Ground Zero

Groups spread their own message at 9/11 memorial service

Protestor, Aiden Purcell, of Lakewood, N.J.wears a protest t-shirt with his views at the 9/11 memorial service today. Photo by Kait Richmond

Thousands of people traveled to ground zero on Sunday to commemorate the 10th anniversary of 9/11, but some were hoping to do more than pay their respects. Different groups, with the goal of spreading their own messages, stood outside the memorial trying to be heard.

On an emotional anniversary, the groups promoting themselves were often met with hostility. John Olin, 26, of Smithtown, N.Y., was leading Youth With a Mission, a Christian group that trains young adults and sends them on outreach missions.

Olin and three others stood by a red booth called a “prayer station,” and handed out religious booklets. Olin said they were not looking to condemn or convert, just to help.

But it’s hard to help people who don’t want it, he said. While two people stopped to pray with a woman from Olin’s group, another viciously screamed, “No!” in her face and ran past. Olin admitted that the group was having difficulties in Lower Manhattan.

“It’s better uptown,” he said. “The response here is colder.”

At nearby St. Paul’s Cathedral, “Truthers,” who support various Sept. 11, 2001 conspiracy theories, held signs that read, “Danger! USA Did 9/11” and “10 Years…No Justice.” The peaceful crowd turned riotous when truthers chanted, “Honor the victims by demanding your truth,” while passers-by yelled obscenities from across the street. Police and other security struggled to keep the crowd moving.

Aiden Purcell, 20, of Lakewood, N.J., was not standing with the Truthers, but wore a shirt that read, “9/11 was an inside job.” A man who stood nearby noticed Purcell and started yelling at him. Just as the man made a fist, a friend pulled him in the opposite direction.

“It’s the other side that starts the confrontation,” Purcell said.

He and his three friends are members of We Are Change, a social group that has taken on 9/11 as one of its causes. The men said they came to pay their respects, but to also demand justice.

“We are just trying to get the truth to people,” said Purcell, whose uncle was part of the 9/11 clean-up and is now sick. “I want truth for him.”

As he and his friends explained their views, a small group of people gathered around to listen. Purcell said that people are interested, but do not know enough about it.

But Lauren Folloni, 28, of Boston, Mass., believes it is wrong for anyone to promote messages about controversial topics like religion and conspiracies on the anniversary of 9/11.

Of the conspiracies, Folloni said, “Whether they’re true or not, all that matters today is to remember.”

She added that she finds conspiracy shirts, like the one Purcell wore, offensive.

“Even in silence, it’s just not right,” she said.

However, Purcell and his friends feel stripped of their First Amendment rights each year on Sept. 11.

“Today, there isn’t freedom of speech,” he said. “Today, we aren’t really America, but tomorrow, we will be again.”

While Sgt. Denoh Grear, 30, of Pawtucket, R.I., does not necessarily agree with what everyone has to say, he thinks that it is important to observe First Amendment rights.

“Everyone has opinions and rights, and freedom of speech, it’s why we gather here today.”

New York celebrates the death of Osama bin Laden

Osama bin Laden speaks to a selected group of reporters in mountains of Helmand province in southern Afghanistan .

Nearly ten years after the September 11 attacks and America’s subsequent invasion of Afghanistan, a U.S. Special Forces team has killed the most wanted man in the world, Osama bin Laden.

President Obama announced last night that the mastermind behind the attacks that killed thousands was shot to death yesterday during a U.S. raid of his compound in Pakistan.

News of his death was followed by spontaneous celebrations Sunday night in cities across the U.S. In New York, the outpouring of emotions was most prominent in Times Square and at the intersection of Vesey Street and Park near Ground Zero.

“New Yorkers have waited nearly 10 years for this news,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg said in a statement.

Hundreds packed the corner of the World Trade Center site; many carried American flags, which were passed through the crowd to whoever occupied the highest vantage points.

Ted Caruso and his friend PJ Ransone, both of Brooklyn, stood atop a telephone booth. Caruso waved a large American flag in swooping arcs above the heads of those below. “Somebody juts handed this up to us because we were on high ground,” Ransone said.

Her body illuminated by the flash of dozens of cameras, Tatiana Tyloska, a 19-year-old NYU student, clung to the stoplight and screamed at the crowds. Someone shouted, “Show your tits for freedom,” and Tyloska pulled up her T-shirt to reveal her bra and the letters USA drawn in red marker across her stomach. The spectators cheered.

