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.”
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 on to the lowest level of Ground Zero to lay flowers.