By Mike Kelly, columnist
Joanne Barbara must have come back.
She’s not afraid of the tumultuous feelings that assault her when she returns last year to the former Twin Towers site of the World Trade Center where her husband, Gerard, 53, a New York fire chief, died 19 years ago in the deadliest way. terrorist attack on American soil.
And on Friday, he wasn’t afraid to catch COVID-19 among the crowd of relatives of those affected who converge every year on the old Trade Center site for the September 11 anniversary.
In fact, the pandemic, which handcuffed much of America’s lives and killed nearly 200,000 more people, led Barbara to leave her home in Scotch Plains early Friday and decrease Manhattan to read her husband’s call in the annual memorial service to the Victims of September 11. .
“I had to go back. She had to be here,” she said, moments after moving away from a podium where she read two dozen victim names, and added her husband’s. “Regardless of the pandemic, we will never forget it. “
What bothered Barbara Friday was that the classical reading of the calls of the sick was not positioned on the former site of the Twin Towers, which now houses the 9/11 National Museum and Monument. This time, she recited her husband’s call to a block. away, in a tent in Zuccotti Park, with less than two hundred people listening.
In a resolution issued several weeks ago that rekindle a long-running dispute over the control of the legacy of September 11, the museum administration canceled its annual face-to-face reading of the names of the sick in Memorial Park at the Twin Towers Site, saying the collection of many others can contribute to the spread of COVID-19.
The Museum also cancelled the popular “Tribute in Light” in which two giant projectors were erected in the days leading up to the 9/11 anniversary to shine rays of light into the sky to reflect the Trade Center’s dual towers. Miles away and are seen as a reminder of what was lost 19 years ago when Islamist militants crashed hijacked advertising planes into the Twin Towers, the Pentagon and an agricultural box in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
Another intervened with a solution.
The Tunnel to Towers Foundation proposed installing lighting fixtures and organizing a reading of the names of the victims.
“We were crushed when the museum said it wouldn’t read the names,” said Matthew Mahoney, executive vice president of the Foundation, who commemorates the heroic exploits of Stephen Siller, a New York firefighter who rushed into the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. to move to the Twin Towers on the morning of the 9/11 attacks, to be killed when the towers fell.
The Foundation, with New York politicians, persuaded the Museum to install the projectors, but in a garage a few blocks away.
After the Museum promised to launch an edition recorded online and at Memorial Park, the Foundation organized its own occasion when names would be read in person.
“The names will have to be read aloud,” Mahoney said.
Joanne Barbara opted for face-to-face reading.
“The museum acted too fast,” he says.
Regarding the transmission of COVID-19 in a crowd, Barbara did not worry and referred to the recent protests in New York to protest police brutality.
“Over the past 10 weeks, we’ve noticed so much destruction and unrest in the city and the COVID pandemic and social distance didn’t apply,” he said. “Then why does it apply to the Museum? If other people were allowed to throw away the trash. people and our mayor stood next to him and let it happen, why wouldn’t we be at the Museum to honor our heroes?It’s a farce. “
This is the new legacy of September 11. Nineteen years ago, the destruction of the majestic dual towers with the loss of nearly 3,000 more people, adding approximately 400 lifeguards who came to the site to save lives, galvanized the United States in a brief respite from unity.
Now that unit is gone.
On Friday, bereavement readings competed for crowds of only a few hundred other people who were noticeably smaller than in previous years.
And then came presidential politics and his choreography of bereavement.
President Donald Trump skipped the occasion of New York and climbed a memorial in Shanksville.
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden appeared for the recording at the Museum and Memorial Plaza in New York, then traveled to Shanksville in the afternoon.
Vice President Mike Pence once stopped at the user at Zuccotti Park, where he recited the iconic lines of Psalm 23: “The Lord is my shepherd; there’s nothing I don’t want. “Pence’s wife, Karen, read another prominent passage from the Old Testament eBook of the Ecclesiastes: “For each and every single thing, there is a season and time for each and every goal under heaven.
When Pence and his wife left the stage, some members of the crowd chanted “Four More Years. “Pence stopped, turned around and greeted.
Pence then headed to the Plaza where he exchanged a COVID elbow with Biden, who did not attend reading in person.
Organizers of the in-person reading said they would have hosted Biden at their event, he never asked to participate. “We wish we had him,” Mahoney said.
Despite the tension, some of the familiar elements of the 9/11 commemorations were still from the day.
A woman with a bouquet of red roses and a baby breath held a sign with the image of her son as the crowd watched a moment of silence to commemorate the precise moment when one of the hijacked planes crashed into the dual towers. The call choked, then announced, “Dad, there’s never a day when you can’t imagine. “A niece told how much her lost uncle enjoyed eating that the family circle called him “Trailer. “
Artie Brennan, a Manhattan actor, showed up to read this year, in a component because he thought few people would volunteer.
Brennan, who gave the impression on television on “House of Cards,” lost his brother-in-law, Sean Thomas Lugano, in the mall attack, but when he looked at the list of names he assigned to read, he identified a friend from his former home from years of training in Breezy Point, Queens, who also died.
“It’s an honor to read someone else’s name,” Brennan said as he left the stage. “It’s getting a lot more personal. “
Sitting in a nearby folding chair, David Smith, a retired New York City chimney boss, waited to read.
Smith ran to the mall on the morning of the 9/11 attacks and continued to return in the following months to search for the remains of the 343 firefighters who died and others who were lost.
But I had never been in the annual memorial rite of September 11, until this year.
“I’ll be here, ” said Smith.
Mike Kelly is an award-winning NorthJersey. com.
Email: kellym@northjersey. com Twitter: @mikekellycolumn
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