“I love America!” Tyloska said after she returned safely to earth. “I felt like this would unite us as a mob.”

The scene was generally one of unabashed jubilation. College and high school-age kids sprinted through the throngs, screaming “USA.” Every few minutes someone would start an encore rendition of “God Bless America,” accompanied on the bagpipes by Captain Patrick Dowdell, a 28-year-old infantryman who’s father Kevin, a fireman, was killed when the towers collapsed.

Beer bottles littered the pavement as local bars in the area emptied. A man in a tiger fur coat and cowboy boots stood watching young men with Marine Corps flags scale nearby business storefronts and the roofs of unlucky cars, with one man shimmying his way to the end of the light pole, his arms outstretched fifteen feet above the screaming crowd.

At about 2 a.m., someone took a boom box and blasted rapper Jay-Z’s New York anthem “Empire State of Mind” to general applause. Dressed in a red, white and blue striped shirt and matching bandana, the stereo’s owner Brandon Eaves, 27, of Bushwick, Brooklyn said he first learned of bin Laden’s death when his mother sent him a text message.

“Especially in New York, where so many people were affected, this is a pretty important event,” he said. As Eaves talked, his roommate, Zoe Weisman, 26, zigzagged through the spectators, showing off her American-flag jumpsuit.

“My onesie, it’s incredible, right?” Weisman shouted, “I’ve been waiting for Osama to die so I can wear this.”

The joy was cut by somber moments. One young man recorded a message into his cell phone as he ran, “This is for everyone who didn’t come home,” he said.

Standing off to the side watching the, Staff Sergeant John Gould shook his head in amazement. The National Guardsman was here on Sept. 11, 2001 and he served in both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

“For me, as a soldier, this is a monumental day,” he said. “I’m not saying anything ended with Osama, but it’s a milestone.”

Dressed in a camouflage jacket and Yankees cap, Gould said he was happy to be here, at “the catalyst.”

“Am I happy? Most definitely. We lost a lot of friends over there, especially in Afghanistan. This is something we can say to our friends who didn’t come home: it wasn’t for nothing.”

In another corner three candles and a bouquet of carnations stood beside a piece of cardboard with a short message: “Dedicated to all those who fought, suffered and died to bring us this moment. Your sacrifice will not be forgotten. September 11, 2001 – May 1, 2011.”

Park51 protesters, supporters face off

A police officer moves toward two opposing demonstrators near the site of the proposed Park51 Islamic cultural center on Sept. 11, 2010. Photo by Chelsia Marcius

Separated by about 5 feet and one generation, two men stood a block from the contested site of Park51, the proposed Islamic cultural center near Ground Zero, each shouldering American flags and shouting which side they support.

“We’re disenfranchising our own citizens,” said Matt Sky, 26, a freelance Web developer from the East Village. “These aren’t the people that blew up the towers.”

Vietnam veteran and Staten Island resident Ed Bougherty, 61, opposes the center.

“They might have the constitutional right to build a place of worship here, but it’s wrong,” he said. “For such a small number of them, they sure did a hell of a lot of damage,” Bougherty continued, referring to the Sept. 11 terrorists, all whom were Muslim.

The Park51 debate has polarized the country, and as plans to build the center two blocks from Ground Zero continue to move forward, both its supporters and detractors have shown a new level of charged emotions.

On Saturday, the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, those emotions – about politics, religion and civil rights – moved into the streets surrounding Ground Zero.

Eliezer Jimenez, 58, of Washington Heights, lost his 37-year-old son Eliezer Jimenez, Jr. when the towers fell.

He said the Park51 center is like “a slap in the face” that is too close to “the cemetery of my son.”

Retired history teacher Lance Corey, 61, whose his nephew Todd Ouida died in the attacks, agreed, holding up a sign that read in bold, black print: “Muhammad is the first radical Muslim; Osama bin Laden is following directions.”

Several Muslim spectators took issue with the claim, including Amir Prince, 51, from the Seventh Sun Mosque in the South Bronx.

“That’s just not true,” he said. “We’re American, too. They can’t tell an American where he can and can’t move on American soil.”

