beauty of it," Mahon said, gesturing toward the fountain. 
"Time heals, but you never forget," she said. "I think about him every day. My daughter doesn't have a father. I know he's watching over her and he's very proud." 
With Zachary R. Dowdy 
<a href="http://www.newsday.com/september-11-eight-years-later-1.1419180">COMPLETE COVERAGE: September 11: Eight years later</a> 
<a href="http://www.newsday.com/long-island/photos-wtc-relics-1.211196">PHOTOS: See fire trucks, steel beams, and other relics that survived at Ground Zero</a> 
<a href="http://www.newsday.com/long-island/photos-tribute-wtc-visitors-center-1.210832">PHOTOS: See victims and personal items from the WTC Tribute Museum</a> 
<a href="http://www.newsday.com/news/new-york/ground-zero-today-1.1419575">PHOTOS: See the latest photos of Ground Zero</a>

LIWTC10

9/11 victims honored at Eisenhower Park ceremony

9/11 on LI

Retired FDNY deputy chief Jim Riches said that even if the annual Sept. 11 ceremony at the World Trade Center site were to end one day, he will still make it a point to be at Ground Zero on each anniversary to remember his son killed in the terror attacks. 
After the towers fell, Riches spent his spare time as part of the recovery effort, digging through rubble in search of remains of his son, Jimmy, a 29-year-old firefighter with Engine 4 who perished while trying to rescue people from the North Tower. 
"We always go down there, because that's where he died," said Riches, 58, of Bay Ridge. "I know exactly where we found his body. It was at the front tower. We leave flowers there." 
While grieving loved ones like Riches attend every year, over time some have looked to move on, grieve at home or attend an increasing number of smaller memorial ceremonies held around the region to remember the 2,752 who perished. The city does not keep track of the number of attendees, but regulars say the numbers are decreasing. 
"I know that there are fewer people," says Sally Regenhard of the <a href="/topics/Bronx">Bronx</a>, who lost her son Christian <a href="/topics/Michael_Otto">Michael Otto</a> Regenhard, a firefighter with Ladder 131, Engine 279 in Red Hook, <a href="/topics/Brooklyn">Brooklyn</a>, who is one of 1,100 people whose remains are still missing. "It's very, very difficult to go to Ground Zero. I would like to see a strong showing down at Ground Zero, because that's what the world looks at." 
Families of those who died get letters or have cards that serve as their official ticket into ceremonies that will begin at 8:40 a.m. Friday, shortly before the first tower was struck, and run until noon. A moment of silence will be held at 8:46 a.m. and again at 9:03 a.m., commemorating the times the planes struck the two buildings, and again at 9:59 a.m. and 10:29 a.m., at the times the towers crumbled. 
Security is tight and many streets around the area are closed to vehicles and even pedestrian traffic. The public will not be allowed inside the ceremony. The city has set up a viewing area at Liberty Street and Broadway and city officials say they will accommodate as many people as needed. 
Each year the city adopts a theme for those who read the names at the ceremony, such as last year when the children of those who perished read the names. This year's theme is a National Day of Service and Remembrance, to go along with legislation signed into law by President <a href="/topics/Barack_Obama">Barack Obama</a> recognizing Sept. 11 as a National Day of Service and Remembrance. To pay tribute to those who toiled at Ground Zero in the weeks after the attacks, the 230 readers will be about half family members and half those who give their time to service organizations. 
"The volunteers who are participating are from two areas," said Evelyn Erskine, a spokeswoman for Mayor <a href="/topics/Michael_Bloomberg">Michael Bloomberg</a>. "The first from nonprofits that partner with NYC service and the second is organizations that are related to 9/11. They are just people who are giving up their time and energy to different service organizations." 
Among the organizations participating are the City Meals on Wheels, the American Red Cross and Community Emergency Response Teams citywide. The groups comprise six priority areas of service including education, public health and environment, and emergency preparedness, Erskine said. The mayor's office asked groups to send their top two or three volunteers. 
Service will also be the theme in the evening at a tribute concert at the Beacon Theatre on the Upper West Side. Scheduled guests include Bloomberg, Secretary of State <a href="/topics/Hillary_Rodham_Clinton">Hillary Rodham Clinton</a>, Gov. <a href="/topics/David_A_Paterson">David A. Paterson</a>, actor <a href="/topics/Gary_Sinise">Gary Sinise</a>, late-night talk show host <a href="/topics/Jimmy_Fallon">Jimmy Fallon</a> and his house band The Roots. 
And there is the "Tribute in Light," the art installation of 88 separate search lights to commemorate those who died and those who worked on the recovery. It begins at sunset and lasts until dawn on Sept. 12. 
For people like Lynette Mohammed-Coe of Bellmore, it's all too much. Mohammed-Coe said she used to go to Ground Zero on 9/11 for the ceremony, but finds the commotion and pain still raw from the loss of her husband, Boyie Mohammed, 50, a stock trader at Carr Futures Inc. "I watch it on TV," she says. "I just wait to hear his name called." 
But Matt Casey, 22, of Holmdel, N.J., finds solace in the events. At last year's ceremony, he read the name of his mother, Kathleen Ann Hunt Casey, an equities trader who worked on the 104th floor of the South Tower. "I like going to the big events, instead of staying low key," he said. "Nothing is going to change it. You just have to remember them." 
<a href="http://www.newsday.com/long-island/photos-wtc-relics-1.211196">PHOTOS: Click to see photos of fire trucks, steel beams, and other relics that survived at Ground Zero</a> 
<a href="http://www.newsday.com/long-island/photos-tribute-wtc-visitors-center-1.210832">PHOTOS: Click to see victims and personal items from the WTC Tribute Museum</a> 
<a href="http://www.newsday.com/news/new-york/ground-zero-today-1.1419575">PHOTOS: Click to see photos of Ground Zero today</a> 
<a href="http://www.newsday.com/september-11-eight-years-later-1.1419180">Complete guide to September 11: Eight years later</a>

NYWTC09

9/11 families still hold memories at WTC site

9/11 Jim Riches

WHERE Zuccotti Park, on Liberty Street between Broadway and Church streets 
TICKETS Family members who did not receive tickets can call the mayor's office 212-788-3000. 
VIEWING At Liberty Street and Broadway. 
8:40 a.m. Program begins with the introduction of citywide moment of silence. 
8:46 Moment of silence observing the time first plane struck the North Tower, and houses of worship across the city will toll bells. 
Names of 2,752 people who died will be read by family members and volunteers. 
8:47 Families begin entering the World Trade Center site 
9:03 Moment of silence observing the time second plane struck the South Tower. Reading of names continues. 
9:59 Moment of silence observing the fall of the South Tower. Reading continues. 
10:29 Moment of silence observing the time of fall of the North Tower. Reading of names concludes. 
Taps performed by NYPD, FDNY and PAPD trumpeters. 
Final music performance. 
Noon. Program concludes

TXTWTC09

Sept. 11 schedule of events in Manhattan

ALBERTSON The Town of North Hempstead hosts a 9/11 memorial service, 8:30 a.m. Friday, Clark Botanic Garden.
BABYLON A 15-match kickboxing exhibition to raise money for maintenance of the 9/11 memorial at Cedar Beach, 3 p.m. Sunday, Overlook Beach.
EAST MEADOW Nassau County 9/11 Memorial Foundation hosts a sunset ceremony, 6 p.m. Friday, Eisenhower Park.
EAST MEADOW The Long Island Volunteer Center and <a href="/topics/Nassau_University_Medical_Center">Nassau University Medical Center</a> co-sponsor a blood drive in memory of 9/11 victims, 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. Friday, Nassau University Medical Center.
EAST NORTHPORT East Northport Fire Department pays tribute to 9/11 victims and sings "God Bless America," 9:45 a.m. and 8 p.m. Friday, East Northport Fire Department.
EAST NORTHPORT Christian concert commemorating 9/11, 8 p.m. Friday, Samantha's Lil' Bit of Heaven, 
287 Larkfield Road.
FREEPORT Exhibit of 9/11 photos from various news outlets on display through Sept. 29, reception at 2 p.m. Saturday, Freeport Public Library.
GREAT NECK AND 
ROCKVILLE CENTRE 
September Concert Foundation hosts a global day of music for peace, 1 p.m. Friday at <a href="/topics/Molloy_College">Molloy College</a> in Rockville Centre, and 3:30 p.m. Friday at Great Neck Plaza in Memorial Park.
HOLTSVILLE Candlelight vigil hosted by Girl Scout Troop 3138, 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Holtsville Fire Department.
Long Beach - A tribute featuring kites made by students and veterans in memory of 9/11, 2:45 p.m. Sunday, Riverside Boulevard boardwalk.
Long Beach - Writing workshop that includes poetry and prose about 9/11, 2 p.m. Friday, Long Beach Public Library.
MASSAPEQUA 2,974 flags, planted by Boy Scout Troop 660, displayed on the lawn at Massapequa Park Village Hall through Saturday, in memory of each victim.
MOUNT SINAI Ceremony to honor 9/11 victims and to announce an "Avenue of America" that will feature 80 state and national flags, 4:45 p.m. Friday, North Shore Heritage Park.
POINT LOOKOUT The Town of Hempstead presents two 15-foot tall towers, a reflecting pool and a dove release, along with a speaker who lost two brothers on 9/11, 7:30 a.m. Friday, Town Park Point Lookout.
RIVERHEAD Prayer service to promote friendship between <a href="/topics/Iran">Iran</a> and the U.S. with the international prayer group Women in Black, 7 p.m. Thursday, First Parish Church Spiritual Renewal Center, corner of South Avenue and Church Lane.
WANTAGH The Town of Oyster Bay hosts a candlelight ceremony to honor residents lost on 9/11, 7 p.m. Friday, Tobay Beach.

