The reading of victims’ names, the laying of flowers on the site of the future Memorial Park, the tolling of bells marking the crucial moments of the terrible day. These official acts of remembrance are the public face of Sept. 11 anniversaries.

 

But in restaurants and pews, on sidewalks and in bars, in small gatherings and personal rituals, tribute also is paid to the day in myriad other ways. No less so than on Saturday, the 9th anniversary of the attacks.

 

“Detail, hand salute!” Lt. Michael Vindigni called out to the men in dress uniform, standing at attention in front of Ladder 1, Engine 7, the Duane Street firehouse. As they do each Sept. 11, the men fell into formation and stood stiffly in salute four times, marking the striking and fall of each tower and the loss of 343 comrades.

 

“They may no longer be with us, but they will always be within us,” Vindigni told his men.

 

Down the street, Frank Marcus also stood at attention. As he does each year, the former truck driver travels from his home in Los Angeles to be with the firefighters he helped feed as a volunteer in the early days of the recovery.

 

“These are my guys,” he said.

 

Emotionally, Marcus said, little has changed for him when he returns. “When I step into this firehouse or I go down to Ground Zero all the nightmares come right back to you. And you become pissed off and then you become solemn and you say a llittle prayer and you hope that this never happens again. Anywhere.”

 

“9/11 is on my mind all the time,” said firefighter Steve Olsen, who was back for the annual ceremony after retiring last year. “I still suffer from nightmares and everything that comes up in the news brings me back to 9/11, whether it’s the mosque or the attack in the fort in Texas or at Virginia Tech. Any kind of tragedy brings me back to my own personal tragedy.”

 

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Each year Stephen Talaber, like many others with a close connection to that day, returns to St. Paul’s Chapel, across the street from the World Trade Center site. Nine years ago Talaber had raced down to the burning buildings from the Bronx only to be consumed in their dust and, to this day, terrible grief over lost friends. Along a row of empty chairs in the chapel, he sat weeping.

 

He comes to St. Paul’s, he later said, because it survived. “It was like God gave a little sanctuary for people who needed it at the time and it has served them ever since.”

 

A special afternoon prayer service for peace is held at the chapel each Sept 11. On this day, turmoil over the proposed Islamic center on Park Place, though not named, had a place in Rev. Daniel Simons’s sermon.

 

“That is the toxic side of religion,” he said. “It is polluting the country, it is killing us and it will continue killing us.”

 

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Evelyn and Bob Fialko come each year to the reading of the names. Afterwards, they go to the Winter Garden window overlooking the acreage where their daughter Jennifer, 29, died in the south tower. On this afternoon they stood together silently among the many tourists, their eyes fixed on what is now a massive construction site.

 

“We come here while we can because this is where she last was,” said Evelyn, a button with her smiling daughter’s photo pinned to her blouse. “You’d think it would get better but it doesn’t.”

 

Asked if she thought it would be different for her when she and her husband return for the 10th anniversary, she said she didn’t think so.

“For me there will be more closure when they have a site for the unidentified remains. Plus, I hope we will see this rebuilt in our lifetime.”

 

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Inside the Tribute WTC Visitor Center, across Liberty Street from the Trade Center site, friends and loved ones of the disaster’s victims held hands and blotted tears as they moved through a photo timeline of the World Trade Center’s story—from its construction to its collapse. Then, holding each other a little tighter, they looked at the photos and quotes from the people who were at the World Trade Center on 9/11—the employees in the building, the residents in the neighborhood, and the first responders to the alarm calls—some of whom survived the ordeal, and some who did not.

 

It is in the back of the center, though, in the gallery of donated pictures of 9/11 victims, where the humanity of that day and its aftermath is most graphically expressed. There, family members met or reconnected, shared stories of their loved ones and, as the network that binds them has strengthened over the years, they caught up on events in their lives over the past nine years.

 

The center’s CEO and co-founder, Jennifer Adams, said her hope was that the gallery, which opened in 2006, would be an anchoring presence in the neighborhood, a familiar gathering place for victims' loved ones streaming from the site of the future memorial park.

