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In Lower Manhattan, Assembling to Remember 9/11
The bagpipes began filling the 9/11 Memorial plaza with sound a little after 7:30 a.m., readying for the procession that will begin New York’s 11th anniversary commemoration of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks at 8:39 a.m. on a cool Tuesday. Halfway between the rising towers of 1 World Trade Center and 4 World Trade Center, which stand at opposite corners of the memorial quadrangle, an honor guard of policemen and firemen held up an American flag and slowly marched away.
The ceremony will largely consist of the now-traditional reading of the names of those who died in the 1993 and 2001 terrorist attacks, coupled with musical interludes and moments of silence beginning at 8:46 a.m., when American Airlines Flight 11 struck the north tower 11 years ago. Unlike last year’s commemoration for the 10th anniversary of the attacks, Tuesday’s ceremony will not feature readings from current and former presidents, governors, mayors or other dignitaries. They were told they could attend, but would have to stay silent — only family members will be permitted to read the more than 3,000 names.
An hour before the ceremony was to start, dozens of relatives of Sept. 11 victims were milling around, enacting the rituals many have kept every year since the attacks: some held signs with the names and faces of the dead, some wore T-shirts emblazoned with photos of their loved ones, some carried coffee with their flower bouquets.
Some paused at certain names engraved into the stone surrounding the twin reflecting pools where the towers stood. Others chatted with other family members, pointed out features of the site to their children or simply sat on the stone benches that dot the quadrangle.
At 8 a.m., as the bagpipes played “America the Beautiful,” two tiny figures standing on a deck of the unfinished 1 World Trade Center released an enormous American flag, which unfurled slowly down the side of the tower. Meanwhile, the assembled crowd settled in to wait.
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