YouTube video

The camera work is a little shaky, but this video by our new intern, University of Maryland journalism graduate Samantha Link, is powerful nonetheless. In it, former Glen Ridge resident Walter Oliver, now of West Orange, tells of the morning of 9/11, when his daughter Leah perished in the towers, and the days and years that followed.

Today, we honor those who died and also those who survived that fateful day, but lost a friend, a relative, a neighbor or a sense of safety in the world. As the monument in front of the Glen Ridge Train Station says, “We shall never forget our family, friends and neighbors who left with us that morning but did not return with us that night.”

There will be a Moment of Remembrance at 1 p.m. in Montclair today, with bells and silence to commemorate the tragedy. Ceremonies across Baristaville are listed here.

If you haven’t already, read Ian Frasier’s piece in The New Yorker about a retired Decamp bus driver Salvatore Siano, remembering another local victim, Howard Kestenbaum of Montclair, a regular rider on his route.

Here is a list of all of the victims from Essex County. We mourn them still.

CESAR A. ALVIA
BRETT T. BAILEY
SEAN BOOKER
SCOTT WALTER CAHILL
JOHN A. CANDELA
MARK LAWRENCE CHARETTE
DOUGLAS MACMILLAN CHERRY
KIRSTEN CAIL CHRISTOPHE
ROBERT DOMINICK CIRRI
THOMAS R. CLARK
CHRISTOPHER MICHAEL COLOSANTI
ROBERT J. COLL
MICHAEL L. COLLINS
CALEB ARRON DACK
ELIZABETH ANN DARLING
LUKE A. DUDEK
ANTOINETTE DUGAR
JOHN ERNST EICHLER
DAPHNE FERLINDA ELDER
WILLIAM JOHN ERWIN
SYED ADBUL FATHA
CHRISTOPHER EDWARD FAUGHNAN
HARVEY JOSEPH GARDNER III
JEFFREY BRIAN GARDNER
EMERIC HARVEY
THOMAS F. HUGHES
SCOTT M. JOHNSON
DONALD THOMAS JONES II
EDWARD T. KEANE
HOWARD L. KESTENBAUM
THOMAS PATRICK KNOX
DOROTA KOPICZKO
FRANCO LALAMA
DAVID S. LEE
STEVEN BARRY LILLIANTHAL
MING-HAO LIU
JOSEPH P. MCDONALD
CRAIG D. MONTANO
ROBERT M. MURACH
PATRICK SEAN MURPHY
WILLIAM J. MURPHY
FALL MUSTAFA
CATHERINE ANN NARDELLA
MARTIN S. NIEDERER
JOHN M. POCHER
DAVID LEE PRUIM
HARRY RAMOS
STEPHEN LOUIS ROACH
DONALD W. ROBERTSON JR.
MARK LOUIS ROSENBERG
DANIEL J. ROSETTI
NORMAN S. ROSSINOW
JOHN PATRICK SALAMONE
IAN SCHNEIDER
FRANK J. SPINELLI
JENNIFER M. TINO
KENNETH ALBERT ZELMAN

We will bring you more pictures and stories of today’s ceremonies and remembrances and of course invite you to add your own in comments.

8 replies on “Sept. 11, 2011: Ten Years Later”

  1. Good Job to Samantha. Didn’t think the camera work was too shaky at all. This was a very moving piece, thank you Mr. oliver for sharing your deeply personal thoughts and feelings. My heart goes out to you (obviously) your loss is unimaginable.

  2. John Donne, Holy Sonnet VII:

    At the round earth’s imagined corners blow
    Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise
    From death, you numberless infinities
    Of souls, and to your scattered bodies go ;
    All whom the flood did, and fire shall o’erthrow,
    All whom war, dea[r]th, age, agues, tyrannies,
    Despair, law, chance hath slain, and you, whose eyes
    Shall behold God, and never taste death’s woe.

    The list of the names alone is heartbreaking, by the way.
    But let them sleep, Lord, and me mourn a space ;
    For, if above all these my sins abound,
    ‘Tis late to ask abundance of Thy grace,
    When we are there. Here on this lowly ground,
    Teach me how to repent, for that’s as good
    As if Thou hadst seal’d my pardon with Thy blood.

  4. The people who lost their lives that day were ordinary people like you and me. Let us never forget them. Thank you for sharing, Mr. Oliver.

  5. Redemption
    F. Healy , October 2001 from NY Waterway Ferry

    The world has come crashing down
    We stare at unspeakable images and weep
    In sorrow for the lost
    And rage at the invisible enemy

    In the midst of this human horror
    I witness an undulating and honking V
    Sweep across the sky
    And with singular understanding realize that
    Fall has come and the geese are flying south

    This world will go on

  6. I find it always extremely important to list every casualty in every sad event, so as to remind us that we’re talking about way too many individual lives, cut short.

  7. The unspeakable horror that was visited upon my childhood friend and all the others can not be imagined by those of us who still cry for them. But we do cry. And we will never forget.

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