It's about forgiveness':9/11 ceremony in New York reveals city still trying to heal

Day after memorial opens in Pennsylvania,
families, survivors and officials remember
victims in New York as president observes
moment of silence in Washington
From the archive: how the Guardian
reported the 9/11 attacks
More news Topics September 11 2001
Barack Obama
New York Pennsylvania Washington DC
Flowers are laid at the 9/11 memorial site on
Friday in New York City. Photograph: Andrew
Burton/Getty Images
Joanna Walters in New York
@Joannawalters13
Friday 11 September 2015 11.51 EDT
It is 14 years on, but it still takes all the
strength retired New York firefighter James
Canham has to walk into “Ground Zero” on
September 11 without becoming emotionally
overwhelmed.
“I come down here every year and I do
everything I can not to choke up,” he said,
taking a deep breath, adjusting his white dress
uniform gloves and striding into the zone that
became a mass grave on this day in 2001.
At 8.46am, the time that the first hijacked
passenger jet hit the north tower of the World
Trade Center, the amassed families, survivors
and officials became hushed for a moment of
silence to begin the official commemorations
on the site of the disaster.
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Relatives then began reading the names of the
almost 3,000 people who were killed that day
in New York as the towers burned and, not
long after, collapsed.
A second moment of silence was held at
9.03am to mark the moment that the second
hijacked plane hit the second tower, and then
the reading of each victim’s name continued
and would go on for several hours.
Canham had been helping people get out of the
north tower when the south tower fell.
“I was on the 11th floor of Tower One and I
just got to the lobby when Tower Two let go,
collapsed,” Canham told the Guardian.
“I exited there and I was almost hit by three
people who had leapt from the upper floors.
For those who survived that day it was luck,
not skill.”
As the ceremony began on Friday he and
hundreds of his fellow FDNY members snapped
to attention next to where the two reflecting
pools with waterfalls and the names of the
dead carved in granite now stand as a
memorial on the footprints of the towers.
The FDNY lost 343 men when the towers
burned then collapsed, one less than an hour
after being hit and the other just over an hour
and a half afterwards.
Emergency workers and 60 police officers were
also among the total of 2,753 people killed in
the attacks on New York that morning.
Hijackers from the al-Qaida terrorist network
took control of jets on US domestic flights and
flew them at high speed into the towers,
sparking an international crisis that led to the
wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and transformed
the geopolitical order.
Two further flights were hijacked that
morning. One was flown into the Pentagon just
outside Washington DC , killing 125, and the
other crashed in a field in Pennsylvania after
passengers and crew received word of events
moments earlier in New York and fought with
the terrorists on board, preventing the plane
from reaching the capital, its intended target,
but leading to the loss of all 44 on board.
A memorial museum opened on Thursday on
the site of the crash in Pennsylvania.
In Washington on Friday, Barack Obama
marked the anniversary of the attacks by
observing a moment of silence at the White
House and then was due to visit the Fort
Meade army base in Maryland.
In New York, hundreds of morning commuters
poured out of the train station next to One
World Trade Center, the flagship skyscraper
built to replace the towers on the Ground Zero
site, as relatives carrying flowers and
photographs of their lost loved ones entered
the site for the solemn anniversary ceremony.
The National September 11 Memorial and
Museum on the site are normally thronged
with ordinary visitors but the area was closed
to the public until 3pm on Friday and security
officials turned tourists away.
Sujoy Sarkar, 26, a finance worker, attended the
ceremony carrying white roses to
commemorate his father Kalyan, a Port
Authority worker who was in the North Tower
on 9/11 and stayed in the building to help
several pregnant colleagues get out when it
collapsed. His son, then 12, did not know what
was happening when the police turned up to
escort him home from school to receive the
news from his devastated mother, he
recounted solemnly.
“It’s a day of sadness but it’s also a day to
remember people helping each other. There
are two ways to go about this: you can hate or
you can love, and the way I see it it’s about
forgiveness,” he said.
Richard Miuccil, 10, took part in the ceremony,
reading out the name of his grandfather and
namesake, who was working in a New York
state tax office in the Twin Towers in 2001.
The boy left the site with his father, Owen,
shortly after reading the name and said he had
found the experience upsetting because he
imagined the scene on that day 14 years ago.
“It blew my mind,” he said.
Owen Miuccil, who had travelled with him from
Edison, New Jersey, said he was proud of his
son.
A block away, within sight of One World Trade
Center and the large, new, bird-like transit hub
that is still under construction, the bell tolled at
St Paul’s Chapel and Penny Van Vlerah, 68, and
her Korean war veteran husband James, 83,
visiting from West Unity, Ohio, paid their
respects.
“It’s my first time in New York on September
11 and it’s very emotional, very moving, even
though I’m not personally connected to the
tragedy, except by being American,” she said,
tears rolling down her cheeks.
Nearby, the Century 21 discount department
store covered the side of its store facing One
World Trade Centre with a huge temporary
print of a mural depicting scenes ranging from
the famous image of three firefighters raising
the American flag at Ground Zero to the
Chrysler Building and the Brooklyn Bridge.
Messages scrawled by the public at the bottom
read “United we stand” and “We’ll never
forget”.
In shocking pink, graffiti-style letters stretching
the length of the mural is written: “New York
is beautiful.”
Store owner Isaac Gindi told the Guardian: “We
wanted it to be a remembrance and tribute to
the vitality and resilience of New York. A
positive message.”