On the 15th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, the city will host its annual 9/11 Interfaith Memorial Service at 2 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 11 at Pier A Park.
According to Juan Melli, spokesman for the city of Hoboken, “The ceremony will include readings and reflections from clergy from various faiths, along with songs and a reading of the [57] names [of residents who died in the attacks].”
Friends and family of the victims will attend, along with Mayor Dawn Zimmer, council members, other elected officials, and public safety officials.
The city also issued a media release on Thursday Sept. 1 saying that two 9/11 memorial handprint flags will be displayed at City Hall for the month of September to observe the anniversary. In 2001, as a gesture of solidarity, art teacher Amy Young in Rome, Ga., created a large 7’ X 15’ flag with the handprints of over 600 schoolchildren from Glenwood Primary School and sent it to Hoboken residents. That flag is now in the permanent collection of the Hoboken Historical Museum.
In response, Hoboken artist Raymond Smith organized Hoboken residents to create a handprint flag to send back to the school in Georgia. It has been returned to Hoboken from Georgia for the 15th anniversary.
“[I remember] taking my daughter to Pier A Park and pointing to the towers and saying ‘Daddy’s over there at work.’ ” –Sandra Carey
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Meanwhile, after the memorial service on Sunday, Sept. 11, the Catholic community of Saints Peter and Paul Church at 404 Hudson St. will host a September 11 Memorial Concert at the church at 4 p.m. The concert will consist of a medley of songs according to the church’s Musical Director Mathew Still. The concert is open to all members of the public.
“The program is not overly religious,” said Still.” We tried to do a mix of modern, patriotic, and sacred pieces.”
The evening music will be provided by various choruses in the area including Stevens choir, the choir from the Mustard Seed School, the Hoboken High School choir, and the church’s adult choir.
The concert will include a photo exhibit provided by Sandra Swieder entitled “From Across the River.” As a photographer and a then resident of Jersey City, Sandra Swieder was able to document the events from the collapse of the second tower to the waterfront rescue and recovery efforts.
Swieder remembered standing on a rooftop in Hoboken taking photos of New York and Hoboken and realizing that the sister cities looked as one.
“On that day we all became one; one color, one sex, one gender, so it was multiple levels of unity,” said Swieder. “We were all just helping each other and New York and New Jersey became one…I couldn’t deal with the fact of all this destruction and I had to concentrate on the beauty and the unity of it.”
Swieder also made a documentary of her experience and interviewed emergency responders, doctors, and volunteers.
For more information on the concert and exhibit go to www.spphoboken.com.
Memories
The tragedy is still fresh in the minds of many people who were in Hoboken on that day.
Laurie Wurm, a former minister at All Saints Episcopal Church on Washington Street, set up a young widows’ support group in town and became involved in helping out in other ways after the tragedy.
She remembered the morning of the attacks.
“Rosemary, who is now my wife, called me on her way to work and sad she saw the first tower fall,” said Wurm.
“I went to the church and as soon as people started coming back from the city, they started filing in.”
Wurm said that Rev. Geoff Curtis was in California for a conference and the regional Archdiocese couldn’t help because Hoboken was tough to get into or out of.
“No one was allowed in or out and we needed a priest, but the congregation was on its own,” she said. So she put a signup sheet on the front door so people could make prayer requests.
What Wurm didn’t know was that her list would become one of the first most accurate list of the victims of 9/11 at the time.
“At the time we didn’t know there wouldn’t be any survivors,” said Wurm. “We thought some people could have been buried or missing.”
In fact, at the then-St. Mary’s Hospital, residents signed up that day to donate blood to the victims they thought would be coming in. But there were not enough injured survivors to take to New Jersey Hospitals.
Wurm remembered knowing that people were missing because people told her that a neighbor’s mail was piling up, or that their dog was barking.
“We didn’t know that no one was coming back,” Wurm mused.
The Reporter published photos of cars on Washington Street on which families taped notes, asking the city not to ticket or tow because the car belonged to someone who had not returned from work.
Support
In the following month All Saints held a healing service attended by about 12 people. Wurm approached one of the attendees, Sandra Carey, then 30, who spoke with Wurm about losing her husband.
“I asked Sandy what she needed and she said she needed to talk with people like her who also lost a loved one on that day, “said Wurm. “The next day, Sandy, her daughter, and I walked up and down Washington Street putting up flyers in store fronts advertising a support group.”
The support group met regularly for the following three years and consisted of roughly 25 people who were all in their late 20s or early 30s. Many had been recently married, engaged, or had just had their first child, said Wurm.
Wurm said, “People who were meeting with psychiatrists regularly said more than anything else that the support group was the most important to them.”
At the time, Sandra O’Connor Carey lived with her 2-year-old daughter and her husband, who worked in the South Tower.
“When the first tower was hit, he called me and alerted me to what was going on,” said Carey last week. “He didn’t seem concerned for himself but asked me to reach out to his parents and let them know he was all right.”
Shortly after Carey turned on the news and learned that the south tower had fallen.
Of the support group, she said, “The group was very needed. A dozen of us are still tight.”
She said that many members of the group have left Hoboken and started families, but they still talk. “It’s very helpful,” said Carey. “We don’t need to talk about it. They lived it. They understand it and it’s our common denominator. We all know the pink elephant in the room and that was as important in the beginning as it is now.”
What’s changed
In the 15 years since the attacks, a lot has changed in Hoboken, but much has stayed the same.
Many people come to Hoboken in their twenties to work in financial services jobs. Some were children during the attacks.
“I walk around town now and I realized that the adults commuting into the city were children when it happened, and they don’t realize the impact it had on the people here,” said Carey. “Their views on 9/11 are different from ours, those of us who were immersed. The whole town was involved, not just the families of the 57 people with loved ones who died.”
Carey said “It’s been interesting to watch the skyline change, being used to the towers and [remembering] taking my daughter to Pier A Park and pointing to the towers and saying ‘Daddy’s over there at work,’ to see the smoke and nothing to then see the Freedom Towers.”
Carey said that the constantly changing view has been hard over the years. As soon as she got used to the new skyline, it always seemed to change again.
The skyline is no longer a trigger for Carey, who said that the wounds of losing a loved one never really heal.
“It’s just a scab,” she said, “and things can come along and yank the scab off.”
Hoboken was a source of support for Carey after the attack and still is today.
“I experienced tremendous support in Hoboken,” she said. “It’s why I stayed here. It became my home. I still feel the town is good to us and supports us. We are so connected, and we still hurt, the town still hurts.”
Sandra remarried in 2007, with Wurm as officiate, to her current husband John Carey.
Memorial updates
Hoboken lost more residents then any other zip code and has been without a permanent memorial for the past 15 years.
The City Council recently approved plans for a permanent memorial and allotted a $2.6 million bond to pay for “renovations and improvements to various city buildings and grounds including but not limited to: Park Improvements, 911 Memorial, Municipal Garage, Fire Department, and City Hall.” Of that, $1.47 million will go to the memorial, Melli said.
While the memorial has not begun construction yet, “In the past month the manufacturer has successfully fabricated one of the glass panels and mounted it to the steel base as a demonstration and proof of concept for how all the panels for the memorial will be fabricated and mounted,” said Melli.
“The architect has told us that the bid specifications are nearly complete,” added Melli last week.
Marilyn Baer can be reached at marilynb@hudsonreporter.com