Victims' Names Read at Ground Zero
TED SHAFFREY
Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK (AP) - One by one, the names of the 2,801 souls lost at the World Trade Center echoed across ground zero on the anniversary of the attack Wednesday in a 2 1/2-hour roll call of the dead that underscored the scale of the disaster.
The names were read off after thousands of victims' friends and relatives stood for a moment of silence at 8:46 a.m., exactly one year after the first hijacked jetliner hit the twin tower complex.
``They were our neighbors, our husbands, our children, our sisters, our brothers and our wives. They were our countrymen and our friends. They were us,'' Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.
Some of the mourners clutched pictures of the dead and placed roses and personal items around a ``circle of honor'' at the dusty trade center site, now clear of the twisted metal and other debris that once rose 10 stories high. Some raised American flags. Most bowed their heads in prayer.
Seven-year-old Skyler Mercado clutched the helmet of his firefighter father, Steve Mercado.
As Yo-Yo Ma played the Sarabande to Bach's C minor cello suite, former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who was acclaimed for his calm leadership in the days after Sept. 11, began the recitation of the names of the 2,801 people lost in the twin towers' collapse.
``Gordon M. Aamoth Jr.,'' he began. The 32-year-old worked for investment firm Sandler O'Neill & Partners on the south tower's 104th floor.
The roll ended at 11:20 a.m. with Igor Zukelman, 29, who worked at Fiduciary Trust Co. in the north tower.
Among the 196 readers who followed Giuliani in reading the names were survivors of the attack, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, actor Robert De Niro and some of those who lost loved ones, such as Christy Ferer, the widow of Port Authority director Neil Levin.
At 9:03 a.m., the moment the second tower was hit, the ringing of a bell interrupted the recitation
Marianne Keane, 17, whose stepfather Franco Lalama, an engineer for New York's Port Authority, died in the attack, took the microphone.
``I would give anything to go back to the morning of Sept. 11 and tell him how much I appreciated everything he's done for me,'' she said. ``But I think he knows that now. In my eyes he died a hero. And how much more could you ask for?''
She added: ``I miss you and I hope you didn't hurt too much.''
The reading paused again at 9:59 a.m., when the south tower fell, and once more just before 10:30 a.m., when the north tower collapsed. The sounds of tolling bells and ``Amazing Grace'' filled the air. The reading ended with the sound of taps and the ringing of bells across New York City.
Dignitaries relied on history to express the city's grief _ and its resolve. Gov. George Pataki read from the Gettysburg Address, New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey was to recite from the Declaration of Independence and, at an evening ceremony, Bloomberg from Franklin D. Roosevelt's ``Four Freedoms'' speech.
Stiff winds threw eye-stinging dust at mourners in the crater. On the street at the edge of the precipice, passersby flinched as pieces of the facade of the damaged Deutsche Bank building crashed loudly into construction netting.
At the New York Stock Exchange, a few blocks away, Wednesday's session was delayed for 2 1/2 hours because of the ground zero ceremony. Trading was suspended for four sessions following the Sept. 11 attack.
Down the street, Richie Weppler, who works on the floor of the American Stock Exchange and lost five co-workers, wiped away tears as he left Trinity Church.
``This is in the back of my head every day, and it never goes away,'' Weppler said.
Andrea Moxey said she left her job at a firm just down from the exchange because she could not bear to work in lower Manhattan following Sept. 11.
``Still today, it's like `Why?' No one can ever answer that question,'' Moxey said.
The day of mourning began in the early hours with drum and bagpipe processions from each of New York's five boroughs to ground zero. Hundreds of New Yorkers, many wearing T-shirts that read ``I Love New York,'' joined the procession as it crossed the Brooklyn Bridge.
``I had to be here to say goodbye,'' said Ellen Stop of Brooklyn.
Officer Jim Coughlan, a bagpiper, described it as a mix of ``pride, sadness, mourning and happiness that we're moving on, looking forward to the future, to rebuild.''
Across the city, remembrances were planned for nearly every hour of the day _ hospitals honoring fallen paramedics, children's choruses singing mournful tributes, church congregations praying for the lost.
Security was tight at bridges, tunnels, landmarks and the anniversary ceremonies, though officials said there was no specific threat against any target in the city.
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