TXTLI09

Sept. 11 is commemorated with LI events

The setting has changed, but the tribute remains the same. 
A 20-ton slab of feldspar, hornblende and garnet stone originally donated by a Hauppauge rock company to be the cornerstone of the Freedom Tower will now be displayed in front of the company's building and rededicated Friday, the eighth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. 
"It was created for a big purpose," said Karen Pearse, chief executive for the company, Innovative Stone. 
The stone was made in 2004 with an inscription from then-Gov. <a href="/topics/George_Pataki">George Pataki</a>, Mayor <a href="/topics/Michael_Bloomberg">Michael Bloomberg</a> and developer Larry Silverstein, Pearse said. 
The words "to honor and to remember those who lost their lives on September 11, 2001 and as a tribute to the enduring spirit of freedom" were chiseled on top, although the inscription would not have been visible after construction began on top of the cornerstone, Pearse said. 
Garnet is <a href="/topics/New_York">New York</a> State's gemstone and this one originated in the Adirondack Mountains upstate, at the Barton Quarry. 
The stone was laid into the pit at Ground Zero on July 4, 2004, but removed in 2006 as plans for the redevelopment changed and returned to Innovative Stone to hold until 2012. 
Then, the Port Authority informed Pearse this year that the stone would not be used after all. 
Still, to trash the project altogether seemed improper. Pearse said she would rather display it than keep it hidden in storage. 
A special garden was built in front of the company's building at 130 Motor Pkwy., and a dedication ceremony is planned for 8 a.m. Friday with County Executive <a href="/topics/Steve_Levy">Steve Levy</a>. 
A crane operator donated time to move the stone from the back storage facility to the front lawn Tuesday, Pearse said. Dozens of other companies donated services and money to help set up the garden, and the stone's inscription will be prominently featured. 
"The memorial garden was created for everyone to use. There's a beautiful circular area for everyone to gather and contemplate," Pearse said. "It will remain there indefinitely until we hear they might want it back at the site." 
She hopes the Ground Zero developers will find a way to use it, Pearse said. 
"I think it will be really embraced and honored [in Hauppauge], but ultimately we'd like it to be back at Ground Zero," Pearse said.

NYFREE09

Sept. 11 memorial stone to be displayed in Hauppauge

0KPNWWZC.JPG

Peering into the cavernous pit in lower <a href="/topics/Manhattan">Manhattan</a>, it was hard to picture a redesigned World Trade Center just a year ago. 
A look now - with observance of the eighth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks only days away - offers a far different view. 
<a href="http://www.newsday.com/news/new-york/ground-zero-today-1.1419575">See photos of Ground Zero today</a> 
Elements of the multibillion-dollar reconstruction plan are beginning to take shape. Structures that will memorialize the lives lost in the 2001 and 1993 terror attacks, will also redefine <a href="/topics/New_York">New York</a> City's downtown. 
<a href="/topics/Chris_Ward">Chris Ward</a>, executive director of the <a href="/topics/Port_Authority_of_New_York_and_New_Jersey">Port Authority of New York and New Jersey</a>, the agency that owns the site, calls what is happening "an incredible dance of construction." 
The signature skyscraper, One World Trade Center, commonly known as the Freedom Tower, has risen more than 100 feet above street level. It still is mostly a foundation and a steel frame with no floors. But a year ago, the frame was only 25 feet above street level. 
Portions of the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum are steadily moving toward targeted completion dates.The entire memorial, including the museum's pavilion and underground exhibition space, is to be completed in 2013. 
Details on WTC&nbsp;Memorial and Museum 
Cost:&nbsp;$610 million (for memorial and museum) 
Completion: Memorial partially done in 2011 for 10th anniversary of 9/11. Entire memorial and underground museum to be completed in 2013. 
Features: Two 1-acre-sized pools with waterfalls within footprints of Twin Towers. 
Raised bronze panels with the names of the 2,981 people who died on 9/11 and the six killed in the 1993 terror bombings at the site. 
8-acre plaza with nearly 500 swamp white oak and sweetgum trees. 
<a href="http://www.newsday.com/long-island/photos-wtc-relics-1.211196">&gt;&gt;Click to see photos of fire trucks, steel beams, personal items and other relics that survived at Ground Zero</a> 
<a href="http://www.newsday.com/long-island/photos-tribute-wtc-visitors-center-1.210832">&gt;&gt;Photos of victims and other artifacts from the WTC Tribute Museum</a> 
<a href="http://www.newsday.com/news/new-york/ground-zero-today-1.1419575">&gt;&gt;See photos of Ground Zero today</a> 
<a href="http://www.newsday.com/long-island/nassau/working-toward-2013-opening-for-9-11-museum-1.1428457">&gt;&gt;Read about progress on the 9/11 museum</a> 
<a href="http://www.newsday.com/news/new-york/9-11-widow-husband-would-be-proud-to-be-part-of-memorial-1.1428664">&gt;&gt;Read about the reflecting pools memorial</a> 
<a href="http://www.newsday.com/september-11-eight-years-later-1.1419180">&gt;&gt;Complete guide to September 11:&nbsp;Eight years later</a>

NYWTC08

World Trade Center reconstruction project starting to evolve

Attacks Redevelopment

For Seymour and Elaine Winuk, having their son posthumously recognized with the 9/11 Heroes Medal of Valor Monday was bittersweet. 
Just four days before the eighth anniversary of the terrorist attacks, the Winuk family gathered at the Jericho park named after Glenn Winuk to receive the recognition they had long been seeking. 
"We're sorry we lost him," said Seymour Winuk, 78, of Jericho. "But he's getting an award that is well deserved for many reasons." 
A 19-year volunteer firefighter for the Jericho Fire Department, Glenn Winuk was hailed Monday for his willingness to put himself in harm's way to rescue people. He responded to the crash in 1990 of Avianca Flight 52 in Cove Neck and three years later to the bombing of the World Trade Center. 
And on Sept. 11, 2001 when the first plane hit the North Tower, Winuk, an attorney in a law firm nearby, helped evacuate the building he was working in, then rushed toward the chaos. 
Winuk, 40, died when the South Tower collapsed. Six months later, his remains were found next to those of other would-be rescuers. 
"He was always running to help people," his father said. 
Because Winuk had not been an active member of the fire department since 1998, the Department of Justice refused to recognize him as a qualified rescuer who died in the line of duty. 
But after a protracted campaign by the Winuk family and local politicians, the <a href="/topics/U.S._Department_of_Justice">Justice Department</a> dropped its objection last January, making the family eligible to receive a $250,000 death benefit and the medal. 
Still, the family waited for the award until Monday. 
Sen. <a href="/topics/Charles_Schumer">Charles Schumer</a> (D-N.Y.), who presented the Winuk family with a certificate signed by President <a href="/topics/Barack_Obama">Barack Obama</a> and Attorney General <a href="/topics/Eric_Holder">Eric Holder</a>, said the country's recognition of Winuk's sacrifice was long overdue. 
"Glenn Winuk was a hero in the truest sense of the word -- an American hero," Schumer said. "Glenn died bravely, selflessly and generously. He was totally deserving of the medal and certificate of valor." 
The family will receive the medal itself in several weeks, Schumer's office said. 
Rep. <a href="/topics/Peter_King">Peter King</a> (R-Seaford) called the recognition "a great, great reward." 
"Glenn personified everything that was good about September 11, as tragic a day as it was," King said. 
Glenn's brother, Jay, said he only wanted his brother to be granted what other rescuers who died in the line of duty were given years ago. 
"I don't need the validation because I know what he did and everyone else knows what he did. But it's the Department of Justice's responsibility to give the recognition," said Jay Winuk, 51, of Mahopac. 
"It took a small army of people to see that this simple but most important honor for a lost firefighter took place." 
<a href="http://www.newsday.com/long-island/photos-wtc-relics-1.211196">&gt;&gt;Click to see photos of fire trucks, steel beams, and other relics that survived at Ground Zero</a> 
<a href="http://www.newsday.com/long-island/photos-tribute-wtc-visitors-center-1.210832">&gt;&gt;Photos of victims and personal items from the WTC Tribute Museum</a> 
<a href="http://www.newsday.com/news/new-york/ground-zero-today-1.1419575">&gt;&gt;See photos of Ground Zero today</a> 
<a href="http://www.newsday.com/september-11-eight-years-later-1.1419180">&gt;&gt;Complete guide to September 11:&nbsp;Eight years later</a>

LIMEDA08

Jericho man receives 9/11 Heroes Medal of Valor posthumously

liMEDALACT92

At long last, two huge reflecting pools are coming into being within the footprints of the fallen Twin Towers. 
And one day, not so long from now, the names of the victims of Sept. 11, 2001, and the terror bombing of Feb. 26, 1993, will be inscribed on a series of raised bronze panels around the rims of the pools. 
The name of Dennis Cross of Islip Terrace, battalion chief of Battalion 57 in Bedford-Stuyvesant, will be among them, along with those of 342 other members of the <a href="/topics/Fire_Department_of_New_York">Fire Department of New York</a> City who perished in 2001. Cross was 60 when he was killed. 
Honored by recognition 
The tribute at the World Trade Center site is one that Cross, an FDNY veteran of nearly four decades who cherished firehouse camaraderie, would find fitting, said his widow, JoAnn Cross, 65. 
"He was pretty modest and he didn't like bringing attention to himself, but in this instance, he'd be very proud," she said in a recent interview from her Islip Terrace home. 
Cross, whose body was recovered at Ground Zero a week after the attacks, was posthumously promoted to deputy chief. 
As part of the national memorial, the names of 2,981 people killed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the six victims of the 1993 terror bombing will be inscribed on panels surrounding the two identical reflecting pools. The names of at least 453 Long Islanders will be among them. 
As with the <a href="/topics/Vietnam">Vietnam</a> Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., and the Civil Rights Memorial in <a href="/topics/Montgomery">Montgomery</a>, Ala., visitors to the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum will be able to touch the names. At the Sept. 11 memorial, some may opt to make a rubbing as a keepsake. 
A year ago, the space for the memorial pools was two large voids. Now, with the borders of the pools taking shape, the site "can no longer be called a pit," said <a href="/topics/Joe_Daniels">Joe Daniels</a>, president of the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum. "It is filled with steel and concrete, and we are going to open on the 10th anniversary." 
What is known as the North Pool is virtually complete; the South Pool's four sides are under construction. Both are scheduled to be finished in 2011 in time for the 10th anniversary of the attacks - when the memorial plaza will be opened for the first time to the families of Sept. 11 victims. 
Twice an honoree 
"No one thought this would be possible just one year ago," said <a href="/topics/Chris_Ward">Chris Ward</a>, executive director of the <a href="/topics/Port_Authority_of_New_York_and_New_Jersey">Port Authority of New York and New Jersey</a>, which owns the 16-acre trade center site. 
The name of Cross will be in more than one place at the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum. It also is on the "Last Column," the huge steel column that was part of the South Tower and will be part of the museum's permanent exhibit. 
Tributes to Sept. 11 first responders were spray-painted on the 58-ton, 36-foot-tall column after it was recovered from Ground Zero in 2001. Cross' name runs across the bottom. The column, which was stored for years in a hangar at <a href="/topics/John_F._Kennedy_International_Airport">Kennedy Airport</a>, was returned to the site Aug. 24. 
JoAnn Cross finds comfort that her husband will be remembered in these tangible tributes. 
"There's no better way to spend the rest of eternity than to be a part of history," she said.

