More than 200 spouses, partners and “significant others” of victims who died in the attacks on the World Trade Center will read the names of their loved ones at the fifth-anniversary commemoration of 9/11, officials said yesterday.
“We offer our prayers and sympathies to you and your loved ones,” Gov. Pataki and Mayor Bloomberg wrote in a joint June 21 letter inviting the participation of the relatives and friends.
“Through our shared compassion, our community has emerged even stronger as we continue to work together to honor the memory of those we lost on September 11, 2001.” The selections were to be made by lottery. But as of yesterday, officials said they expected there would be time to accommodate all 210 or so people who responded.
In most other respects, the somber ceremony will be similar to the four that preceded it.
There will be pauses at four chilling moments – twice to mark the times that each plane hit the towers and twice to mark when each building fell.
The first moment of silence at 8:46 a.m. will also signal when houses of worship will be asked to toll their bells.
While the 2,749 names are read, family members will be allowed to descend a ramp to the lowest level of Ground Zero to lay flowers.
At sundown, the “Tribute of Light” – twin powerful beams that reach high into the sky – will return for a single night at West and Morris streets in lower Manhattan.
The Port Authority is planning its traditional service at St. Peter’s Church a block from the trade center site.
“Five years ago, the best of mankind stood up to the worst of mankind,” Pataki said. “We will remember, we will rebuild and we will move forward with the full confidence of a free people.” The mayor called the fifth anniversary “a time for prayer and requiem” and an occasion to “recommit ourselves to the unwavering spirit that carried us through the worst day in our city’s history.” At least one family member, Debra Burlingame, suggested that a larger ceremony would be appropriate this year.
“This is going to be a big anniversary,” she said.
“It’s sort of a watershed. It’s half a decade.” Burlingame is the sister of Charles Burlingame, the pilot of American Airlines Flight 77 which crashed into the Pentagon.