A panel of community leaders gathered at All Saints Episcopal Church Wednesday night to share stories of what happened to Hoboken on September 11, 2001. The discussion, billed as “How We Responded on an Unthinkable Day,” was sponsored by All Saints, the Hoboken Historical Museum, the Hoboken Public Library and the 9/11 Hoboken Remembers Committee. Over 75 residents attended. Award-winning New York Times journalist and Hoboken resident Diana Henriques moderated the discussion, which included former Mayor David Roberts, Laurie Wurm, then the parish missionary of All Saints, Richard Evans, the …
The New York skyline, the hole where the Twin Towers once stood, and the steadily groing Freedom Tower tell the story of 9/11 to Hoboken's residents every day. One addition—a plaque at the waterfront by the Hoboken Terminal—now adds the story of New Jersey Transit workers on Sept. 11, 2001. On Wednesday afternoon, local officials as well as New Jersey Transit employees and representatives from other local agencies, joined together to dedicate a plaque, placed by the Hoboken waterfront. Jersey City Jerramiah Healy attended the ceremony on Wednesday, praising Hoboken and Jersey City as the "…
Ten years after she lost her husband Keith on 9/11, Sandra O'Connor Carey wants her adopted home of Hoboken to remember, grieve and heal together. In the months after the terrorist attack O'Connor Carey helped form a support group at All Saints Episcopal Church for survivors of 9/11 victims and later joined the City of Hoboken's committee to develop a permanent memorial. Now, in conjunction with All Saints, the Hoboken Historical Museum, the Hoboken Public Library and the 9/11 Hoboken Remembers Organizing Committee she is also helping to stage a panel discussion to take place on Wednesday, …
For a full page of stories about the ten year anniversary of 9/11 and the stories that Hoboken Patch has been publishing, remembering that day and its victims, go to http://hoboken.patch.com/topics/september-11th-anniversary for a full overview. Hoboken Patch will also be covering the city's memorial at 6 p.m. on Sunday.
The 9/11 attacks left thousands of families broken. In Hoboken, a city full of young professionals, many people in the prime of their lives lost their spouses. Two such survivors, Tracy Orr and Joe O’Keefe, met in an unconventional way under extraordinary circumstances, but they managed to rebuild their lives with the friendship and love they found in one another. The day before the national tragedy that would change the course of her life, Tracy Orr had an uneasy feeling. She and her husband Alex Steinman were on their way back home from a trip they took to attend a friend’s wedding in Italy…
As Hoboken prepares to commemorate the 10-year anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center, Mayor Dawn Zimmer, Senator Robert Menendez and other local elected officials and rescue officers gathered in Pier A Park on Friday afternoon to show their support for New Jersey’s Task Force One, who played an essential role on that fateful day. Menendez was rallying for support to designate Task Force One as an official FEMA-supported team, which would bring additional funding to the squad, and allow them to respond to out of state requests for help. “Hoboken played such an important role in …
"It's really getting to me this year." Every year, the anniversary comes, and Barbara Pandolfo copes, with varying degrees of success. But this year, on the 10th anniversary of her daughter's death in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Pandolfo is struggling. She catches herself crying. "It's 10 years, and it's kind of hard to believe," she said. When the twin towers fell that day, Pandolfo lost her only child, and a good friend. Hobokenite Dominique Pandolfo was 27 when she died in the World Trade Center. She had just moved into an apartment in Hoboken. She had just started taking classes at New…
Students, school administrators and community leaders assembled in the Hoboken High School auditorium Friday morning for a ceremony honoring victims of the 9/11 terrorist attack. The ceremony included the unveiling of artist Raymond Smith's digital print replica of his commemorative artwork, the Hoboken Children's Memorial Flag, which he donated to the high school. The original is currently displayed in the Board of Education meeting room. Several students participated in the ceremony, including Natasha Rivera, president of the school's Hispanic Culture Club, who read a poem, and Samantha …
Although it won't be open in time for the ten year anniversary, the city recently announced the design of the permament 9/11 memorial, which will be placed on Pier A. An earlier design, introduced under a previous administration, included a special pier that extended into the Hudson. That was too expensive, Mayor Dawn Zimmer said in a recent interview. Bids for construction for the design are supposed to go out this month, according to Zimmer as well as Director of Community Development Brandy Forbes. Several Construction companies will then return the bids in October. The city council will …
As John and Barbara Sullivan unfolded an 8-by-12-foot American flag, they became emotional. It had been 10 years since they looked at the flag that was signed by thousands just after 9/11. “This is even hard for us,” John said. The couple, owners of American Eagle Flag in Forked River, never anticipated that their product would be in such demand and under the circumstances, they wished it hadn’t. “Our business is the pulse of how the country is feeling at the time,” John said. “Many times when business is booming, it means the country is in turmoil.” John was working in the office when he …
Ten years ago, on Sept. 11, 2001, 57 Hoboken residents reported to work in the World Trade Center, but never returned home. Memorials and more subtle reminders are scattered throughout the city. They're at parks, schools, religious institutions, on the streets, and even in the view across the Hudson River. In the past 10 years, progress has been made – the Freedom Tower now stands near where the Twin Towers would have been, and the outline of Hoboken’s waterfront has grown – but the city will never forget.
As a poet from a working-class New Jersey background who teaches at a small community college tucked into the Northwest corner of his home state, BJ Ward is accustomed to being ignored. Which makes the public’s awareness — and gratitude — for one of his poems, For the Children of the World Trade Center Victims, all the more remarkable to him. Ten years after the Sept. 11 attacks, Ward still hears from the children and wives of Sept. 11 (but no husbands so far) emailing or calling to thank him for expressing what they are still trying to absorb. “They are the living victims. They still have an…
Tuesday morning, Sept. 11, 2001, a scene of horror and confusion was unfolding across the Hudson River, but for the moment, everything was normal at—what was then named—St. Mary’s Hospital on Willow Avenue in Hoboken. Mary DeAngelo, head nurse of the emergency room at the time, was on the fifth floor doing her rounds when she caught a glimpse of the news on television. A commercial airliner had crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center, and people on the ground below were running for their lives. “It was just a shock,” she said. After 17 years on the job, she had never seen …
Editor's note: Many New Jersey residents saw firsthand the attacks on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11. Now, 10 years later, we've asked some of them how the event changed their lives. We'll be sharing their stories all this week. Steve Napolitano, who was the General Manager of the George Washington Bridge and Bus Station on Sept. 11, 2001, remembers standing on the sidewalk the day after the terror attacks, staring at the American flag workers had just unfurled on the bridge "while car horns beeped as they drove beneath it." “It was really important that we do that; that we hang that flag…
Hoboken resident Howard Turoff remembers thinking it was a clear and beautiful day as he walked to the Hoboken PATH station on his way to work on Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001. He had no idea he was about to step onto the last train into lower Manhattan, to the biggest terrorist attack ever in the United States. The cars of the train were full. People were standing shoulder to shoulder, Turoff said, like any other morning. After about 15 minutes, the train pulled into the underground station at the World Trade Center. Turoff got off and heard some commotion over a fire on the tracks. A seasoned New…