Sky, who has frequented the site for several weeks in defense of what he considers a breach of democracy, called the situation a “strange hypocrisy.”

“They’re denying people freedoms a few blocks from where they’re putting the Freedom Tower,” he said, referring to construction of the new World Trade Center complex. “Some of the families are trying to claim they’re the only people who suffered. I regard them with the utmost respect, but our freedoms are the bedrock of this nation. We can’t let sensitivity set a precedent in this country.”

Yet sensitivity is just the thing that Joey “Boots” Bassolino, 43, of the Upper West Side, said supporters of the Park51 location need to consider, since recent polls show that a majority of Americans disagree with its location.

“I see hypocrites and ignorance on both sides, but I don’t want them there,” said Bassolino, a contributor to the Howard Stern Show who saw the first plane hit the north tower.

He hasn’t been to the site since — but he said this year, in light of the controversy, he felt it was time to come out and pay his respects.

“I shot some video the other day for my blog and got all choked up,” he said. “I slept in the green room at Stern Studios that night (after the attacks), covered in dust from the debris. I remember walking through the streets and there wasn’t even a cab out. It was like I had the whole city to myself.”

Sky said he understands both sides of the debate and that he was not here to be combative.

Still, at this time, he can’t see a good way out of the predicament for Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who proposed the plan to build Park51. According to Sky, Rauf can either move the mosque and suffer potentially threatening international ridicule from the Islamic world, or he can move forward with  and continue to face opposition here at home.

“Right now it’s like a knife in your throat,” he said. “Rip it out and it starts bleeding; leave it in and you have a knife in your throat.”

Tensions high on 9/11 anniversary

A supporter of the proposed Park51 Islamic cultural center reads from the Quran two blocks from Ground Zero on Sept. 11, 2010. Photo by Jonathan Walczak

As Americans marked the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, a man in a dark-blue polo shirt pulled out a Quran two blocks from Ground Zero, ripped out clumps of pages and lit them on fire.

He was instantly mobbed by the press, and police officers moved in less than a minute later, whisking him away as charred pieces of paper fluttered off in the wind.

It was a visceral sign of how several controversies — including a proposed Islamic cultural center near Ground Zero and a Florida pastor’s plan to burn hundreds of Qurans — politicized a solemn anniversary.

At the corner of Park Place and Church Street, where the unidentified man burned the Quran, crowd members debated demonstrators, including a supporter of the Park51 cultural center. When several people challenged him, he called them fascists and kept speaking.

“It’s not a crime to hate the people who killed your loved ones,” a passing firefighter called out.

Earlier in the day, dignitaries, including Vice President Joe Biden, attended a ceremony in Zucotti Park. For several hours, family members read the names of the dead, sometimes crying as their voices boomed through loudspeakers.

Thousands of people gathered across the street to mark the occasion amid high security, flags and protesters. For most of the morning, a Mennonite church choir sang Christian songs behind the crowd.

“It’s a sacred place because of all the deaths here, and we just wanted to come and share love and peace with the people who are mourning here,” said Doreen Kurtz, 24, a member of the church who wore a long, flowing dress and a prayer cap.

Jimmy Bacolo, 62, center, a Staten Island resident and opponent of the Park51 Islamic cultural center, speaks to a reporter across the street from the 9/11 memorial on Sept. 11, 2010. Photo by Jonathan Walczak

Although Terry Jones, the Florida pastor who had planned to burn Qurans, called off the burning, emotions still ran high, in part because a final resolution has yet to be reached regarding the proposed cultural center.

Several blocks surrounding Ground Zero were cordoned off, with volunteers in orange caps limiting entrance to family members of the dead, dignitaries, law enforcement and some members of the press.

Jimmy Bacolo, 62, a Staten Island resident and Vietnam veteran, said he is still angry about the attacks, and is especially incensed by the center.

“There is no such thing as ‘forgive and forget’ when you take a civilian aircraft with civilian people and use them as weapons,” Bacolo said. “Had I been in the White House on 9/11, the whole Middle East would have been incinerated — every one of them, men women and children.”

Ayesha Khan, a documentary filmmaker and Manhattan resident, said this is the first time she’s been in the city on Sept. 11 in nine years.

“I don’t want to be here,” said Khan, a Muslim. “It’s too painful. But this is too important. They need to understand I’m a New Yorker, too.”