NYMEM08

9/11 widow: Husband would be proud to be part of memorial

NYWTC

The worn <a href="/topics/New_York_Giants">New York Giants</a> T-shirt and Penn State baseball cap were among the prized possessions of Richard Caproni, a former North Babylon High School football captain known for his fierce team loyalties and booming laugh. Already, they are part of the permanent collection of the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum - a gift from his parents. 
"What we donated were things very dear to Richie," his father, Richard Caproni, 67, a former North Babylon resident, said in a telephone interview from his home in <a href="/topics/Ocean_Pines">Ocean Pines</a>, Md. "They had significant meaning to us, but we knew it would be better to have it preserved there for eternity." 
An underground project 
Construction of the museum, as with many elements at the World Trade Center site, is behind schedule. But there has been progress, with officials working toward a 2013 opening. 
The foundation work has been completed and some of the permanent artifacts - including the Survivors' Stairs and the Last Column recovered from the trade center rubble - were installed at the site in the past nine months. 
Much of this can be hard to envision, because the museum, which will cover more than 100,000 square feet, is taking shape underground. 
"It's like being in a house that has been framed," said museum director Alice Greenwald. "You can begin to feel what it will be like." 
Once the museum is open, visitors will enter through a pavilion and descend to the exhibition space. There, they will find an interactive archive of images, oral histories and digitally stored artifacts accessed by computer. One planned exhibit, set within the footprint of the South Tower, will include a tribute to victims with names and pictures flashed on a wall 70 feet underground. 
A large part of the experience will rely on the museum's collection of personal possessions from Sept. 11 victims, such as Caproni's shirt and cap, a woman's dust-covered purse and a charred firefighter's helmet. 
Other items donated by Long Islanders include a St. Florian medal that belonged to Durrell Pearsall Jr., 38, of the FDNY's Rescue Squad 4 in Queens and a former Hempstead volunteer firefighter, who was killed on Sept. 11. A quilt from Boy Scout Pack 233 in Old Westbury dedicated to the victims also will be part of the exhibits. 
Caproni's parents said they found the shirt and cap while packing up their son's home in Lynbrook. 
LI native loved the Giants 
Caproni, 34, who grew up in North Babylon and was an account specialist for the insurance firm Marsh &amp; McLennan, died in One World Trade Center, the North Tower. He was a huge Giants fan, and, like his father, loved Penn State football. 
His father said it was difficult for him and his wife, Dolores, 67, to part with their son's cherished possessions. Ultimately, in November, they decided to share something of him with the world. 
"The whole idea of the memorial is to let people know about the beautiful people who were taken from their families," the father said. 
<a href="http://www.newsday.com/news/new-york/ground-zero-today-1.1419575">&gt;&gt;See photos of Ground Zero today</a> 
<a href="http://www.newsday.com/long-island/nassau/working-toward-2013-opening-for-9-11-museum-1.1428457"></a><a href="http://www.newsday.com/news/new-york/9-11-widow-husband-would-be-proud-to-be-part-of-memorial-1.1428664">&gt;&gt;Read about the reflecting pools memorial</a> 
<a href="http://www.newsday.com/september-11-eight-years-later-1.1419180">&gt;&gt;Complete guide to September 11:&nbsp;Eight years later</a>

NYMUSE08

Working toward 2013 opening for 9/11 museum

US-ATTACKS-WTC-LAST COLUMN

The executive director of the agency that is building <a href="/topics/New_York">New York</a> City's tallest skyscraper could hardly contain himself. 
On a recent tour of Ground Zero, <a href="/topics/Chris_Ward">Chris Ward</a>, the head of the <a href="/topics/Port_Authority_of_New_York_and_New_Jersey">Port Authority of New York and New Jersey</a>, talked excitedly about progress on One World Trade Center, known to many as the Freedom Tower. 
The smallest facets of the skyscraper's construction seemed to fascinate him most. 
"One guy was cutting a small electrical box [for a light switch] when I was here a few weeks ago," said Ward, who visits the site twice a month. "The construction workers are building all these little pieces for everything to be in sequence." 
Despite years of delays, Ward said his agency is in line to keep the new target dates for completing the various projects at Ground Zero, including One World Trade Center. The building, with a projected cost of at least $3.1 billion, is slated for completion in late 2013. 
"The fact people say it's going slow, that there's been no progress, may have been the case a year ago," he said, shouting over the rumbling of heavy construction equipment. "But now this process is moving forward." 
One World Trade is considered a symbol of the country's triumph over terrorism. 
A year ago, the structure, with its seven-story foundation, had risen 25 feet above street level. By now, more than 2,300 tons of steel have been used. Installation of 24 columns - each weighing 70 tons and 60 feet tall - began last month, allowing construction of the first three floors. Every 12 inches of just one column equals the weight of a Honda Civic. 
Eventually, One World Trade Center will have 102 floors. 
In Ward's mind's eye the 1,776-foot tower already is part of lower <a href="/topics/Manhattan">Manhattan</a>'s skyline. 
"I'm always amazed when I come here," he said. 
<a href="http://www.newsday.com/news/new-york/ground-zero-today-1.1419575">&gt;&gt;See photos of Ground Zero today</a> 
<a href="http://www.newsday.com/long-island/nassau/working-toward-2013-opening-for-9-11-museum-1.1428457"></a><a href="http://www.newsday.com/news/new-york/9-11-widow-husband-would-be-proud-to-be-part-of-memorial-1.1428664">&gt;&gt;Read about the reflecting pools memorial</a> 
<a href="http://www.newsday.com/september-11-eight-years-later-1.1419180">&gt;&gt;Complete guide to September 11:&nbsp;Eight years later</a>

Classifieds

Real Estate

NYFREE08

Port Authority makes progress on building WTC tower

nyWTCav

The planting of about 480 trees in the plaza of the Sept. 11 victims' memorial in lower <a href="/topics/Manhattan">Manhattan</a> is being postponed, and some arborists say that places the trees' vitality at risk.
However, caretakers of the swamp white oaks and sweet gums, which have been stored for months at a <a href="/topics/New_Jersey">New Jersey</a> nursery, say the trees are doing fine despite delays and will remain healthy until replanted.
The trees, ranging in height from 20 feet to 30 feet, had been scheduled for a 2010 planting. But the memorial plaza won't be completed that year, so the earliest the trees can be planted there is 2011, said a spokeswoman for the <a href="/topics/Port_Authority_of_New_York_and_New_Jersey">Port Authority of New York and New Jersey</a>, the agency building the memorial.
Starting in 2011, nearly 80 percent of the trees will be planted in time for the 10th anniversary of the attacks, Port Authority Executive Director <a href="/topics/Chris_Ward">Chris Ward</a> said. 
Museum officials dispute that timetable and said a 2010 planting remains their goals.
Some horticulturists say planting delays create potential health problems for trees stored above ground.
Since 2007, the memorial trees have lived in above-ground wooden boxes.
Ideally, trees should be planted a few years after they're harvested and stored in such boxes, arborists say. Other tree specialists, including Jeanne Mona of Country Gardens Nursery in Eastport, say replanting should occur sooner to reduce risks of root damage or dieback.
"Once you put stress on the root system, you put it on the rest of the tree - the end product is the tree is going to die," Mona said.
Paul Cowie, lead arborist for the memorial trees, said caretakers expected and planned for delays. He said precautions include routine pruning of roots and storage of the trees in larger-than-necessary boxes to allow for abundant soil and root growth.
"Every tree is in better condition than the first couple of months of being in the box," Cowie said.
Cowie, however, acknowledged the delay is disappointing. "We've been wanting to see those trees over there for a few years now," he said, referring to the original 2009 planting date. "It's like waiting for the weekend that never comes."
The trees are stored at a Millstone Township, N.J., nursery.
Memorial officials said $7 million was secured for purchasing, caretaking and replanting. As long as the arboreal lot receives quality care, the trees ought to survive until whenever they are relocated, said Todd Forrest, vice president for horticulture and living collections at <a href="/topics/New_York">New York</a> Botanical Garden.
"Think of a bonsai tree," Forrest said. "Some have been living out of the ground in pots for hundreds of years. If you give trees what they need to survive, you can keep them out of ground indefinitely."

