Bayonne, long on the forefront of sending its children to fight for America, lost 13 people in two terrorist attacks.
On Sept. 11, 2001, 12 Bayonne residents died in the attack on the World Trade Center in New York City and during the aborted hijacking of a jet airliner in the skies over Pennsylvania. On Feb. 26, 1993, a Bayonne resident died in a similar attack.
All were honored with a new monument unveiled on Sept. 11, 2007 at Harbor View Park.The victims of the attacks were:
William J. Macko the one New Jerseyan who lost his life in the first terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in 1993. He was 57 years old and employed by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey as an assistant chief mechanical supervisor for the World Trade Center. Family members said he loved to build, fish and cook, and was a great father. Had he lived, he would have been a great grandfather.
Alysia Basmajian, 23, who worked as an accountant, for Cantor Fitzgerald. She worked on the 101st floor of the north tower of the World Trade Center, the second to collapse in the terrorist attacks Sept. 11. She, her husband Anthony, and their child Kaela Grayce, moved to Bayonne in May 2000. Alysia and Anthony met, fell in love and married while at the College of William and Mary.
Ana M. Centeno, 38, was accountant with Marsh & McLennan Cos. Inc. on the 101st floor of the World Trade Center. Prior to Sept. 11, 2001, she was known to frequent the local gym or jog the track in Stephen Gregg County Park. Born in Puerto Rico, she moved to Jersey City while still in elementary school. She later moved to Bayonne.
John A. Cooper, 40, grew up in Brooklyn where he excelled in sports. She sold computer software as an account manager for SunGard Trading Systems in Jersey City, and was visiting someone in the World Trade at the time of the attack. Friends have described him as nice, but with a significant sense of humor.
Colleen Ann Deloughery, 41, worked as a reinsurance specialist for Aon Corp. on the 99th Floor of the World Trade Center. Born in Jersey City, she lived most of her life in Bayonne where she and her future husband first met as a teenagers, she married in 1990. She apparently loved spending time in her tiny back yard with her husband, Jay, and two children Amanda and Michael – along with brothers, sisters and host of other family members.
Ramzi A. Doany, 35, worked as a forensic accountant for March for Marsh & McLennan, the insurance brokerage company. Doany was born to Palestinian parents in Amman, Jordan, and lived for many years in Milwaukee where he attended the University of Wisconsin. He reportedly loved working in New York City, reading Charles Dickens novels and Thanksgiving Turkey. Just prior to the Sept. 11 attack, he had purchased a Harley-Davidson motorcycle.
John Roger Fisher, 46, worked a security consultant to the Port Authority of New York. He helped operate the security system installed after the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center. When the jetliner struck the North Tower on Sept. 11, he rushed back to New York from a meeting in New Jersey to check on security and help with evacuations.
Orasri Liangthanasarn, 26, worked as a banquet coordinator for Windows on the World restaurant, located on the 107th floor of the World Trade Center, a job she started the month before the attack, after having graduated New York University’s master’s program in food and nutrition management. She and her sister came to the United States from Thailand in 1998. After living a year in central Illinois, they moved to Bayonne.
Gavin McMahon, 35, was an insurance executive for Aon Corp. 105th floor of South Tower of World Trade Center. A world traveler who originated in England, he moved to the New York area in 1996. He had fallen in love with New York after a prior visit a decade earlier. He and his girlfriend moved to Bayonne a few years later where he was still renovating a house at the time of the attack. He was particularly fond of Formula One racing and an Irish punk rock band known at Stiff Little Fingers.
Steven P. Morello, 52, worked as a facilities manager, Marsh & McLennan where he worked for seven year on the 93 rd floor of the North Tower. Less than two weeks prior to the attack, he and his wife Eileen had celebrated their 33 rd wedding anniversary. They raised three children, Steven Jr. Alfia and Jessica.
Kenneth Joseph Tarantino, 39, worked as a currency trader at Cantor Fitzgerald in the North Tower of the World Trade Center. He worked there as a substitute teacher while going to college, and met his wife while attending college. He eventually got his bachelor’s degree in marketing. He was fond of golf, the Yankees, and going to a beach house every summer on the Jersey shore. He and his family had just moved to a bigger house in Bayonne the February prior to the attack with their 3-year-old son, Kenneth.
Patricia Cushing, 69, a retired service representative for New Jersey Bell was traveling to San Francisco on vacation with sister-in-law Jane Folger, a retired bank officer, 73, when their plane was hijacked. This was her first flight on a commercial airplane, United Flight 93, which passengers forced down in Pennsylvania to avoid having the hijackers use it as a weapon. Cushing loved music, and became a season ticket holder at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City after her husband died in 1988. She accompanied her sister-in-law, Jane Folger, to every type of cultural event. Folger loved New York City and could not get enough of the stores, theater, Greenwich Village or the World Trade Center complex where she loved to shop. The two women lived within a few blocks of each other. They shared the same tastes in conservative classic clothing and enjoyed cashing in together on the benefits of senior citizenship.