(Reuters circulated the following story by Grant McCool on September 11.)
NEW YORK — The city hardest hit by the Sept. 11 hijacked plane attacks on America will mark the second anniversary with moments of silence, somber music and a reading of the names of those killed at the World Trade Center.
Thursday’s official four-hour ceremony will draw thousands of victims’ relatives to lower Manhattan where the twin towers once stood. It is now a vast construction site and New York’s open wound from the attacks, blamed on the militant Islamist al Qaeda network.
Two years on, emotions in New York are still raw. A New York Times poll this week showed two-thirds of New Yorkers are very concerned about another attack on the city.
Some residents feel deceived by the Bush administration over the extent of environmental damage from the destruction of the twin towers and some relatives of the 2,792 victims are angry over plans to rebuild office skyscrapers on the scarred site.
“It’s like a wound that never heals,” said city employee George Henrique, whose 27-year-old daughter Michelle, an executive secretary, was killed in the towers. “The bottom line is it’s all senseless. … What did it do except for the taking of lives, attacking civilians.”
Just this week, the last funeral took place for one of the 343 firefighters killed. Another family reported being called by authorities for the fifth time to identify remains and unidentified human remains were found on a scaffolding a block away from the trade center site.
Like last year’s tearful first anniversary, silence and the tolling of bells will punctuate the catastrophic events of 8:46 a.m. (1246 GMT) and 9:03 a.m. (1303 GMT) when hijackers crashed two passenger planes into the 110-story buildings. Moments of silence will also be observed at 9:59 a.m. (1359 GMT) and 10:29 a.m. (1429 GMT) when each tower crumbled to the ground.
EMOTIONAL CEREMONY
The names of 2,792 people killed will be read by children related to the victims. Relatives will descend down a ramp to the bottom of the 16-acre (6.4 hectare) site to lay flowers.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg, elected just months after the attacks, will introduce the name reading. His predecessor Rudolph Giuliani, dubbed “America’s Mayor” for his skillful and compassionate leadership during the city’s crisis, will also deliver a reading.
At sunset, two beams of light will be switched on until dawn on Friday. The “Tribute in Light” to the dead and workers who cleared the site was first used in March 2002.
President George W. Bush, who last year visited all three attack sites in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, will mark the day with quiet remembrance in Washington for more than 3,000 killed by four hijacked commercial airliners.
Vice President Dick Cheney will join a memorial for Port Authority staff at a Manhattan church rather than the Ground Zero event, where his attendance could have caused disruptions and delays.
Polls show Republican Bush is unpopular in heavily Democratic New York, where the attacks deepened an economic recession. While the broader U.S. economy has begun to recover, New York’s economy remains mired in recession.
One poll last month revealed 56 percent of New Yorkers disapprove of Bush’s handling of the “war on terror.”
One family group, “September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows” said politicians had politicized the anniversary. The group, which empathizes with war victims in Afghanistan and Iraq, held a silent vigil Wednesday night at the site as an alternative to the official ceremony.
“Our grief is not a cry for war and we want to put our grief to work as action for peace and justice in the world,” said Kelly Campbell, whose brother was killed at the Pentagon.