USA: Families and friends tearfully remember their loved ones killed in terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001

Record ID: 751854

  • Title: USA: Families and friends tearfully remember their loved ones killed in terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001
  • Date: 12th September 2008
  • Summary: LENNY CRISCI HOLDING PICTURE (SOUNDBITE) (English) LENNY CRISCI, BROTHER WAS KILLED IN WORLD TRADE CENTER, SAYING: "I work in Manhattan a lot, so I come down a lot, and I just stand here and think about it. Think about this cemetery covered in ash, the streets all full with debris, the building had collapsed over here. You couldn't get down the street. They're just memories that flashback. He was a good guy." TWO NUNS
  • Embargoed: 27th September 2008 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Usa
  • Country: USA
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement
  • Reuters ID: LVAD2OQHEBZSL774GVRFE4PBFJLI
  • Story Text: Seven years after the September 11 attacks on the United States, family and friends remember their loved ones and say they can't get over it.
    Families of the victims gathered at Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan on Thursday (September 11) just across the street from where the World Trade Center once stood. They came together to grieve, pray, remember and reflect.
    John Napolitano's son, also named John, was killed inside the north Tower of World Trade Center. Napolitano's son was a FDNY firefighter. With tears in his eyes, he recalled how, after the attack, he came down to Ground Zero to search for his son's body. He said,
    "If he's not here, he's looking at me and I'm telling him, telling him I love him, and everyday I came down here, there were new messages written in the ash telling me to not give up hope and I didn't get my boy back and I didn't get a chance to find someone else's son."
    Napolitano also said he never wants people to forget the heroic actions taken by hundreds of people on that day. He said, "There's a cry that went out to never forget. A lot of people have a lot of different meanings for that slogan, and I have many myself, but the main thing it means to me is I want people to never forget, not only the horror of that day and the evil that exists in this world, but this, courage, compassion because that's what people are all about and only when we learn to live like that is something like this going to end. That's what I want."
    Like Napolitano, Lenny Crisci is a former NYPD police officer.
    Crisci's brother was also a FDNY firefighter and was killed in the south tower of the World Trade Center.
    Crisci said even seven years after his brother's death, he still comes to Ground Zero to be closer to his brother and remember the day he died.
    Crisci said, "I work in Manhattan a lot, so I come down a lot, and I just stand here and think about it. Think about this cemetery covered in ash, the streets all full with debris, the building had collapsed over here. You couldn't get down the street. They're just memories that flashback. He was a good guy."
    Linda Torrens's cousin was also killed on September 11, 2001. Torrens says her cousin, Jenine Gonzalez, worked on the 105 floor of Tower Two. She remembers her cousin as a hard-working woman who had her whole future in front of her. Torrens said,
    "She was a beautiful young woman with aspirations. Her birthday was going to be that following weekend. She would have been 28, and she worked for Aon, and she was really looking forward to leading a very good life and she was single, and she was having fun. She wanted to be a coordinator for parties, you know, she was enjoying her life.
    Very young, very outgoing, very fun person, beautiful, beautiful young lady."
    Maria Scrivano says her friend Maria Ramirez worked as a legal secretary in the World Trade Center. She says, seven years later she and everyone who knew and loved Ramirez are still devastated by her death. She said, "A little emotional. Every year you figure, 'I'm strong enough. I'm strong enough', but when you get here you start breaking down. You just never get over it."
    Elsie Goss Caldwell is also mourning the loss of her son, Kenneth.
    Kenneth was 30 years old and worked for Alliance Consulting on the 102 floor when the first hijacked airplane smashed into the north tower.
    Goss Caldwell lives in Philadelphia and says she comes to Ground Zero every year to try to find the closure that a proper funeral could not provide for her son. She said,
    "Sadness, you know trying to figure out what was happening during the last moments of his life, trying to be close to him. I had a really great conversation with him the night before for a really long time, and he called me that morning, but because we never found Kenny, it makes it very, very difficult to do any kind of closure, if you can find closure at all."
    Across the street from Ground Zero, at St. Paul's Chapel, The Bell of Hope was rung to honor all of the victims of September 11, 2001. 2,751 people were killed at the World Trade Center on that day.
    At 8:46 AM, the time the first airplane hit the World Trade Center, Reverend Dr. James H. Cooper rang the bell 20 times.
    The Bell of Hope was a gift to the City of New York from the Lord Mayor of the City of London one year after the attacks.
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