Sept. 11 has emerged as the day when the world changed forever.
View full sizeSyracuse Fire Chief Mark McLees, who turns 55 today, walks through Lipe Art Park, on West Fayette Street in Syracuse. McKees and his colleagues will take part in a live art event at the art park. Firefighters will assume the dejected position of a NYC firefighter similar to a photo made on Sept. 11, 2001. Syracuse, NY -- Nine years ago, birthday parties ended for Mark J. McLees.
“I can’t celebrate them, I just can’t,” said the Syracuse fire chief, who in a perfect world would turn 55 today amid a swelling of friends, cakes and candles. “I guess I can celebrate the fact that I’m alive, but how can you overlook all those that are gone? People’s birthdays are supposed to be positive days. Mine? Ugh. Every Sept. 11. It just hasn’t been the same. It never will be.”
Nine years later, the late summer day known by its abbreviation — 9/11 — has become a haunting, emotional touchstone on America’s calendar, a mix of Memorial Day, Veterans Day, Independence Day, Pearl Harbor Day and, yes, a bit of Friday the 13th. If Nov. 22, 1963 — the date of John F. Kennedy’s assassination — long ago became a yearly reminder of the Baby Boom generation’s lost innocence, Sept. 11 has emerged as the day when their children remember the world changed forever.
Today, Central New Yorkers will recall the images of airplanes slamming into the World Trade Center, a tract of Manhattan whose fate still dominates news cycles. In moments of silence, many will reflect on how quickly the world can change. With paint brushes and shovels, many will work community service projects, seeking to treat old wounds with acts of hope. Life will go on. Sports teams will hit the fields. Families will celebrate birthdays, especially for those too young to imagine the world turned on its side.
“You have to keep moving, you have to move on,” said McLees, who today will take part in several Sept. 11 ceremonies, including a live art exhibit in a West Side city park, where colleagues will reconstruct an iconic photograph of a bedraggled New York City firefighter, hunched in mourning. “But just as people need to move on, they also need to hold on. I think that’s how they grieve, by holding on.”
In a perfect world, a crisp Saturday in September would find churches and reception halls hosting weddings throughout the area. Today, wedding bells will be scarce.
“Normally, our Septembers are mobbed,” said Kristin Mingolelli, owner of Rebecca’s Bridal Boutique, in North Syracuse, who has worked the business of weddings for 25 years. “Last week, we had 12 weddings. This week, none.”
That drought stretches across Upstate, said Theo Wheeler, who runs websites for Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse (www.syracuseweddings.com) that are devoted to wedding-related themes and businesses.
“Typically, Saturdays in the month of September are jam-packed,” Wheeler said. “Typically, brides don’t care about inconveniences, such as sporting events, even (Syracuse University) games. They’ll schedule a wedding on any date.”
Except today. Wheeler estimated this weekend’s number of weddings would drop across Upstate New York by 75 percent. “It’s not so much about getting married on the day,” Wheeler said. “It’s that they just don’t want it as their anniversary date.”
It’s the lone day to bear such a stigma. Even Christmas, Wheeler said, commonly finds couples taking vows. “New Year’s Eve? They get married. Halloween? They get married. Fourth of July? They get married,” he said. “They get married on Mondays, on Tuesdays, on Wednesdays — it doesn’t matter — they get married. But this, it’s just different.”
View full sizeA jet airliner is about to strike the second World Trade Center tower in New York on Sept. 11, 2001. Across the area, thousands of volunteers will seek to put a positive spirit to the day through community projects.
The “A-OK Acts of Kindness Weekend” — sponsored by Women Transcending Boundaries, a group that evolved from Sept. 11 — is coordinating work projects from five city hubs: Downtown (University United Methodist Church); the North Side (Assisi Center); East Side (Sunnycrest Park); West Side (St. Lucy’s Roman Catholic Church) and South Side (Hopps C.M.E. Church and the Mary Nelson Center). Groups of volunteers will plant community gardens and trees, paint buildings and spruce up city streets. (A list of projects, plus information about volunteering, can be found online at www.wtb.org.) About 100 local organizations will take part, with a remembrance ceremony to be held in the evening.
“We found that people want to help, but sometimes they just don’t know what to do,” said Gay Montague, a coordinator. “For these projects, they don’t have to commit their whole weekend or day. They can go for a half-day or a couple of hours. All of it will help.”
One component includes the Rahma Clinic, at 3100 S. Salina St., a free medical outpost to help people who have no health insurance. The clinic will celebrate its grand opening 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. “As time moves on, we believe that 9/11 can become a national day of service,” Montague said. “I personally think it’s a huge piece of the healing that needs to happen in the country.”
In Onondaga Lake Park, part of the day will focus on politics. A noon property tax protest will rally support for capping tax increases in New York. Organizer James Lanning, of Skaneateles, said he’s invited a few politicians in the hopes of drawing attention to the issue. He said it’s a stretch to expect a big crowd on a day when so many people are preoccupied with other events and reflections. He just felt it couldn’t wait.
“I’m just an exasperated truck driver who’s paying 40 percent of his income in property taxes,” Lanning said, then added with a laugh. “This is just to let the politicians know the peasants are getting angry, and they’re gathering their pitchforks.”
Perhaps no Upstate location has been affected more by Sept. 11, 2001, than Fort Drum, the U.S. Army’s sprawling post near Watertown. For most of nine years, its soldiers have been fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, while their families back home waited anxiously for their return. For career soldiers, multiple deployments have become common.
Col. Lee Dudley, garrison chaplain at Fort Drum, remembers the historic day clearly. “That morning, people were going along their ways, working. It was a beautiful day, as I recall it,” Dudley said. “And then, in the next second, for the country and for the families — life changed, dramatically ... I try to reflect on that, periodically. Sept. 11 helps me set my priorities.”
The Army held its official memorial ceremony Friday. Dudley said today he’ll spend time reflecting on the changes of Sept. 11 — and then try to savor a fine September day.
Life does go on.
This morning, Syracuse firefighters, police and several political leaders will stand vigil in a 17-minute silence, commemorating the two moments when the hijacked planes nine years ago hit the World Trade Center towers. A few words will be spoken, and then people will move in different directions.
View full sizeOff-duty Syracuse firefighters will take turns today re-creating this iconic photograph taken in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on World Trade Center attack. Each firefighter will take a 30-minute shift at the Lipe Art Park at West Fayette and Geddes streets to honor the 343 New York City firefighters who perished that day. “I’m glad that people are not forgetting,” McLees said. “I think you’ll see people other than policemen and firemen showing up for this. There are a lot of people who are still hurting, and I don’t know if that hurt will ever go away. This gives them tremendous, well, it’s not a warm, fuzzy feeling, but I think it gives them comfort to know that we won’t ever forget, ever, and that people are still being remembered.”
McLees said Sept. 11 has emerged as one of the two most important days on the Syracuse Fire Department’s calendar. It is rivaled only by Feb. 3, the date when 71 years ago an East Genesee Street building collapsed and killed nine city firefighters. That winter day has become a memorial for the city department’s fallen comrades.
Remembering is a central part of being a firefighter, the chief said.
After the morning ceremony, McLees will head to Lipe Art Park on West Fayette Street, where he and others will sit for 30-minute shifts in the pose of that weary, unknown New York City firefighter. Each will just sit there in full gear, unmoving, head bowed.
“I can’t wait to do my turn,” McLees said. “It will make my birthday.”
Hart Seely can be reached at hseely@syracuse.com or 470-2247.