Online News From The Tribeca Trib

The Third Anniversary

The eyes of the media were trained on the families of the fallen this third Sept. 11 anniversary, as they gathered again at Ground Zero for a reading of the names. But all day long around Lower Manhattan, others marked the anniversary, too, in many different ways. From the annual sunrise service in Wagner Park to a reunion of formerly displaced residents at the Soho Grand Hotel to late-night treks to the Tribute in Light, all who wished to could find places for themselves in the ritual of remembrance.

At 8:46 a.m. dozens of people stood in the churchyard of St. Paul's facing west, and a few hundred more, mostly tourists, crowded along the fence on Church Street. At other viewing points along the periphery of the site, small clusters of people gathered in silence. Many stared skyward, as if imagining the towers soaring above them once again. As the pealing of church bells filled the air to mark the moment when the first plane hit the north tower, many bowed their heads or wiped a tear. Then the brief speeches and all too long reading of the names began, broadcast onto to the surrounding streets.

There were fewer people gathered than last year, fewer flowers and wreaths were placed along the Church Street fence. While the scene above on the street had changed from anniversaries past, the sounds broadcast from the 16 acres below, were of undiminished loss and grief.

Logan Wilmont came with his wife Beth and their two children, Charlotte, 4, and Chloe, 2. Charlotte was 10-months old, when they left their Beach Street home on September 11, 2001,

As a native of Belfast, he knows that life goes on and theirs is back to normal, he said, until there's another terrorist attack, like the ones in Madrid and Beslan, Russia, "It brings you right back to it," he said. "It's still quite raw and emotional for us,"

Sue Ritter and her mother, Mary Vincent, from Houston, planned their first trip to New York around the anniversary. Hearing the names gave them chills, they said. "I didn't expect it to be this devastating," said Vincent.

"No matter how many times you hear it, it gets to you when I hear the voice of a parent or grandparent break when they get to their kid's name, that's when I lose it," said Alicia Klosowski of Tribeca about the amplified voices of the bereaved listing the names of the dead.

Joan Sweeney from Boston said she had come this year because soon the construction would begin. "We just felt we wanted to be here," she said, "We wanted to get here before they started to rebuild."

The voices echoed through the near empty North Cove in Battery Park City and sounded all too clear from the steps of 2 World Financial Center where a rollerblader sat with his head in his hands, softly sobbing. And at the Battery Park City ball fields, the sound of the violin and the names floated by in a breeze that carried with it the shouts of children playing soccer there on a sunny, Saturday morning.

Nearly everyone, it seemed, wanted to capture the day. Some lugged video cameras and tripods, others carried simple, disposable cameras. Still others snapped away with their cell phones.

"Maybe 30, so far," said Stanley Richard, an Indiana man vacationing in the city with his family, when asked how many photographs he'd taken by 10 a.m. He shot another, capturing an instant digital image of Lower East side resident Joe Garafalo leaning against a light pole on Church Street, a sketch pad in his hand. Garafalo was drawing the scene in front of him, including onlookers, flowers and flags placed on the fence and a poster with the image of the steel beam cross that once stood at the site emblazoned with the words "never forget."

"It will take me about six hours to finish," Garafalo said.

The solemn mood near the site was shattered here and there by pockets of

protest and a few heated exchanges between supporters and detractors of the Bush administration and the war in Iraq. More than once police on Church Street had to jump in and defend a particularly vocal protestor of the war from angered onlookers.

"Hey, you don't have to be so rough!" shouted a man as police plucked the protestor out of a small, but agitated crowd in front of the PATH station. He was not arrested.

"It's so political now," a woman complained as she led her family away.

Farther north, on Tribeca's Pier 25, friends and family of the workers at Windows on the World, the restaurant once atop the trade center, gathered in memorial of their lost colleagues and the workplace they likened to heaven.
"Windows on the World was like a country. And we used to be a family," said Fekkak Mamdouh, who was a waiter there. "We would fight, we would hug. None of us can say that we do not miss that. We can't all be together again, but it's good that some of use can be together today for one hour and a half."

They tossed roses into the Hudson River, one for each of the 73 workers who died in the attacks, sat together over lunch and later toured the space at 407 Greenwich Street where next year 50 of the workers will open a cooperatively owned restaurant.

"We will show the whole world that together we will succeed," Shailesh Shrestha said, pumping his fist into the air. "Long live immigrant unity and solidarity."

In Battery Park City, residents gathered at the foot of South End Avenue in the South . As the sun set,they listened to a program of songs and readings put together by neighborhood leader Rosalie Joseph. Among them was a song called "The Brothers," penned by Vince Smith, who runs a nearby hair salon. Written this year, it spoke of a yearning for the towers and those who were lost.

"We wish we could laugh and sing with you / One more chance to agree to disagree with you /
A little time to be silent with you / A lot more time to be held by you"

As darkness set in and the twin beams of the Tribute in Light began to glow, crowds formed near the source, at Vesey and West Streets. Many looked up in wonderment, as much by the silvery swarm of moths illuminated by the lights as by the soaring lights themselves.

Among the onlookers were a married couple from New Jersey who fired up their Harley Davidson and followed the lights into Lower Manhattan. "We could see them from home, be we just wanted to be closer," said Tricia Vallago. "I can't explain why."

At Reade Street Pub, the live music was loud but the crowd was louder. Off-duty firefighters from local houses and other rescues workers have made a night at the pub at 135 Read St. an annual ritual since the attacks. And on this night they drank hard, laughed easily, threw arms around one another and sang, clapped and danced to the music.

Their song requests leaned toward distinctly American pop anthems, such as "American Pie" and "Pink Houses." "And, of course," said singer Chris Decker, 'New York, New York.' "

For about a dozen residents of Independence Plaza, the evening also ended with a sing-along. Seated on planters and lawn chairs on Greenwich Street, they too belted out

"New York, New York," and dozens of other oldies with abandon, with Diane Lapson and Paul Staffile taking turns on guitar. The idea for the impromptu gathering was Lapson, president of the IPN tenant association and one of the busiest volunteers at the housing complex following the terrorist attacks.

"Some people were asking me are we going to do anything for 9/11," said Lapson. "I said, 'I'm going to bring out my chair and flag and whoever wants to celebrate our neighborhood is welcome to join me."

I want to be out on the street," Lapson added, "happy."