A 20-Year-Old 9/11 Mystery Solved With A Happy Ending Of Sorts

NEW ROCHELLE, NY —There was something about a single photograph that drew Captain Lombardi's attention amongst the chaos, ashes and rubble in lower Manhattan in the hours following the September 11 terror attacks.

Within hours of the first plane hitting the World Trade Tower, Captain Tom Lombardi was on his way to Ground Zero, along with members of Ohio Task Force One. He described the remnants of mundane artifacts of daily life that blanketed the streets.

“We called it confetti - there were pieces of papers and documents and personal effects everywhere," Lombardi said. “Mostly we just pushed things out of our way. At times, I felt like a croupier, but when I saw this photo, I just needed to pick it up.”

Lombardi said it was, in part, the contrast of an image of a smiling bride and her closest friends to the chaos and devastation around him that inspired him to pluck a single photograph from a sea of detritus. He said he thought he might one day try to reunite the picture with its owner.

As long as the people in the photograph remained strangers, however, they were forever suspended in a single happy moment. It’s easy to understand why Lombardi might want to preserve that moment as it was captured after he recounts his time at Ground Zero.

“There are search dogs trained to find survivors and there are search dogs trained to find bodies,” Lombardi said. “We worked with both when we were there. I think you can extrapolate what that means.”

A simpler moment in time recovered from the "confetti" of documents and personal effects that covered the streets of lower Manhattan. (Regency Studio Productions)

Months turned into years and years into decades and Lombardi thought less and less about the photograph he had saved. As the 20th anniversary of the terror attacks approached, he ran across the picture again and noticed a clue on the back - the image had been photographed by New Rochelle-based Regency Studio Productions. Perhaps they would know more about the bride and her bridesmaids.

This is where studio manager Erikka Ramirez enters the picture, so to speak. No one currently at the studio could remember the wedding and the records from more than 20 years ago were not available, but Ramirez had a plan that would not have been possible in 2001.

She crowdsourced the answer.

Within hours of posting the photograph provided by Lombardi to Regency’s Facebook account, the mystery was solved.

“We did find the owner of the wedding photograph with the power of social media,” Ramirez said. “Thankfully it isn't a sad story, and everyone in the picture is alive and well.”

Members of Ohio Task Force One at Ground Zero. (Captain Tom Lombardi)

There is still a bit of a lingering mystery as to how the photograph found its way to Lombardi. One of the bridesmaids pictured worked at the Chase Bank branch near Ground Zero where Ohio Task Force One was staged and a guest of the wedding worked at the World Trade Towers, Ramirez explained. The picture could have come from either of the wrecked buildings.

Not all of the story is happy news. Lombardi has struggled with serious 9/11-related health issues, though he says he has been more fortunate in that regard than some who were there. The marriage captured in the photograph ended and that bride has since remarried.

But Ramirez is correct that this is not a sad story. It is a story of life going on, not always in the ways planned, but continuing nonetheless, even after being buried in ash.

“I’m in my sixties now,” Lombardi said. “I got to watch my kids grow into adults. I feel lucky.”