One year after mass killing, Americans united yesterday in mass grief and remembrance. Conor O'Clery reports from New York.
For almost 2½ hours yesterday morning the names of the victims of September 11th echoed through the silent buildings of downtown Manhattan to the sound of cello music as they were read out over amplifiers at a ceremony commemorating the attack on the World Trade Centre precisely a year ago.
At the same time, some 7,000 relatives began entering the empty pit where the Twin Towers once stood, carrying pink and yellow roses, which they laid in a circle of remembrance. Their eyes filled with tears from grief and from clouds of fine yellow dust whipped up by a vicious gust of wind from the nearby Hudson River.
Where there was mass killing a year ago, yesterday there was mass grief, as family members hugged each other and men broke down and hid their faces.
Across the United States people paused for a moment in solidarity with those bereaved in New York and in Pennsylvania and Washington. Flags were lowered to half-mast, bells tolled and people gathered for services in churches, synagogues and mosques.
The New York Stock Exchange delayed opening for an hour. Television stations dropped advertisements to give blanket coverage of the day's events, just as they did a year ago. The New York Times published the names and pictures of all the victims.
Tele-marketing firms closed down so as not to disturb people in their homes.
At Boston's Logan International Airport, where the two planes which struck the World Trade Centre took off, all ground operations stopped at 8:46 a.m. to mark the moment at which the first plane hit the North Tower, signalling the most deadly foreign attack ever on the American mainland.
Even in Atlantic City's 24-hour casinos, it was reported, gamblers, croupiers and cocktail waitresses froze for a minute at that time as a mark of respect.
The ceremonies at Ground Zero began while New York slept. Just after midnight, hundreds of bikers, America's self-styled super patriots - their machines flying the Stars and Stripes - descended with a roar on downtown Manhattan, causing huge traffic jams before they departed two hours later for Washington. Many wore jackets emblazoned with "Let's roll" - the words uttered by passenger Todd Beamer as he tackled hijackers on the Boeing 757 which crashed in Pennsylvania.
Starting at 1 a.m., pipe and drum processions set out for Ground Zero from the five New York boroughs to honour rescue personnel who died on September 11th. The group from Brooklyn crossed the East River at 7.30 a.m., led by the NYPD Emerald Pipe Band, with officer John J. Gieson carrying a large Irish Tricolour and the pipers playing Roddy McCorley and Give my Regards to Broadway. Church bells rang out across the US at 8.46 a.m. and most of New York came to a halt - though, this being New York, many people just kept on doing what they were doing. New York Governor George Pataki followed the moment of silence at Ground Zero with a reading - without referring to his notes - of Lincoln's 300-word Gettysburg Address.
On the Husdon, 16 ferryboats sounded their sirens simultaneously. Former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani began the roll-call of the dead and missing as beside him the cellist Yo-Yo Ma played the haunting Sarabande to Bach's C minor cello suite.
Several dignitaries took turns reciting the names, including Secretary of State Colin Powell, Senator Hillary Clinton and actor Robert de Niro. The recitation paused only for the reading of a letter from 17-year-old Marianne Keane to her stepfather, Franco Lalama, an engineer for New York's Port Authority who died at the Trade Centre. "I would give anything to go back to the morning of September 11th and tell him how much I appreciated everything he's done for me," she said. "But I think he knows that now."
The ceremony took place against the background of the just-repaired Winter Garden in the World Financial Centre, a dazzling triumph of restoration involving marble imported from Italy and France, 2,000 new window panes and some 20 tall palm trees from Florida. Once a link between the two financial centres, it has been converted into a gateway to Battery Park City.
It took two hours and 28 minutes to read the full list of 2,801 victims' names, starting with Gordy Aamoth and ending with Igor Zukelman, with surnames representing dozens of countries and nationalities in between. Many were of Middle Eastern origin. It is estimated that 150 Muslims died in the Twin Towers.
The Fiqh Council of North America, a supreme court of Islamic scholars who interpret religious law, issued a statement just before the ceremonies condemning the attacks as violations of Muslim teachings.
President George Bush visited Ground Zero late yesterday afternoon to meet relatives and lay a wreath. Earlier, he attended services at the Pentagon, where 125 people died when American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the building.
"One year ago, men and women and children were killed here because they were Americans and because this place is a symbol to the world of our country's might and resolve," he said. "Today, we remember each life."
The president led the nation's observances amid unprecedented security. Anti-aircraft missiles were in position around Washington. In New York, members of the armed response unit patrolled Times Square. Teams to deal with hazardous materials were placed on stand-by and snipers took positions on rooftops.
The president also visited the site at Shanksville in Pennsylvania, where thousands gathered to honour the 40 passengers and crew who perished on the plane - citizen soldiers, the president called them, for their defiance of the hijackers - which was otherwise destined to smash into the Capitol Building in Washington.
"They were our neighbours, our husbands, our children, our sisters, our brothers and our wives," said New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg of the victims in the city. "They were our countrymen and our friends. They were us." Now was the time to end the long period of mourning, he said before the ceremonies.
"In the morning we will look back, remember who they were and why they died. And in the evening come out of it ... and say, 'OK, we're going to go forward'."