by Phil Helsel and Kiawana Rich
On a day that began with skies as strikingly blue as they were seven years ago, Staten Islanders gathered yesterday at ceremonies large and small, some attended by the powerful and others held on street corners, to honor the friends and family lost on Sept. 11, 2001.
For the rest of the country, it has been the better part of a decade since the planes crashed into the World Trade Center towers, killing 2,792 -- 274 of whom were current or former Islanders. Those left behind say it feels as though the calamity happened only yesterday.
AT POSTCARDS
At the Postcards memorial in St. George, Mayor Michael Bloomberg called the monument that looks over the skyline his favorite, but pledged "to do everything in my power" to have a monument built at Ground Zero by 2010.
"As you look across the harbor, this sight that has enthralled the immigrants who came here remains," Bloomberg told a crowd of about 300. "New York City more than ever remains a beacon of hope, a beacon of diversity and sends a message to the terrorists that they have not won."
The names of the dead were read in five sets by the husbands and wives, the sons and daughters and the nephews, nieces and cousins who remain. Postcards architect Masayuki Sono joined first responders in a ringing a bell following the reading.
Bloomberg was joined by Borough President James Molinaro and the former borough president, Guy V. Molinari, and others. Molinari, who lost his wife, Marguerite, to illness on Aug. 13, said it eats at him that those behind the attacks have not been caught and prosecuted.
"I can't help but admit the anger in my heart," he said. "We were at war then and we're at war today. We're always going to be at war."
St. George was likely the largest but far from the only Island ceremony to commemorate the anniversary. Memorials took place all over the borough, from the Jewish Community Center and Staten Island University Hospital and the Elks Lodge in Greenridge to a poignant candlelight service at the FDNY's Rescue 5 -- the storied Concord squad that lost 11 members that day.
Assistant Fire Chief Thomas Haring, the borough commander, told the crowd at St. George that the immediate trauma of that day may have dulled, but the loss remains.
"It helps to share the day," he said.
TRIBUTE AT WATER'S EDGE
Looking out over the placid waters of New York Harbor, more than 300 retired and active firefighters and their families assembled at the Alice Austen House in Rosebank for the Seventh Annual Candlelight Vigil to remember the 343 fallen firefighters -- 93 from Staten Island -- who perished on 9/11.
"This is a nice setting. What better place to come ... and show our respect?" said John Solazzo, president of the sponsoring organization, the FDNY Staten Island Retirees' Association.
A Viking memorial bell tolled as each of the 93 names was read. Then a wreath was placed at the shore and candles flickered bravely against the dusk.
But there were lighter touches, too: A spectacular FDNY fireboat water display and the release of 25 white doves.
When asked about the evening's guest speakers, Solazzo replied, "The 343 brothers lost and perished that day -- they are the guest speakers. And we will remember forever [their] sacrifices."
Dignitaries included Staten Island District Attorney Daniel Donovan, Assemblyman Lou Tobacco and the Rev. Tony Baker, pastor of St. Philip's Baptist Church, Port Richmond.
And City Councilman and congressional candidate Michael McMahon remembered: "On 9/11, we saw the worst side of humanity and we also saw the best side of humanity. We saw everyday ordinary people become incredible heroes and all of Staten Island came together to make us extremely proud."
AT ANGELS' CIRCLE
Seven years after Wendy Pellegrino erected a simple sign that read, "God Bless our Heroes" in a traffic island on Hylan Boulevard in Grasmere, hundreds gathered at the fenced memorial now known as Angels' Circle last night.
Police blocked off part of the street to make room for the crowds there to pay their respects, and a line of fire engines from all over the borough formed a line on Hylan that extended up to Roderick Avenue.
Billy Matarazzo, 31, of Great Kills, lost his 22-year-old cousin, Joseph Visciano, who just weeks before had landed a dream job with KBW Securities and was on the 89th floor of Tower 2 when the plane hit.
Matarazzo watched the planes crash into the towers from Jersey City that morning. Earlier yesterday, he read his cousin's name during the memorial service at Ground Zero.
"You say seven years, but it was just like yesterday," said Matarazzo, who with his family set up a now-large scholarship foundation in Visciano's name. The foundation is a better way to remember the bright kid who died that day, he said.
Earlier in the day, as the sun shined through clouds and cars whizzed by on the boulevard, firefighters in uniform, fellow cops, and the family of the fallen stopped to pay their respects.
One, Jeremy Coffin, came from Long Island to honor his cousin Christopher Amoroso, a Huguenot dad and Port Authority police officer who rushed into Tower 1 that morning to look for survivors and was killed in the collapse.
"It actually gets harder each year, because there's always something he missed -- marriages, kids being born, watching his own daughter grow up," said Coffin, 27.
Amoroso's daughter, Sophia Rose, is 8 and a half now.
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