NYTREE03

Tree planting for 9/11 memorial plaza postponed

With the throttle gunned and the exhaust pipes roaring, a NASCAR race car custom-painted in tribute of the 2001 terror attack victims was unveiled Monday in <a href="/topics/Manhattan">Manhattan</a> near Ground Zero. 
The car - a $100,000 <a href="/topics/Ford_Fusion">Ford Fusion</a> bearing the inscription "Always Remember" and a 9/11 logo for the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum - is competing in a Sept. 11 race at <a href="/topics/Virginia">Virginia</a>'s Richmond International Raceway. 
NASCAR driver Benny Gordon, who lined up corporate sponsors for the custom paint job, is racing the No. 72 car. 
"It will be an honor to race a car in honor of the attack victims," said Gordon, co-owner of the North South Motorsports team based in <a href="/topics/Dubois">Dubois</a>, Pa. "I hope we have a good run."
Gordon hopes NASCAR's popularity and the themed paint job will draw more support for the planned $610-million memorial and museum. 
<a href="/topics/Joe_Daniels">Joe Daniels</a>, president of the memorial and museum, said he is grateful to have Gordon's support.
"This car presents a tremendous opportunity to raise awareness about the national 9/11 memorial," he said. 
Two Ford Fusions - a lead racer and a backup - will carry the same paint job, said Frank Nickens, a spokesman for Gordon. 
The backup car was shown Monday, and the hood of the car was signed by first-responders, who attended the unveiling. Work will begin soon on the lead car, which will be used in the Sept. 11 race.
Typically, custom-painting of sponsor-driven designs and bright colors on stock cars runs about $2,000 per vehicle. The car dedicated to 9/11 is hand-painted, however, and the work for the lead car and backup vehicle will cost about $6,000 each, Nickens said.
The 9/11 car's color scheme is black, blue and white. The logo of the memorial and museum is on the hood, sides, bumpers and trunk. From the front tires to the doors are red and white stripes with reflective stars on the hood to resemble a flag.
In association with the Sept. 11 NASCAR race, the foundation that will operate the memorial, and museum is launching the "text to remember" program. The program is designed to help raise funds and awareness for the memorial, which has a planned opening date of 2011.
By texting "WTC" to the number 30644, supporters can add their names to an honor roll at the 9/11 memorial's Web site and have the option to donate $5.

NYWTC01

NASCAR race car honors 9/11 terror victims

NASCAR Sept 11  

Jay-Z and a panel of dignitaries that included Gov. <a href="/topics/David_A_Paterson">David A. Paterson</a> and Fire Commissioner <a href="/topics/Nicholas_Scoppetta">Nicholas Scoppetta</a> announced Monday a benefit concert at <a href="/topics/Madison_Square_Garden">Madison Square Garden</a> on Sept. 11 that they hope will remind the country of the terrorist attacks in 2001 and help raise awareness of the heroic acts on that day.
"On Sept. 12 [2001] I turned on the TV and saw footage of these heroic actions, people running into buildings and saving each other, and I saw the strength of <a href="/topics/New_York">New York</a>, it may me proud," said Jay-Z, who released the first of "The Blueprint" albums on Sept. 11, 2001. "As I was involved in putting out 'The Blueprint 3,' it was only right to revisit the day. This is my chance to do something to help out."
The rapper, who will also release the much-awaited "The Blueprint 3" album on Sept. 11, hopes to raise up to $1 million by donating the proceeds from the "Answer the Call" concert to the New York Police &amp; Fire Widows and Children's Benefit Fund. Paterson said the concert could play an even more important role by appealing to a younger audience and tapping into their feelings about the attacks. 
"I think it sends a tremendous message that the young people . . . that they feel the pain of Sept. 11 as well," Paterson said. "They know the country was attacked and they want to contribute by coming to this concert and supporting the widows and families of the firefighters, the police officers and the first responders."
The benefit, which Jay-Z said may include some special guests and probably will include songs from the new album, will also be broadcast live nationally on Fuse, as part of the cable network's partnership with The Garden. Stephen J. Dannhauser, the Benefit Fund's president and chief executive, said the concert and its broadcast will help generate publicity for the charity, which helps support more than 700 widows and their families.
Tickets for the concert will all be $50 and go on sale Sept. 8 through Ticketmaster.

Entertainment

Music

ETJAY01

Jay-Z announces 9/11 benefit concert

<a href="/topics/New_Brunswick">NEW BRUNSWICK</a>, N.J. (AP) — Lisa Cardinali and her family want to share with the world photographs, mementos and even a closely guarded cheesecake recipe treasured by their mother, who died in the World Trade Center attacks.
A new center serving the families of <a href="/topics/New_Jersey">New Jersey</a> victims of the Sept. 11 attacks is helping Cardinali and others organize their submissions to a "living 9/11 memorial" that will eventually be housed at a planned museum at ground zero. The center's mental health services and support programs are also helping families cope with their losses, still vivid nearly a decade after the attacks.
"So many years have passed, but it seems like yesterday, and the emotions still are very very raw," said Cardinali, who lives in Monroe Township. "For many people there is no cemetery, there is no place to go, so this is a nice place to go to speak to somebody, if you need to."
The New Brunswick center is the second facility opened by the group Voices of September 11, which was founded in 2001 by Mary Fetchet of New Canaan, Conn., shortly after her 24-year-old son, Brad, died in the attacks.
Fetchet said the group opened the new office because more than 700 New Jersey families were directly affected by 9/11, as well as hundreds of rescue workers, first-responders, and community members. She said as the 10-year anniversary of the attacks approaches, mental health services and support groups are still greatly needed by the families, especially for children who lost parents or who were born shortly after the attacks.
"I think we really have to learn from these families," Fetchet said. "We really, at this point, don't have a good model in dealing with victims of terrorism and we're hoping that's another contribution that we can make as an organization."
Fetchet's group will work in partnership with Rutgers University's social work school to offer families mental health support, workshops, referrals, annual days of remembrance, and assistance in documenting stories about their loved ones.
"We're focused on commemorating the lives, and focusing on the lives, and not the deaths of the individuals," Fetchet said.
Former New Jersey Gov. Thomas <a href="/topics/Keane%2C_Inc.">Keane</a>, who served on the 9/11 Commission that investigated the attacks, attended the opening of the center.
"The families of 9/11 are an extraordinary group of people," Keane said. "These are people who have had terrible tragedies in their families — the kind you and I cannot imagine — and they've turned it into something positive."
Separately, some relatives of victims who died on 9/11 when Flight 93 crashed in <a href="/topics/Pennsylvania">Pennsylvania</a> plan to depart from <a href="/topics/Newark">Newark</a> on Sept. 3 for a cross-country motorcycle trip ending in <a href="/topics/San_Francisco">San Francisco</a> on Sept. 11.
The bikers plan to retrace the path that Flight 93 was supposed to have flown that day. They'll be carrying a section of chain link fence tagged with mementos similar to the temporary memorial at the crash site in <a href="/topics/Shanksville">Shanksville</a>, Pa.

NJ--NJ Voices of Sept 11

NJ service center opens to aid 9/11 families

Some prominent performers are saying thank you to the people who have answered President <a href="/topics/Barack_Obama">Barack Obama</a>’s call to volunteer and to people connected to 9/11 — relatives of victims, recovery workers and those who served tours in the military after the attacks. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <a href="/topics/Gavin_DeGraw">Gavin DeGraw</a>, The Roots and other musicians are performing in a free concert this Sept. 11 to mark the first time that the anniversary of the terrorist attacks is being recognized as a National Day of Service and Remembrance, organizers announced Thursday. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Members of the Sept. 11 community and volunteers will be among the first to receive the free tickets. Other people can try to snag one of a limited number of tickets being distributed by lottery. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Actor <a href="/topics/Gary_Sinise">Gary Sinise</a>, talk-show host <a href="/topics/Jimmy_Fallon">Jimmy Fallon</a>, the Harlem Boys and Girls Choir, and singer Anjulie will be among the performers at the Beacon Theatre show. It’s part of an effort to encourage more people to serve as volunteers, organizers said. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; “Our ultimate goal is to leave a positive legacy that honors the victims and those who rose in service,” said David Paine, the president of MyGoodDeed, one of the organizations responsible for the event. “We hope to rekindle the spirit of unity and compassion that followed the terrorist attacks.” &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Paine’s organization, which pushed to establish Sept. 11 as a National Day of Service, was also launching a Web site on Thursday. People planning to give of their time on Sept. 11 can go to www.911dayofservice.org to share their plans and learn about volunteering opportunities.

ny-nycnine0828

Free NYC concert to mark 1st 9/11 Day of Service

Visitors to Ground Zero, starting Wednesday, will have a better view of ongoing construction of the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum. 
Instead of peeking through fencing, visitors to the 9/11 Memorial preview site at 20 Vesey St. will be able to watch a live Webcam of construction under way, see models of the new World Trade Center, and examine renderings of portions of the memorial and museum. 
Visitors to the preview site also can buy books, DVDs and other memorabilia related to Sept. 11, 2001. Proceeds will support the $610-million museum and memorial. 
The preview site is across Vesey Street from St. Paul's Chapel, the Episcopal church where many first responders, as well as others working on the gargantuan pile of trade center debris and volunteer relief workers, went for sanctuary and respite in the weeks and months after the terrorist attacks. 
<a href="/topics/Joe_Daniels">Joe Daniels</a>, president of the National September 11 Memorial and Museum, said in a statement that the preview site will serve as an information hub, providing details about the memorial and museum and the reconstruction effort. 
"We look forward to welcoming visitors from around the world," he said. 
Video from the live Webcam will be displayed on large screens at the preview site. At kiosks, visitors can print copies of the images. 
An on-site recording booth will allow visitors to share stories related to the 2001 terror attacks. A bank of the recordings will become a permanent part of the museum for use in the introductory exhibition. 
The introductory exhibition - planned for 2012 - will include a "soundscape of people" speaking in multiple languages about their experience during the attacks, museum officials said. 
The preview site, which has about 2,000 square feet of public space, cost $600,000 to build. It was partially funded by a $1-million donation from the Starr International Foundation, a charitable organization based in Switzerland, officials said. 
The preview site will be open Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. 
The Port Authority, which is building the memorial and museum, said the memorial will be open to the public on the 10th anniversary of the attacks. 
At that time, portions of the memorial plaza still will be under construction. However, the "Reflecting Absence" project - two large pools placed within the footprints of the fallen towers, with cascading waterfalls - will be complete then, officials said. 
Inscribed around the edges of the pools will be the names of the 2,976 people who died from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the six people killed in the Feb. 26, 1993, terrorist bombing of the trade center. 
The museum is slated for a 2012 opening, museum officials said.

