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sandy2501
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Most forget, some just don’t realize it was an attack on the US and the prelude and test to 9/11. I do, I was there.
Had 9/11 not happened, 2/26 would have been the worst day of terrorism in New York’s modern history.
And the 15th anniversary might have compelled the city to slow down a moment, to reflect on how miraculous it was that the World Trade Center survived the 1,500-pound bomb planted at its base, yet how dreadful it was that six people died and hundreds more were injured.
But that was not how history played out. And so Tuesday did not seem especially memorable almost anywhere but within the somber granite walls of St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church on Barclay Street, two blocks from ground zero.
There, more than 120 people gathered for a memorial Mass, as they do every February, to recall their loss and reclaim some hope. Afterward, at exactly 12:18 p.m., family members observed a moment of silence at the trade center site.
This year, the pews at St. Peter’s seemed a bit emptier than usual and the construction clamor outside the old church louder than ever. However, the pain on the communicants’ faces was no less.
(And in the Appellate Division of State Supreme Court in Manhattan, the legal battle continues between victims and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey over responsibility for the bombing.)
Many who endured the 1993 attack at close range do not think of it as a discrete event.
“It’s more or less a continuing story,” said Stephen Knapp Jr., whose father, the chief maintenance supervisor at the trade center, was killed in the bombing. “It started on Feb. 26, it played out on 9/11 and it’s still going on now. It was only the beginning.”
Anthony E. Shorris, executive director of the Port Authority, described the 1993 bombing as a harbinger, though it was not seen as such for eight years.
He was the first deputy executive director of the authority in 1993. At the moment a rented truck packed with explosives blew up in the trade center garage, Mr. Shorris was in Osaka, Japan, accompanying Mayor David N. Dinkins on a trade mission.
They were back in New York the next day, when the work of rebuilding the trade center began for the first time.
“If there’s ever a statement of the triumph of hope over loss, it would be in building,” Mr. Shorris said Tuesday on the steps of St. Peter’s. His words were hard to hear because of the noise of demolition crews across Barclay Street.
Moments earlier, Mr. Knapp had taken his 17-month-old daughter Sabrina — a tiny spot of pink in the ranks of dark suits and dress blues — to the front of the church. A small handcrafted box stood open. He showed her a jagged fragment of rose-colored granite resting within, cryptically inscribed “mem.John D.”
Physical remnants abound from the 2001 attack. Some — like the towers’ trident columns — are staggering in their scale. Others — like a bank deposit slip from a dead man’s morning errand — are almost embarrassing in their personal intimacy.
There is so little, though, from the 1993 attack.
Survivors hold on to this granite chunk, which was originally part of a memorial fountain designed by Elyn Zimmerman for an alcove outside the north tower. Before 9/11, family members would gather there on the February anniversary.
It recorded the victims: John DiGiovanni, William Macko, Wilfredo Mercado, Robert Kirkpatrick, Stephen Knapp and Monica Rodriguez Smith and her unborn child. “Esta fuente está dedicada en memoria de aquéllos que perdieron sus vidas,” it said, or “This fountain is dedicated to the memory of those who lost their lives.”
Mr. Knapp said Sabrina was seeing it for the first time. She will undoubtedly see it again, as she learns the story of her grandfather.
“Until they build the memorial,” her father explained, “it’s all we have.”
Had 9/11 not happened, 2/26 would have been the worst day of terrorism in New York’s modern history.
And the 15th anniversary might have compelled the city to slow down a moment, to reflect on how miraculous it was that the World Trade Center survived the 1,500-pound bomb planted at its base, yet how dreadful it was that six people died and hundreds more were injured.
But that was not how history played out. And so Tuesday did not seem especially memorable almost anywhere but within the somber granite walls of St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church on Barclay Street, two blocks from ground zero.
There, more than 120 people gathered for a memorial Mass, as they do every February, to recall their loss and reclaim some hope. Afterward, at exactly 12:18 p.m., family members observed a moment of silence at the trade center site.
This year, the pews at St. Peter’s seemed a bit emptier than usual and the construction clamor outside the old church louder than ever. However, the pain on the communicants’ faces was no less.
(And in the Appellate Division of State Supreme Court in Manhattan, the legal battle continues between victims and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey over responsibility for the bombing.)
Many who endured the 1993 attack at close range do not think of it as a discrete event.
“It’s more or less a continuing story,” said Stephen Knapp Jr., whose father, the chief maintenance supervisor at the trade center, was killed in the bombing. “It started on Feb. 26, it played out on 9/11 and it’s still going on now. It was only the beginning.”
Anthony E. Shorris, executive director of the Port Authority, described the 1993 bombing as a harbinger, though it was not seen as such for eight years.
He was the first deputy executive director of the authority in 1993. At the moment a rented truck packed with explosives blew up in the trade center garage, Mr. Shorris was in Osaka, Japan, accompanying Mayor David N. Dinkins on a trade mission.
They were back in New York the next day, when the work of rebuilding the trade center began for the first time.
“If there’s ever a statement of the triumph of hope over loss, it would be in building,” Mr. Shorris said Tuesday on the steps of St. Peter’s. His words were hard to hear because of the noise of demolition crews across Barclay Street.
Moments earlier, Mr. Knapp had taken his 17-month-old daughter Sabrina — a tiny spot of pink in the ranks of dark suits and dress blues — to the front of the church. A small handcrafted box stood open. He showed her a jagged fragment of rose-colored granite resting within, cryptically inscribed “mem.John D.”
Physical remnants abound from the 2001 attack. Some — like the towers’ trident columns — are staggering in their scale. Others — like a bank deposit slip from a dead man’s morning errand — are almost embarrassing in their personal intimacy.
There is so little, though, from the 1993 attack.
Survivors hold on to this granite chunk, which was originally part of a memorial fountain designed by Elyn Zimmerman for an alcove outside the north tower. Before 9/11, family members would gather there on the February anniversary.
It recorded the victims: John DiGiovanni, William Macko, Wilfredo Mercado, Robert Kirkpatrick, Stephen Knapp and Monica Rodriguez Smith and her unborn child. “Esta fuente está dedicada en memoria de aquéllos que perdieron sus vidas,” it said, or “This fountain is dedicated to the memory of those who lost their lives.”
Mr. Knapp said Sabrina was seeing it for the first time. She will undoubtedly see it again, as she learns the story of her grandfather.
“Until they build the memorial,” her father explained, “it’s all we have.”
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