NEW YORK – Last year, children’s voices echoed across ground zero. This year, it is the bereaved parents and grandparents of World Trade Center victims who will read aloud the names of those lost on Sept. 11, 2001.
Three years to the minute that terrorists flew the first plane into the twin towers, a moment of silence will be held at 8:46 a.m. Saturday to begin the ceremony at ground zero. Then, in what has become an anniversary tradition, the names of the 2,749 trade center victims will be recited, with pauses for three more moments of silence – at 9:03, 9:59 and 10:29 a.m. – to mark when the second plane struck and each tower collapsed. The day of remembrance will end with twin beams of light soaring into the night sky.
At the Pentagon, officials will lay a wreath and observe a moment of silence. And in Pennsylvania, bells will toll across the state at the minute the fourth plane went down.
After last year’s heartbreaking reading by children who had lost loved ones, this year’s list of the dead will be read at ground zero by parents and grandparents of victims. Some will also read poems or passages. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, his predecessor Rudolph Giuliani, New York Gov. George Pataki and New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey are also scheduled to participate.
During the ceremony, which will last more than two hours, families will be able to walk down the ramp to the footprints of the towers. The area, seven stories below street level, is considered sacred ground by many. It was there that rescue workers combed the debris with rakes, painstakingly searching for the tiniest fragments of human remains.
Three years later, work is still going on to identify the 20,000 pieces of human remains that were recovered. The medical examiner’s office has identified about 1,570 people, or just 60 percent of the dead. They do not expect to match the remains of every victim because some parts were too badly damaged to yield readable DNA, and some people were essentially vaporized in the fiery collapse.
Nationwide, communities will observe Sept. 11 in their own ways, with services at firehouses, memorial dedications, the tolling of bells and flag ceremonies.
Planned ceremonies include:
* A wreath-laying at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C., with remarks by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
* At sunset, the Towers of Light will be illuminated in lower Manhattan.
* Victims of the Flight 93 crash will be remembered at a gathering near Shanksville, Pa.
* Firefighters plan moments of silence in Philadelphia, Las Vegas, Hartford, Conn., and other places. A firefighters convention in Nashua, N.H., plans a ceremony with spouses of victims, and St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York will have a memorial Mass for fallen firefighters.
* A memorial service at Washington National Cathedral.
* An interfaith service at Martin Luther King Jr.’s Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. Prayer services also will be in New York City; Hendersonville, Tenn.; Lawrence Township, N.J.; Oklahoma City and other places.
* St. Peter’s Church in lower Manhattan will toll bells for seven hours.
* A Muslim society in Sterling, Va., plans an interfaith peace banquet.
* Anti-war protests are planned in Princeton, N.J.; Bangor, Maine; and Baltimore.
* A rally in Indianapolis will support military troops and remember the Sept. 11 victims.
* A motorcycle rally in Dallas will raise money for the health care of rescue workers sickened from cleaning at the World Trade Center site.
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