 

“Before, people were just kind of wandering the streets, there wasn’t a place for them to go to, to be together,” Adams said. Fighting back tears, Adams said the response to the center from victims’ relatives, especially those who have made it an annual stop on their visit to the site, has had a profound effect on her.

 

“It’s really heartwarming to know that what we’re doing means that much to them,” she said, “and that we can provide a place where they feel like they’re home, where there are people that care about them.”

 

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One block north of the World Trade Center site, St. Peter’s Church holds two masses dedicated to the memory of the 84 Port Authority employees who died in the Twin Towers—one dedicated to the 37 police officers, and the other for all of the Authority employees. Both masses feature performances by the 23-piece Port Authority Police Pipe and Drum band.

 

As the mass for the police officers began inside the church's marble walls, the congregation rose in unison. The band’s drum major, Robert Bechner, barked out the song title—“America the Beautiful”—and counted off the rhythm. A low hum presaged the thump and rattle of the bass and snare drummers, and the higher strains of the song burst forth as the band marched in from the vestibule, dividing itself down the aisles on either side of the church. The song and band stopped abruptly, and the pipers placed their hands on their hearts for the singing of the national anthem. Outside, afterwards, the pipers paused to pat each other on the shoulders in quiet consolation, then walked together to Warren Street, to Eamonn’s Irish Pub, for lunch and to toast their fallen friends, including three of the band’s former drummers.

 

“Without a doubt, we feel like we lost our second home here,” said Port Authority police officer Fred Morrone, the band’s manager. His brother, Ferdinand, the department’s superintendent at the time of the attacks, was among the officers killed on 9/11. “To come back here, to the church and the site, and play is an honor. It’s a privilege, and it’s for everybody we lost down here.”

 

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Members of the World Trade Center Survivors Network come together each Sept. 11 at the Woolworth Tower Kitchen at 233 Broadway. About 50 men and women who made it out of the towers or were nearby when they collapsed, sat at long tables, talking like old friends.

 

“As the years have gone by the need to tell your story has become less and less because we’ve all heard our stories already,” said Richard Zimbler, an organizer of the event.  “It’s like a family and there’s a comfort level. If you have a flashback you can talk about it.”

 

“And every year more and more survivors feel free enough to come out,” added Linda, who declined to give her last name.  “Every year as we get farther from the event—and as we approach the anniversary—more people will come.”

 

Nearby, the restaurant’s owner, Sharif Adlouni, looked on with satisfaction. Normally closed on Saturdays, he opened his restaurant especially for the survivors. “I know about 11 people who died on 9/11,” said Adlouni, whose restaurant was on Murray Street then. “This is a good cause for these people. To make them happy.”

 

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Bob Townley, executive director of Manhattan Youth, holds a community remembrance” each year, and Saturday evening about 50 people gathered, sitting in a wide circle at the Downtown Community Center on Warren Street. The Rev. William Grant helped lead the discussion that mostly centered on the proposed mosque and, as he put it, “reconciling ourselves to a changed America.”

 

“We are Americans,” he said, voicing a call by the city’s Muslims. “Scratch us and we bleed red blood. We love our children. We love this country. We want to be in the commonwealth.”

 

Diane Lapson, president of the Independence Plaza Tenants Association, called for a renewal of the spirit of humanity that revealed itself in the community after the attacks.

“I don’t think it’s being destroyed,” she said. “Maybe they’re trying to destroy it. We need to go back to those days.”

 

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As happens every Sept. 11 at Reade Street Pub & Kitchen, free burgers and hot dogs were on the grill, beer flowed and the heaviness of the day lifted for the many firefighters and cops who annually gather there.

 

“It’s a stressful day,” said owner Bruce Barasky. “They say ‘thanks for the burger’ and I say ‘I’m sorry about what happened to your friends and family members on Sept. 11.' I don’t know what else to do.”