NEIL GRAVES
Courtesy of The New York Post

Friends, family and officers gathered yesterday at a Ground Zero church to commemorate the ninth anniversary of the 1993 attempt to blow up the World Trade Center.

The Feb. 26, 1993, explosion left seven dead, including an unborn child.

A few dozen firemen, cops and Port Authority police officers and a contingent of emergency service personnel attended the solemn ceremony at the Catholic Church of St. Peter on Church Street.

Some officers, with respirators and earphones draped about their necks, took a few minutes off from their never-ending work at Ground Zero.

"We come to celebrate Mass every year," said Pat Cena, 66, a retired World Trade Center carpenter, who held a glossy photo of him and his staff standing in the Twin Towers lobby for a Christmas 1992 photo.

"But it was double special this year. We lost a lot of friends."

Vito Rodriguez of Woodhaven is the brother of Monica Smith, who died with her unborn child.

"I feel terrible," he said. "Like they said, 9-11 just opened the wounds all over again."

WTC executive director Charles Maikish said the 1993 and Sept. 11 attacks must be linked forever.

"Our message should be one World Trade Center family suffering from a continuing event," Maikish said.

The Rev. Kevin Madigan, pastor of St. Peter, acknowledged the evil, but also saw the positive in the a

ttacks which he called "senseless, brutal and mindless."

"It may reopen wounds that were beginning to heal . . . and this may be small consolation, but they did not give their lives in vain. Nothing from goodness and kindness is lost forever."

Following the 30-minute Mass, the families went to the viewing stand and gazed into the gaping hole that is Ground Zero for a moment of silence.