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Residents Barred From Commemorating 9/11 at Ground Zero

By Julie Shapiro | June 14, 2011 11:15am

By Julie Shapiro

DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

LOWER MANHATTAN — Downtown residents who say they are still healing from the trauma of 9/11 are furious that the city is excluding them from a commemoration ceremony on the 10th anniversary of the attacks.

Linda Belfer, a longtime Battery Park City resident who watched the collapse of the towers from her Gateway Plaza apartment, said that all she wants is a community gathering at the 9/11 Memorial this Sept. 11, with a moment of silence for everything that has been lost.

"We who experienced it, who were victims in every sense of the word, have never been acknowledged," Belfer told 9/11 memorial officials at a Community Board 1 meeting Monday night. "We're still an afterthought."

Belfer and other residents said that in addition to being displaced from their homes for months or years after the attacks, they continue to face post-traumatic stress and illnesses they believe are connected to their exposure on 9/11.

Joe Daniels, president of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, replied that just as in previous years, the city's official commemoration ceremony will only be for those who lost a family member in the attacks.

In response to residents' suggestions that the community hold a separate ceremony later in the day, perhaps at sunset, Daniels said that would be logistically impossible because workers will need to get the 9/11 memorial ready for its official opening to the public on Sept. 12.

Instead, Daniels told CB1's World Trade Center Redevelopment Committee that the memorial would host special community evenings on the first Sunday of every month, starting with Oct. 2. Access to the memorial would be limited to those who live below Canal Street and their guests, giving residents the opportunity to pay their respects without sharing the space with the millions of tourists expected to visit as well.

"The community evenings [are] a true attempt to acknowledge the lower Manhattan community in a way that is different from the many other stakeholders," Daniels said.

He plans to offer a similar dedicated time at the memorial to first responders.

Still, residents said they did not want to wait until Oct. 2 to grieve at the site of the attacks, alongside the new memorial pools in the Twin Towers footprints.

"We live with it every single day…emotionally and physically," said Pat Moore, whose Cedar Street apartment faces Ground Zero. "We should be able to go in and have a moment of silence."

Jeff Galloway, a Battery Park City resident and CB1 member, suggested that the 9/11 Memorial delay its official opening until Sept. 13, if that was what it took to give the community the chance to come together.

"By the skin of our teeth, we are survivors," said Galloway, who was just a few blocks from the World Trade Center on 9/11 and was caught in the dust cloud. "In the blink of an eye, we could have been on the other side of the divide…. We have a very real connection to that day."

Daniels said he would convey the residents' concerns to the mayor's office, which is in charge of planning the annual commemoration ceremony.

A spokesman for the mayor's office said in an email that the ceremony will be only for victims' family members, as it is every year.

"The Memorial’s introduction of Community Evenings, which are specific hours for downtown residents on the first Sunday of every month, will acknowledge the special history that Lower Manhattan has with the World Trade Center site," the spokesman said in an e-mail.

Also at Monday's meeting, the city offered more information about the timed ticketing system for the 9/11 memorial and the plans to manage tour buses.

The city has reached an agreement with eight tour companies to minimize the number of buses that park or drop off tourists in lower Manhattan. Many tourists will access the memorial by public transportation from New Jersey, where they will be able to use MetroCards on PATH trains based on a new agreement between the Port Authority and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Buses that want to park south of Houston Street will have to pay $20 per hour at designated parking spaces. Buses will also be required to have special placards to park downtown.

The city plans to ask the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. for money to enforce the new rules.