At first, only a handful of people stood on the sidewalk in front of Stefano Jewelry on Jan. 16 to stare at a store window that had been covered over from the inside with cloth. Simone Stefano, the storeowner, stirred inside, waiting for the exact moment when he would unveil his latest window-decorating masterpiece.
The jeweler, who had opened his doors to retail on Paterson Plank Road, six years ago, was on a mission. After the Sept. 11 World Trade Center attack took the life of a dear friend, Stefano decided he needed to do something. In fact, Stefano and his staff had been close to two of the victims of the disaster, Michael Tanner and Steven Strobert. He said he felt a particular need to express his feelings.
Tanner was an investment banker and trader at Cantor Fitzgerald who survived the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, only to perish in the attack on Sept. 11. Friends have described him as one of those people who helped others and had a remarkable sense of humor. A high school football star out of St. Joseph’s high school in Palisades Park, he went on to become the star quarterback at Cornell University. Many local residents recall tossing the ball around with him, and his activities as a local coach.
Strobert grew up in Secaucus and had just moved out of town. Cantor Fitzgerald was his first job, and he worked with Tanner as a bond trader. Like Tanner, he had survived the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center. In fact, at that time, he had helped rescue a pregnant woman from the upper floors.
“After Sept. 11, my window … wasn’t a window anymore,” Stefano said last week. “It was means of saying how I feel.”
Pat Stefano, Simone’s wife, had thought to decorate the window with police and firefighters, and perhaps even display the image of former New York Mayor Rudi Guiliani.
“I thought it would be patriotic,” she said.
But Simone had other ideas, and wanted to do something much more dramatic, something that would make people take notice and uplift their spirits. So he rented mannequins, life-sized figures of President George W. Bush, a U.S. Marine, Santa Claus and a chained Bin Laden – the man said to be the mastermind behind the Sept. 11 attacks.
“It was my Christmas wish that we would capture Bin Laden before Christmas,” Simone said with a regretful sigh. “But that didn’t happen.”
So many people reacted to his window, Simone thought to do another window – one that would continue to express his support for the effort to bring Bin Laden to justice.
“After Sept. 11, I couldn’t see fixing up the window to look pretty, as if everything was normal,” he said.
He and his family had known Tanner for over 30 years. Some employees of his store had played ball with Strobert.
Before the new display was unveiled, some residents had heard that it would incorporate a Western theme with a soundtrack playing Western-themed music inside and outside the store. A CD had been burned for them by an employee of MSNBC and a good friend of Simone’s. Mike Talliento, Debby Bland and Jay Baran, employees and friends, helped him set up the new display, which he said would be bigger and better than the first, and more importantly, interactive.
Brenda Conville, a town resident, said she had loved his first effort and had come to the store earlier in the day to purchase jewelry.
“When I heard he was going to unveil a new window, I decided to stick around,” she said. “My husband must be wondering where I am.”
A moment later, the sheets fell and the mystery was revealed as four new figures confronted the gathering crowd with images of the president and the secretary of state dressed up as sheriffs with Bin Laden a prisoner between them. Then, one of the pedestrians pointed to the fourth figure, a cowboy, claiming it was moving, and it was.
Simone grinned from inside the window and waved for people to come in and take his place as part of the posse. While Simone admits the display won’t bring back the people who perished in the World Trade Center attack, he said he hoped it would lift people’s spirits by making them laugh a little.
“It’s something I can do,” he said.