This Week 'We Are All New Yorkers'

Sept. 11, 2001 is a day so etched in our memories that most people can remember exactly where they were and what they were doing at the time of the attacks.

Like many others, I learned about what was happening from breaking news broadcasts on TV. The feelings of helplessness, fear and sorrow were overwhelming, and as a nation we grieved the loss of the men and women who died in the Twin Towers, on United Airlines Flight 93 and in the Pentagon, as well as the police, firefighters and volunteers who died in heroic rescue attempts.

Ten years later, we are commemorating that day with hope, healing and a renewed sense of national pride. Our shared strength is no more apparent than in New York itself, where many of the people who've helped rebuild the structure and spirit of the city are now gathering. 

This weekend, the city that never sleeps will take part in a somber vigil, as the entire nation remembers and honors the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks with services, special events and prayers. 

Choirs from New York, Boston, Washington, D.C., and our own Bach Choir of Bethlehem will perform at the historic Trinity Church in a series of performances on Friday. The Bach Choir will perform its first concert at noon Friday at St. Paul’s Chapel at Broadway and Fulton Street. The choir will perform again at 5pm at Trinity Church at Broadway and Wall Street.  

An 8:30pm performance on Friday, Remember to Love: Let Us Love One Another With a Sincere Heart, will combine all of the participating choirs for one concert at Trinity Church.

On Saturday, events at Trinity Church will include an all-night vigil with a labyrinth walk starting at 6pm. On Sunday, Sept. 11, services will be held at 7:30am, 9am and 11:15am, along with a "Service of Remembrance Honoring the 9/11 Volunteer Community, First Responders, and Recovery Workers" at 2:30pm. Events at Trinity Church, including the concerts, are free and open to the public.

This weekend, the Metropolitan Museum of Art will display the 9/11 Peace Story Quilt designed by Faith Ringgold to promote the importance of communication across cultures and religions. On Sunday, New York University graduate students will read their poetry written in response to the quilt from 1 to 4:30pm at the museum. The Met is at 1000 Fifth Ave. at 82nd Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. The museum will be open Friday and Saturday from 9:30am to 9pm, as well as Sunday from 9:30am to 5:30pm.

On display at the Time Warner Center in the Shops at Columbus Circle (at the intersection of Central Park West and W. 59th Street) will be the photography exhibit Faces of Ground Zero-10 Years Later, featuring 50 life-size portraits of firefighters, rescue workers, police officers, World Trade Center employees, families of the victims and two New York City mayors by photographer Joe McNally. The exhibit is enhanced by exclusive video interviews of the participants, revealing where they are today and the impact 9/11 had on their lives.

On display at the Westside Gallery is a collection of 5,000 images taken by photojournalists, rescue workers, schoolchildren, tourists and other New Yorkers as a collective response to the devastation of 9/11. The exhibit, Here is New York: Revisited, is on display at the gallery at 133-141 W. 21st St., between 6th and 7th avenues. The gallery is closed Sundays, but is open Monday through Friday from 9am to 7pm and Saturday from 10am to 6pm.

At 5pm Saturday and Sunday, the Joyce Theater Company will present two free outdoor performances as a tribute to loss and remembrance. The performances will be at Nelson A. Rockefeller Park at the north end of Battery Park City (in lower Manhattan) at the corner of River Terrace and Warren Street.

Another public tribute to 9/11, the Table of Silence Project, will be performed by more than 100 dancers at Lincoln Center's Josie Robertson Plaza at 61st Street and Broadway on Manhattan's Upper West Side at 8:20am Sunday. The dancers will create a peace labyrinth at Revson Fountain and, at 8:46am, will remember the attack on the World Trade Center's North Tower by American Airlines Flight 11, which occurred at exactly that time on Sept. 11, 2001. The dancers will turn their wrists with open palms and extended arms to the sky for one minute as a gesture of peace.

On Sunday evening, all eyes will be on the skies above Manhattan as a Tribute in Light displays an illuminated representation of the Twin Towers reaching four miles into the sky. Assuming that the weather cooperates, this tribute may be visible from locations within a 30-mile radius of Ground Zero. 

Although only the families of 9/11 victims will be permitted near Ground Zero for the Memorial Service on Sept. 11, the National September 11 Memorial & Museum will open on Monday, Sept. 12 to welcome visitors with advance passes.

The new memorial at Ground Zero will feature two waterfall-fed reflecting pools constructed where the World Trade Center's North and South towers stood prior to the attacks. The pools are to be nestled within a forest of more than 400 trees to create a contemplative space within the hectic urban environment.   

After it opens in Sept. 2012, the museum will provide visitors access to a growing permanent collection of artifacts, stories, photos, video and other historic items associated with 9/11. The entrance to the museum will display photographs of Sept. 11's roughly 3,000 victims along a long corridor called the Wall of Faces. Inside, visitors will learn about the stories behind those faces. 

The attacks of 9/11 impacted all Americans, leaving a deep impression in the minds and hearts of everyone. The commemorative events in New York City this weekend will be part of the collective healing of this country and will help remind us that--as President Barack Obama said in 2009--“every year on this day, we are all New Yorkers.” 

His statement then is as true today as it was when news of the attacks was first heard all around the world, 10 years ago.