NYWTC26

Visitors to get better view of Ground Zero construction

Office workers, rescuers and others directly exposed to the Sept. 11, 2001, World Trade Center attacks reported new cases of <a href="/topics/Asthma">asthma</a> and symptoms of post-traumatic stress five to six years later, according to a study in the Aug. 5 issue of the Journal of the <a href="/topics/American_Medical_Association">American Medical Association</a>. Exposure to dust clouds, especially among rescuers who worked atop the pile of rubble, increased the likelihood of developing <a href="/topics/Asthma">asthma</a>. 
&nbsp; 
The data come from the World Trade Center Health Registry, which tracks 71,437 of the approximately 409,000 adults who personally witnessed the attacks. A total of 46,322 people in four categories — rescue workers, lower <a href="/topics/Manhattan">Manhattan</a> residents, office workers and passers-by — responded to surveys in 2006 and 2007 about their health. 
&nbsp; 
Slightly more than 10 percent of respondents had developed asthma; 39 percent of those reported intense dust cloud exposure. The prevalence of post-traumatic stress symptoms, which indicate probable post-traumatic stress disorder, has increased from 14.3 percent, when the researchers first interviewed the subjects in 2003 and 2004, to 19 percent in this new wave of surveys. Factors that increased the likelihood of post-traumatic stress included witnessing people jumping from the towers, being injured and knowing someone who died in the attack. Researchers asked the subjects about symptoms such as flashbacks and emotional numbness. 
&nbsp; 
 “There is some evidence, from other studies on veterans, that sometimes people develop PTS symptoms some years later after their trauma,” said the study’s co-author, Robert M. Brackbill of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “We may be seeing that in this same population.” Researchers used this data to estimate that 25,500 adults have post-attack asthma and 61,000 have symptoms of post-traumatic stress. 
&nbsp; 
 The third wave of health surveys will go out next year, Brackbill said.

Health

ny-hsasthma9-11-0817

Asthma, stress found years after 9/11 attacks

US NEWS PRIMARYDOCTORS SE

In death, <a href="/topics/John_McNamara">John McNamara</a> of Blue Point may be known as the <a href="/topics/New_York">New York</a> City firefighter who fought for health benefits for colleagues who claim they were exposed to toxins at Ground Zero.
But to his family, friends and fellow workers, who filled St. Patrick's Cathedral in <a href="/topics/Manhattan">Manhattan</a> Friday, McNamara was a good-natured prankster, devoted husband and father who always led by example.
"He was one of the best people I have had the pleasure of knowing," friend Christopher Mullin said. "He did what was right, not what was popular."
McNamara, 44, worked about 500 hours at Ground Zero. He was diagnosed with <a href="/topics/Colon_Cancer">colon cancer</a> in 2006 and believed his exposure to toxins on the pile caused the illness that ultimately killed him Sunday.
"John may not have died on 9/11, but it was the work there that killed him," said his wife, Jennifer, who is urging Congress to bring a 9/11 health bill to a vote.
McNamara's coffin arrived at the cathedral on a police-escorted fire engine in a procession typically given to firefighters killed in the line of duty. More than 200 firefighters and police officers stood at attention.
During the funeral Mass, FDNY chaplain the Rev. Christopher Keenan held the four-pronged tool McNamara used to rake 9/11 debris to illustrate his determination.
"He searched for each human person with dignity," Keenan said. "He lived life to the fullest in the face of death."
Mullin described a colleague who was always cracking jokes and would fondly "break your chops" at the Engine 234 station house in Crown Heights, <a href="/topics/Brooklyn">Brooklyn</a> where he worked.
McNamara's body will be cremated.
<a href="/topics/Jennifer_McNamara">Jennifer McNamara</a> said that for her husband, being a firefighter, not only with FDNY but also as a volunteer with the Blue Point Fire Department, was the "essence of who he was." 
It was his son, Jack, 3, however, for whom he fought hardest, looking into every treatment possible so he could spend as much time as he could with him, she said. 
He played house dad, changing diapers, feeding him, playing with him, watching baseball together and reading as she worked, McNamara said.
And while Jack is too young to comprehend his father's illness and death, it was not completely lost on him: He would pat him on the back and say, "Feel better, Daddy," she said.

NYFDNY15

Funeral held for Sept. 11 first responder, firefighter

nyFDNY

There wasn't enough room in Rep. <a href="/topics/Tim_Bishop">Tim Bishop</a>'s office to hold the firefighters and police officers who turned up for a news conference on suffering 9/11 rescue workers and their families. So the proceedings were moved to a parking lot in the back of the building, just off Route 112, one of the busiest roadways in Coram. 
There came a point when the group stood silently as a lone bagpipe wailed in memory of <a href="/topics/John_McNamara">John McNamara</a>, who was all of 44 when he died of cancer on Sunday. 
It could be said that McNamara, a <a href="/topics/New_York">New York</a> City firefighter who lived in Blue Point, waged a fight against the colorectal cancer that hit him hard in 2006, years after his rescue work at Ground Zero. It's probably more accurate to say, however, that during his last days, McNamara waged an even harder fight for something. 
He wanted fellow rescue workers, who, like him, were hit with cancer, <a href="/topics/Asthma">asthma</a> and a host of other maladies, to gain the care and health-care benefits so many of them need. 
One of the men in the parking lot was Stephen Grossman, who lives Bohemia. 
He didn't know McNamara. But he read the firefighter's obituary in Wednesday's Newsday and came to show his support for Bishop's efforts to get more benefits and to offer his condolences to McNamara's widow, Jennifer. 
Like McNamara, Grossman's son, Robbie, who is 41 and retired on a 9/11 health-related disability, was a first responder. 
Grossman was on the golf course and Robbie was enjoying a day off from his job as a <a href="/topics/New_York">New York</a> City police officer when the first plane hit the Twin Towers. 
By the time Grossman rushed to a telephone after learning what had happened, his son had been called to work. 
And work he did, for days, at the main site, digging and dragging up debris. And when he would make his way back home, for rest, before another day of work, Robbie would dump his grimy, dusty clothes in the garage of his Rocky Point home. 
Grossman said Robbie's wife joked about throwing the clothes away. She would wash them instead. 
In 2006, Robbie, like McNamara, learned he had cancer, Grossman said, when his son complained of not being able to feel a part of his face while shaving. 
What followed was an operation, chemo, radiation. Robbie was in the hospital and then home and then in the hospital again. 
Robbie's in the hospital now, said Grossman, who wears one of his son's faded patrol caps. 
"We are waiting on a miracle," he said. And then he had to stop. "This is the first time I've cried in public," he said. 
"This goes well beyond myself, it goes to the heart of this country," Grossman said. "They [the first responders] shouldn't be treated like that, shouldn't have to wonder whether they can get medicine or whether they can get care, not after what they did." 
When the news conference ended, Grossman walked over to McNamara's widow. The two embraced. 
He told her he would pray for her family. 
She told him she would pray for his son. 
No one passing along the busy roadway could see them. Or the other first responders gathered in the corner of the parking lot, near garbage containers and the shuttered, neglected building next door. 
There are thousands of families like McNamara's, grieving the deaths of rescuers who fell ill after 9/11. 
And thousands of other families like Grossman's, suffering as their loved ones - rescuers, who also fell ill post-9/11 - are fighting for their lives while wondering whether they'll have the care they need. 
No one on Route 112 could see McNamara's widow, struggling to keep her composure as the bagpipes played. Or the pain in Grossman's eyes. 
And that's not right, either.

