Japanese Residents of Fort Lee, Victims of 9/11 Attacks

In 1998, when Masaru Ose was transferred from Japan to the New York office of Fuji Bank, his coworkers recommended that he live in Fort Lee. Since the 1970s the borough's good schools, safe streets and close proximity to offices in New York City made Fort Lee a popular destination for transferred Japanese businessmen and their families.

Ose, his wife, Sanae, and two-year-old daughter, Tomoka, moved into The Charlton Apartments in Fort Lee. Although only on the second floor of the 18-story building, their corner unit, just above the front entrance, had a great view of Manhattan, and was within walking distance of a supermarket, drugstore and Daido, a Japanese grocery store.

On the bright, sunny morning of September 11, 2001, Sanae prepared lunch for her husband to take with him to his office at the World Trade Center.

He never ate lunch. He never came back home. Neither did his co-worker, Yoichi Sugiyama, who also resided in Fort Lee, at Avalon Crest, a gated community closer to Route 4.

Fuji Bank, with offices on floors 79 through 82 in the South Tower of the World Trade Center, lost  23  employees that day, although 120 Fuji staff were safely evacuated.

For days after that, Sanae and Harumi Sugiyama, Yoichi's pregnant wife, took a ferry to Manhattan, in search of some news of their husbands. Sanae placed a photograph of herself, Tomoka and their newborn baby on a fence around what came to be known as Ground Zero.

It said, "We love you. We are waiting for you."

But Masaru would never come back to Fort Lee.

As with a number of the foreign nationals working in the Twin Towers, surviving spouses, like Sanae and Harumi, could not remain in the United States. Sanae returned to Tokyo in the spring of 2002. Harumi, who was pregnant, remained in Fort Lee until the birth of the Sugiyamas' third son, Souya.

Before returning to Japan with her other sons, Taichi and Rikito, Harumi went to Liberty State Park and took a memorial photo with empty space behind them where Two World Trade Center once stood.

Reaction in Japan by surviving families varies. Some seek complete privacy.

Harumi Sugiyama decided to write a book, "9/11 terror," for her children to remember their father. It is dedicated to all the children who lost parents that day. The book was made into a television movie on NHK, Japan's national television network.