Columnists

Joye Brown

LIJOY13

Brown: We need to shine a light on 911 victims and families

mcnamara0813-photo

It is poignant that practically all that remains of the World Trade Center lies inside a <a href="/topics/John_F._Kennedy_International_Airport">Kennedy Airport</a> building once home to an airline called Tower Air. 
There, for the past several years, the Port Authority has been caring for a heartbreaking array of remnants carefully spread across 80,000 square feet in Hangar 17. The vast building was born of the optimistic heyday of Pan <a href="/topics/American_Airlines">American Airlines</a> but is now charged with a solemn purpose for which it was never intended -- the preservation of less than one percent of the once tallest buildings in the world. 
"We built those buildings, and we owned those buildings, and they were our home," said Amory Houghton, a Port Authority official who oversees the preservation of artifacts at the hangar and is helping to guide the agency through a $10 million effort to save them. 
Nothing can prepare a visitor for what lies inside. About 1,800 objects are there, including ghostly facade elements that survived the collapse and became symbols of 9/11, a rack full of bikes seemingly awaiting their owners and a marker from 1973 honoring the people who built the towers. How these pieces will fit together at the 9/11 museum poses a significant challenge, said Jan Ramirez, its chief curator. 
"We have to find the right balance between that kind of awesome magnitude of this event and the more intimate, individual, personally scaled pieces that can allow individuals to actually associate with someone who was there," she said. 
But tours by survivors' groups of Hangar 17 offer an early hint at the power of these relics. One visitor, said Houghton, found peace -- and finally a good night's rest -- in the knowledge that the objects had a safe home. 
"If even one person is able to come to a small degree of closure because of our efforts, then it's worth every minute of the five year effort," Houghton said. 
A powerful story Right away, visitors see the few remaining Gothic columns -- or tridents -- that for decades brought whimsy to the tower bases, and later served as symbols of destruction. Nearby are beams, some contorted into shapes that speak to the forces of collapse and recovery from Ground Zero. 
"This irony is that all of this stuff is lying down, and the World Trade Center was really all about height and enormity. That's one of the sad things, that that these pieces are now horizontal," Houghton said. One possibility for these pieces, suggested Ramirez, is that some may be incorporated into the fabric of a new building at the site, so that, in a way, they will return to what had been their only purpose until Sept. 11, 2001 -- supporting a World Trade Center building. 
Most of the artifacts are stored in enclosures, resilient tents designed to protect the objects from the environment, in particular the corrosive power of humidity. A conservationist, Peter Gat, maintains meticulous records of the moisture in the air. 
One room speaks to the heroism of the day, and to the brutal fate that awaited many who rushed to the rescue. Many of the cars here belonged to Port Authority police officers, but they also include a medical examiner's truck, a smashed yellow taxi and fire trucks. Pointing to one, Houghton said, "The interesting thing about this one is that there was a cab in front, and the cab is gone." 
One of the Port Authority cars belongs to David Lim, of the Port Authority's K-9 unit. 
He had rushed to the trade center to join in the rescue, and was caught in the collapse of Tower One. He and the woman he was saving were among the few people who survived the actual collapse of a tower. His dog, Sirius, died in the kennel below Tower Two. Ramirez said one of the fire trucks carried Capt. <a href="/topics/William_Burke">William Burke</a> Jr., a storied figured in the FDNY who died helping two men, one a paraplegic, escape the North Tower. 
"These tell a powerful, powerful, powerful story," Houghton said. 
Mementoes and mystery The final structural piece to be removed from Ground Zero, "The Last Column" became a totem to recovery workers in the last weeks of May 2002 as the recovery wound down. Workers signed the 60-ton column, listing the names and numbers of their dead. Photographs of the lost, prayer cards and other objects were affixed to the column, which before 9/11 had stood in obscurity at bedrock below Tower Two. Preserving it required a mix of ingenuity -- using syringes to glue pieces of paint back on -- and long hours. 
The goal was to preserve the column in all its complicated imperfection, a task for which experts from around the world were brought in, including Gat, who is at the hangar working on the objects almost every day. Said Houghton: "If this thing had been shaken, a lot of these things would have fallen off." 
The authority has also been preserving delicate but hulking objects that resemble meteorites but are respectfully called composites -- one is a mass of three tower floors compressed into three feet. 
The striations of the floor plates are evident; tucked inside are the pages of a large book, as are carbonized bits of paper. Words can be made out -- "expenses" is one -- but not enough to discover who those papers belonged to. 
Nearby are columns from the parking garage, as well as chunks of its floor still covered in ash. Sculptor Alexander Calder's World Trade Center Stabile survived, but in pieces, recognized because of its chipped red paint, but not before some workers took a saw to parts of it, thinking it was mere twisted metal. Recently, Ramirez said, elements of the crown of the Koenig Sphere turned up, the iconic plaza sculpture that now stands in Battery Park. 
Difficult reminders And there is a room full of painful reminders of the trade center the world knew. The facade of the Twin Towers was 2 million square feet of aluminum, shimmering at high noon and glowing at sunset. Today, a battered few hundred feet of the thin cladding remains. 
In an indication of how every object at the hangar has multiple stories, Ramirez learned in a tour with a Port Authority cop who had supervised work at the site that some of the aluminum was not necessarily blown off by the collapses. It had also been peeled back from the columns in a careful search for remains. 
Nearby is a part of the huge antenna, which once cast signals across the metro area. There are the remains of an elevator cage (each tower had 99 elevators), along with gargantuan plaza signs for 5 World Trade Center and events at the complex. 
There is a PATH train turnstile -- hundreds of tickets found inside of it -- and two exit terminals, two PATH train cars, and shopping concourse signs for the Broadway revival of a show -- "Death of a Salesman." One sign urged office workers to "Never Settle." 
"On 9/11, [the concourse] was also for a period a safe evacuation route for people. Had people not had the opportunity to cross underneath the plaza and avoid all of the spewing metal, many more people probably would have been killed," Ramirez said. 
Inside another room lie some of the more mundane artifacts: A lotto machine, mannequin heads, and souvenirs from a trade center shop, including a magnet of the WTC. This room also contains unexpected items from the era of the towers' construction -- a copy of The New York Times from June 23, 1969, that reports the death of Judy Garland. A construction worker had tucked it into a column, surely thinking it would never see the light of day again. Ancient cans of Pepsi soda and Rheingold beer likewise surfaced. 
Flags from the trade center lobbies, each neatly rolled in a tube, were found intact inside a box. Symbols of international cooperation that the trade center represented, they had hung in the lobbies until July 2001, familiar to tourists and office workers alike. In a twist that would save them, new leaseholder Larry Silverstein ordered them taken down as part of initial modifications to the complex, Houghton said. They were stored well underground -- clearly in one of the safest places at the trade center on 9/11. 
And there are contents from the Warner Brothers store -- Bugs Bunny and pals still covered with dust but surprisingly little worse for the wear. Houghton said Port Authority officials invited studio workers to examine the relics. They were inspected and notes were taken. But ultimately, Warner Brothers decided that they should stay in New York, where it seemed they belonged. 
Nearby lies a sign from that store. 
"That's All Folks." &nbsp; 
<a href="http://www.newsday.com/long-island/photos-wtc-relics-1.211196">&gt;&gt;Click to see photos of fire trucks, steel beams, and other relics that survived at Ground Zero</a> 
<a href="http://www.newsday.com/long-island/photos-tribute-wtc-visitors-center-1.210832">&gt;&gt;Photos of victims and personal items from the WTC Tribute Museum</a> 
<a href="http://www.newsday.com/news/new-york/ground-zero-today-1.1419575">&gt;&gt;See photos of Ground Zero today</a> 
<a href="http://www.newsday.com/september-11-eight-years-later-1.1419180">&gt;&gt;Complete guide to September 11:&nbsp;Eight years later</a>

am-wtc0911

WTC remnants are constant reminders

Some walked burdened with grief. Others smiled broadly at the unexpected sight of a loved one found in a picture at the memorial. 
There was no one way for relatives of those killed Sept. 11, 2001, to remember. They wore black clothes befitting a funeral or patriotic T-shirts. 
They carried flowers or pictures or sometimes no mementoes at all. 
But among the thousands who returned to <a href="/topics/Ground_Zero">Ground Zero</a> yesterday, certain trends emerged. Most entered and left the former <a href="/topics/World_Trade_Center">World Trade Center</a> site through a path lined with metal barriers and ringed by police officers visiting from <a href="/topics/London">London</a>. 
From there, the relatives descended a steep ramp into the sandy pit. At the base, some read names aloud at the prepared podium. Others prayed by a pair of reflecting pools arranged to reflect how the Twin Towers once stood. And then they returned to the top - much of the time appearing spent. 
"It has gotten a little better - we don't cry as much," said Dorothy Walker Blanding, whose son Harry was killed. An insurance specialist with Aon Corp., he was 38 and left behind a wife and three children. 
On construction scaffolding by the site, the names of the dead were written on several large posters, on which relatives were invited to pen thoughts. 
Those from Blanding's mother and father were simple. "Love You," they both read. 
Time hadn't healed Frances Patti, whose daughter Cira Marie, 40, a trader's assistant from Staten Island, was killed. 
"Not when you lose a daughter," she said. 
Richard Booms, of <a href="/topics/Cincinnati">Cincinnati</a>, whose daughter Kelly Ann, 24, an accountant, was aboard <a href="/topics/American_Airlines">American Airlines</a> Flight 11, had a similar aching feeling. 
Asked if the pain has diminished, the tears swelled. 
"Not really," he said. "Not really."

NYFAMS12

Four years later: United in grief, they share a day of pain

The chatter of old friends greeting one another at Colors Restaurant stopped Monday when 7-year-old Vanessa Valencia began to sing: "Would you know my name if I saw you in heaven?" 
Vanessa lost an uncle to the 9/11 attacks. Her father, Patricio Valencia, lost 73 colleagues from Windows on the World, the restaurant that sat atop one of the <a href="/topics/World_Trade_Center">World Trade Center</a> towers. 
"I would be there, too, but my shift started at 10," said Valencia, 42, of <a href="/topics/Jackson_Heights%2C_NY">Jackson Heights</a>, now a bartender at Colors on <a href="/topics/Lafayette%2C_IN">Lafayette</a> Street in <a href="/topics/Manhattan">Manhattan</a>, which is owned and run by former <a href="/topics/World_Trade_Center">World Trade Center</a> restaurant workers. 
At a memorial breakfast at Colors Monday, former Windows on the World staff joined relatives of their fallen friends. 
Many wore T-shirts from ROC-NY, a organization they founded to campaign for restaurant workers' rights. They celebrated their victories -- the success of their restaurant, and the campaigns against abusive restaurant owners. And they remembered those who were no longer among them, lighting white candles next to bunches of white roses. 
Gathering for a group snapshot, they chanted ROC-NY's motto in English, Spanish, Arabic, French, Mandarin. 
"We are power, we are strong!" they shouted, waving at the camera. 
Then they hugged and laughed and cried. 
---- 
For more than two hours Monday morning, Chris Whitman stood at the same spot along a sidewalk facing West Street as he tried to listen to the reading of victim names. He barely moved and stared intently even though with the traffic and noise from idling news trucks, he couldn't really make out the names. 
"The least I can do is stand here and listen to names being rattled off," Whitman, 37, of <a href="/topics/Staten_Island%2C_NY">Staten Island</a>, said. 
Every year, he takes the day off from working as a mechanic and goes to <a href="/topics/Ground_Zero">Ground Zero</a>. 
"It seems a little different this year," he said, turning briefly to glance at people laying on the grass under the sun. "People are more light-hearted. They're laughing and chatting. It is what it is to each individual." 
He said he planned to spend most of the day there: "Day of reflection, I guess you can call it." 
---- 
There were hundreds of tiny American flags stuck in the sand surrounding the reflecting pool at the base of the 9/11 memorial in <a href="/topics/Point_Lookout%2C_NY">Point Lookout</a> Monday, each with its own tag and handwritten message. 
Some had a message of hope, such as "Peace on Earth." Others carried general well-wishes, such as "For all those who passed and all who survived." 
Still others had a message only the lost and those closest to them would understand. 
"His pet saying was 'Later!' so that's what I wrote," said Cecilia Donnelly of <a href="/topics/Levittown%2C_NY">Levittown</a>. "We'll see you up in heaven, later." 
Donnelly's son, Lt. Kevin Donnelly, 43, was one of 12 firefighters from Ladder Co. 3 on East 13th Street in <a href="/topics/Manhattan">Manhattan</a> who died on 9/11. A 23-year FDNY veteran, he also volunteered with the <a href="/topics/Wantagh%2C_NY">Wantagh</a> Fire Department. 
After throwing a white carnation into the reflecting pool at the base of two 15-foot-tall crystalline towers representing the <a href="/topics/World_Trade_Center">World Trade Center</a> towers, Donnelly headed off to another ceremony to honor her son. She said this year's anniversary is just as difficult as any. 
"Number five is no different from number one," she said. "He's gone and I'll never forget him." 
---- 
Keali'i Reichel, one of <a href="/topics/Hawaii">Hawaii</a>'s most popular recording artists, was in Manhattan with a group of musicians and hula dancers from the island state to give a concert on Sunday. 
Monday morning, Reichel and 16 of them felt compelled to share their Aloha spirit at <a href="/topics/Ground_Zero">Ground Zero</a>. "<a href="/topics/Hawaii">Hawaii</a> is as far as you can get from here," he said. "I think it would be stupid if we came this far on this auspicious day and not come and pay our respects." 
For some in the group, it was their first trip to <a href="/topics/New_York">New York</a>, a city vastly different from <a href="/topics/Hawaii">Hawaii</a>. Some said they were unnerved by the crowds and those shouting political opinions from megaphones. 
For Reichel, Monday was his first visit to the <a href="/topics/World_Trade_Center">World Trade Center</a> site. During the first moment of silence, he found himself standing near a fire station, which made him emotional. "It was hard not to break down a little bit," he said. 
---- 
Ten minutes before seven Monday morning, Debora Maldonado's survivors gathered at the <a href="/topics/World_Trade_Center">World Trade Center</a> in the spot reserved for families. 
They wore shirts printed with Maldonado's name and picture and carried roses to pay tribute to the 47-year-old Flushing woman, who was an executive secretary on the 99th floor of Tower One. They listened as her name was read, nearly two hours after the ceremony began. 
It's what they do every Sept. 11. But the fifth time Monday didn't bring the usual comfort to her sister, Miriam Carrasquillo, 53, of <a href="/topics/Miami">Miami</a>. That's because everything was almost exactly as it had been in the past. 
"It's always the same," Carrasquillo said of what she called a lack of progress fixing up the site. "It doesn't make it any easier to move on." 
She said it would help to see something new there. "I'd like to be able to come to an actual monument," she said, "so I can see my sister's name on a plaque or something and put flowers around it." 
---- 
A big American flag hung over the baby grand, where pianist Chuck Folds played "All You Need is Love." In the lobby of the Aon Center on 52nd Street in Manhattan, workers ate lunch at tables near the piano. Some sat alone, reading newspaper coverage of the fifth anniversary of Sept. 11. Others chatted and laughed with friends and colleagues. 
A few somber faces belied darker, more painful conversations. 
A fountain's wall of water fell beside them, adding a soft "whushhh" to the jazzy soundtrack. 
Workers rushed up and down escalators, in and out of elevators. Some paused by a list of the 175 Aon employees who worked on the 92nd, 99th and 100th floors of the south tower and died on Sept. 11. A large bouquet of white roses stood nearby. 
Bill Tloczkowski, 48, of <a href="/topics/Greenpoint%2C_NY">Greenpoint</a>, who works in the building at another company, wore an American flag tie. "Just to show my patriotism," he said, hurrying out of the building. 
---- 
Kelly Trommels' daughter was too young to understand, but the lower Manhattan mom brought her to <a href="/topics/Ground_Zero">Ground Zero</a> Monday anyway. 
Trommels, 29, stood on West Street, cradling the sleeping child in her arms. From her high-rise apartment on Liberty Street, the mother had an aerial view of the pit. But the television audio was delayed, so she brought little Helena downstairs to hear the names. 
"This is what we don't want to forget," Trommels explained. 
Trommels had lived in <a href="/topics/Brooklyn_Heights%2C_NY">Brooklyn Heights</a> and commuted via subway, under the trade center, to New Jersey, where she had worked. But on the day that the towers fell, she was living in <a href="/topics/Maryland">Maryland</a>. 
To raise her daughter, Trommels and her husband moved back to <a href="/topics/New_York%2C_NY">New York</a> a year ago. They chose a renovated building across from <a href="/topics/Ground_Zero">Ground Zero</a>. 
Trommels, a pharmaceutical researcher, knew several of the victims, and calls lower Manhattan "a very special place." "I remember what it was, and we know that it will be something else in 10 or 15 years," she said. 
---- 
With their daughter Erin approaching her second birthday, Nancy Karcher, 37, and her husband Ed, 39, wanted to come up to Long Island from their home in Raleigh, N.C., to show off their little girl to family and friends. So they organized a late summer vacation, but when they finalized plans, they made sure to build it around one particular date: Sept. 11. 
"We wanted to be here," said Ed, who donned a T-shirt honoring the NYPD officers killed on 9/11. "It was important." 
The couple had wanted to go to <a href="/topics/Ground_Zero">Ground Zero</a>, but with a toddler in tow, they thought it best to remain local. When they saw the memorial at Point Lookout on television yesterday morning, they drove down to the beach, reaching the sand as the last of the mourners left. 
"We don't want people to forget all the people who lost their lives and all the heroes," said Nancy, who calls 9/11 a "defining moment" in her life. 
She was just getting off the subway in the north tower when the first plane hit on 9/11. When she stepped outside onto Church Street, she saw burning American Airline safety cards raining down from the sky. As a former flight attendant for American, she knew what had happened. 
Ed, then her boyfriend, was working on the 30th floor of a building blocks away, but he could feel the heat from the explosion "like a heat lamp on your face" and he knew as well. 
The couple lost friends and co-workers to the terrorist attack that day. 
Their experiences on Sept. 11 and in the weeks that followed left a lasting imprint on the couple. They decided to marry and move down South where they had always wanted to live. Ed quit his job as a trader and became a police officer. 
---- 
Fidel "Tony" Oliver started working at the <a href="/topics/World_Trade_Center">World Trade Center</a> in 1972, in a mailroom job with the Port Authority. He narrowly escaped when terrorists bombed the complex in 1993. And he barely made it out, clambering down from a 68th floor office when the towers collapsed in the terrorist attacks of 2001. 
His best friend and co-worker Edward Calderon did not, and Oliver went to St. Peter's Church in lower Manhattan yesterday to remember Calderon and 83 other colleagues who died that day. 
"Have I come to terms with it? I'm not sure what that means," said Oliver, who lives in East Elmhurst. "There's no day that passes by that I don't think about the <a href="/topics/World_Trade_Center">World Trade Center</a>." 
Five years on, the effects are complex and conflicting, said Oliver, now a photographer and videographer for the Port Authority. On one hand, he admits the attacks "added some fear to my life. ... I leave my house, and am I gonna come back home?" 
But on the other, he said, "I feel that I'm an example for my friends that life goes on." 
---- 
While a ceremony in Lower Manhattan marked the moments of the Sept. 11 attack Monday morning, dozens of parishioners gathered for a mass at St. Mary's <a href="/topics/Roman_Catholic_Church">Roman Catholic Church</a> in Manhasset. 
Amy Marsigliano, of Port Washington, said she took her two younger children out of school to bring them to church. Their friends lost their father, Timothy Kelly, then 37, of Port Washington, whose family also attended mass Monday. A total of 25 parishioners from St. Mary's lost a family member of 9/11. 
"I don't think there's a day that goes by you don't think about it," Marsigliano said, noting that her son was 4-weeks-old when it happened, and watching him grow was a reminder of the time that has passed. 
She said she wished the children didn't have school obligations on the day. 
"It's hard to reflect on the day and have that time," Marsigliano said. 
---- 
At about 7 a.m. Monday, Spaniard Hilda Cevallos boarded the downtown E train from Penn Station to <a href="/topics/Ground_Zero">Ground Zero</a> with a camera hanging from her neck. 
But the <a href="/topics/Madrid">Madrid</a> resident, 47, wasn't a typical tourist visiting to simply take in the sights. She and her husband arrived at a relative's home in Lodi, N.J. several days ago specifically for the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. 
Cevallos was compelled to travel to New York for the anniversary, "because I feel a lot of respect for the people who saved others." 
Five years ago in Spain she watched the rescue efforts on television, and on Sunday, she went to a police substation and <a href="/topics/United_States_Military_Academy">Army</a> recruiting office in Times Square to offer words of gratitude. 
Though Cevallos has been to New York many other times, this was her first time here during the anniversary. "We just want to pay our respects," she said. "It's like when you go to a funeral and say, 'My deepest sympathies.' " 
Because of the March 11, 2004 <a href="/topics/Madrid">Madrid</a> train bombings, Cevallos said people in her country can relate to New Yorkers. "There must be many, many people feeling sad today," she said. "In Spain, people know what this is." 
---- 
An hourlong 9/11 memorial service in Hempstead Village Monday drew 100 people, the largest crowd since the village began its yearly event. At the Denton Green cemetery, red, white and blue wreaths were placed near a stone monument that lists each of the four village residents that died during the attack. 
"You can never forget this, we lost four people, this is still a real tragedy," said Hempstead Mayor Wayne Hall Sr. 
As nine local church leaders spoke to the audience and a choir belted "God Bless America," four balloons were released into the sky for former Hempstead residents Dorothy Burke Morgan and Alva Jeffries Sanchez, both of whom worked in the <a href="/topics/World_Trade_Center">World Trade Center</a>, and firefighters Michael Kiefer, Durrell Pearsall. 
When she heard about the Town of Hempstead's memorial service at Point Lookout Monday, Caprice Rines knew she had to come. 
Although Rines, 38, of Uniondale, did not personally know anyone killed on 9/11, she knows sorrow in the aftermath of the attacks and she knows personal tragedy. Rines has watched as an uncle who volunteered with the cleanup at <a href="/topics/Ground_Zero">Ground Zero</a> has fallen seriously ill with respiratory problems. And less than two months ago, a drunk driver took the life of her mother. 
"Now I understand, when someone is ripped from you like my mother was ripped from me ... now I know how they feel," she said. 
Rines looked at the two crystalline towers representing the World Trade Center that was at the center of the memorial service. She said the water rising from the top and cascading into a pool below was soothing and appropriate for the occasion. "Many of our hearts are so heavy from this and water brings cleansing," she said. 
---- 
<a href="/topics/James_Harris">James Harris</a> rode his 9/11 tribute from the Bronx to <a href="/topics/Ground_Zero">Ground Zero</a> Monday. 
It is a green Huffy mountainbike, plastered with tiny law enforcement and American flag stickers and capped with fake carnations in red, white and blue. There is a rear antenna that holds a giant yellow ribbon, and Missing in Action and United States flags. 
On Sept. 11, 2001, <a href="/topics/James_Harris">Harris</a> was 13, a freshman at <a href="/topics/Adlai_Stevenson">Adlai Stevenson</a> High School in the Bronx. At the time, he coudn't process what happened. 
"Right after, I was kind of depressed in a way," <a href="/topics/James_Harris">Harris</a> said. "There were too many people. I just didn't understand." <a href="/topics/James_Harris">Harris</a> is now 18, thinly built, bespectacled and wears braces. He didn't know the victims, but says they are not just names to him. 
It was not his first memorial ceremony. But at 6 a.m., Monday the Bronx native pedaled 11 miles to Ground Zero from his Soundview neighborhood home, and planned to stay until nightfall. 
"The people who died suffered so much," he said. "The least I could do is fix up my bike."

ny-911-2005

Five years later: Mourners come from near and far

Barry Zelman and his younger brother, Kenneth, had a longstanding tradition of meeting up for coffee at <a href="/topics/Starbucks_Corp">Starbucks</a> in quaint Denville, N.J., where, every weekend, they would sit for hours over their Americanos. 
"You know how brothers are," Zelman remembers. "You talk about everything and anything. Sometimes you just sit together and laugh. I think about Ken all the time, so for me it doesn't feel like six years have past since he died." 
The younger Zelman was working as a software consultant on the 99th floor of the north tower of the <a href="/topics/World_Trade_Center">World Trade Center</a> when <a href="/topics/American_Airlines">American Airlines</a> Flight 11 struck the building. He was 37 years old. 
Barry Zelman will be attending the memorial service at <a href="/topics/Ground_Zero">Ground Zero</a> Tuesday, just as he has every year. Yet recently he, along with many other family members of 9/11 victims, has felt some pressure to "get over it," as he puts it. 
In fact, a report released last week by the <a href="/topics/World_Trade_Center">World Trade Center</a> Family Center in Baldwin found that victims' families are getting less and less emotional support from their extended families as time goes by. 
"Some family members say to get on with [life] now," said one anonymous study participant. Another said, "We were originally inseparable and now we are going our separate ways." 
Said Zelman : "I've been hearing talk about how this grieving needs to end, and I guess I can understand that on an intellectual level. But I'm the one who lost my brother. He went to work one morning and he had the right to come that night, but he didn't." 
In another sign of what psychologists are calling "Sept. 11 fatigue," the city's top-rated station, <a href="/topics/WABC-TV">WABC-TV</a>, said it was not going to broadcast the reading of the 2,749 names at the city's 9/11 commemoration, as it has for the past five years. 
Last week, after a vocal protest from victims' families, the station changed its plans and will air the entire reading of names. 
"It's a roller coaster for most of the families, I think," said Tom Roger, whose daughter Jean, 24, was a flight attendant on Flight 11. 
"This time of year, you're reminded not only of who you lost, but how you lost them. Our daughter didn't sign on to go to war, she died at work." 
Roger said that many of the victims' family members refuse to visit <a href="/topics/New_York">New York</a> at all. For many of them, it's not so much a matter of getting over their loss, as it is avoiding reminders that the loss ever happened. 
Zelman is not among them. 
"Some people don't want any reminders, but I feel closer to my brother when I look at things he was a part of," said Zelman. 
"I go back to our <a href="/topics/Starbucks_Corp">Starbucks</a> a lot. It's a very strange feeling to be there, but that was our place."

am-family0911

Six years later: Time passes, pain remains for 9/11 families

SOME WEPT over loved ones' portraits at <a href="/topics/Ground_Zero">Ground Zero</a>; others walked under gray skies on a beach. Bagpipes mourned, bells rang and speakers intoned the long list of names yesterday as <a href="/topics/Long_Island%2C_NY">Long Island</a>, <a href="/topics/New_York">New York</a> City and the nation paused for the nowfamiliar ritual of remembering 9/11. But on the seventh anniversary of the worst terrorist attack in the history of the <a href="/topics/United_States">United States</a>, some observances differed from past years'. The crowds gathered near the <a href="/topics/World_Trade_Center">World Trade Center</a> were smaller, and late yesterday afternoon, the two men competing for the presidency took a brief break from their campaigns to each lay a rose at the memorial site. 
'They will always remember' 
The joint appearance at <a href="/topics/Ground_Zero">Ground Zero</a> by <a href="/topics/Arizona">Arizona</a> Sen. John <a href="/topics/John_McCain">McCain</a> and <a href="/topics/Illinois">Illinois</a> Sen. Barack <a href="/topics/Barack_Obama">Obama</a> was a startling moment of political unity in the midst of an increasingly bitter campaign. Accompanied by Mayor <a href="/topics/Michael_Bloomberg">Michael Bloomberg</a> and <a href="/topics/Cindy_McCain">Cindy McCain</a>, the two candidates shook hands, chatted amiably and strode side by side down the ramp into the pit. 
Each spoke with a small group of survivors, who handed them roses. <a href="/topics/Barack_Obama">Obama</a> and <a href="/topics/Cindy_McCain">McCain</a> then approached the flower-strewn reflecting pool, a temporary memorial, where they placed their roses before bowing their heads. They stepped away to shake hands with the white-gloved police officers and firefighters encircling them. After greeting more onlookers at the top of the ramp, McCain slapped <a href="/topics/Barack_Obama">Obama</a>'s back and said, "Good to see you." The two then departed in their separate motorcades. 
"They promised me that one thing they do agree upon, whichever of them wins, they will always remember this day," said Maggie Lemagne, who spoke with the candidates in the pit and whose brother, Port Authority Police Officer David Lemagne, died in the attacks. 
The candidates' unprecedented political truce spoke to the significance, and solemnity, of 9/11. Earlier, moments of silence - at 8:46 and 9:03 a.m., when the two planes struck; and at 9:59 and 10:29 a.m., when the towers collapsed - were observed at the main ceremony at Zuccotti Park, a block from the <a href="/topics/World_Trade_Center">World Trade Center</a>. Those moments were also marked across the region and across the country, in churches and in firehouses, schoolrooms and supermarkets. On an F train in Queens, the conductor asked passengers to drop their books and turn off their iPods and "be still" for one minute. Afterward, she wished everyone a "calm and peaceful" day. 
&nbsp; 
Tributes and tears 
At <a href="/topics/Point_Lookout%2C_NY">Point Lookout</a>, hundreds gathered on the town beach at sunrise to remember the lost, including 152 residents of the Town of <a href="/topics/Hempstead%2C_NY">Hempstead</a>. A flag flew at half-staff while a group of young children clambered around a nearby dune. Those gathered on the beach yesterday included Zackary Fletcher, an FDNY firefighter and <a href="/topics/Freeport%2C_NY">Freeport</a> native whose twin brother, Andre, a firefighter with Rescue 5, died in the attack. 
"Losing him is like losing 50 percent of me," said Fletcher, 44. 
As usual, the speeches at the main memorial were short and few. <a href="/topics/Bloomberg">Bloomberg</a>, near the site where a staggering 2,751 people were killed, said Sept. 11, 2001, began like any other day but ended "like none ever has." 
<a href="/topics/Holbrook%2C_NY">Holbrook</a> resident Lenny Crisci, 60, was in the crowd listening, as he has every year, for his brother's name. Firefighter Lt. John Crisci, 48, a 25-year veteran of the city's Fire Department, was assigned to a Hazmat unit out of Maspeth, Queens, when he died in the collapse of Tower Two. He left behind his wife, Rachel, and his three sons, John, 25, <a href="/topics/Michael_Bloomberg">Michael</a>, 22, and Joseph, 19. 
"I miss him so much," Crisci said, crying. "I know when someone dies, they say the person was a good guy. But he really was a good guy." 
After the ceremony, Eileen Mosca of <a href="/topics/Massapequa_Park%2C_NY">Massapequa Park</a> signed a memorial beam in <a href="/topics/Battery_Park%2C_NY">Battery Park</a> for her sister, Kathleen Hunt Casey, who worked in the <a href="/topics/World_Trade_Center">World Trade Center</a> at the investment banking firm Sandler O'Neill. In <a href="/topics/Pink_%28singer%29">pink</a> marker, Mosca wrote, "Sisters in life and sisters in death. Sisters forever." 
Mosca, wearing a T-shirt featuring a smiling Kathleen, said she was saddened by the declining crowds. "I don't want people to forget them," she said. "But for some of the families, it's too heart-wrenching to come out. People get overcome with emotion and it's very understand[able]. But at the same time, we can never forget, especially the victims. For people not directly involved, I'm sure it's easier to move on. But I can't really worry about that." 
At St. Agnes Cathedral in Rockville Centre, <a href="/topics/Bishop_William_Murphy">Bishop William Murphy</a> celebrated a Mass to commemorate the victims of the attacks, which took place shortly after he was installed as spiritual head of the Diocese of <a href="/topics/Rockville_Centre%2C_NY">Rockville Centre</a>. "A horrible ugliness descended upon us seven years ago and unleashed its hatred upon us," <a href="/topics/Bishop_William_Murphy">Murphy</a> said in his homily. "So unsuspecting were we that the floodgates of our emotions exhausted us." 
&nbsp; 
A chance to reflect 
For some, the anniversary of 9/11 offered an opportunity to reflect on how the attacks changed their lives. Blair Burke, walking in a peace march on the beach in <a href="/topics/Fire_Island%2C_NY">Fire Island</a>, said her family lost several friends, all firefighters, on that terrible day. After some soul-searching, she, her husband and their two children decided to leave the Upper West Side to live full time on Fire Island. 
"It seemed like a good place to regroup," Burke said. 
She said the beachfront march near the lighthouse was an appropriate way to remember the firefighters who had died. 
Others, however, said their routines remain the same as they were then - though sometimes they wish it were otherwise. 
"I was here that day, and every day I walk past here to go to work. It's painful, but I have to do it for my family. I have to support my children," Nyima Manneh, 36, of the Bronx, said at <a href="/topics/Ground_Zero">Ground Zero</a>. She stopped yesterday on the Vesey Street pedestrian overpass to snap a photo of the ramp into the pit, where international flags flew and family members and officials stood. 
"I think about all the people that died that day, every day," said Manneh, a waitress at the nearby Chevy's Restaurant. "It is stuck in my mind."

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Seven years later: Pausing to remember those lost on 9/11

Eight years later: Remembering 9/11

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9/11 Anniversary - megaslot

Read stories and view photos of Long Islanders who lost their lives on Sept. 11, 2001, and see the latest news headlines and more from Newsday.com as the nation marks this year's anniversary of 9/11.

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