9/11/2007
NEW YORK : Presidential politics, the health of ground zero workers and the construction of new buildings at the site of the former World Trade Center loom over this Sept. 11 more than any other anniversary of the attacks.
The firefighters who helped rescue New Yorkers on Sept. 11, 2001 - and later, recovered the dead - prepared to read victims' names for the first time at an anniversary ceremony.
Many of the first responders have become sick, or diedthemselves, of respiratory problems and cancers they blame on exposure to World Trade Center dust. For the first time this year, a victim who did not die at the trade center will be recognized - the city added the name of an attorney who died of lung disease five months later to its official victims' list this year.
And firefighters will share the stage with former mayor Rudy Giuliani, who many victims' families and firefighters said should not speak here this year because he is running for president as a Republican.
"He's really kind of raining on their coattails," said Rosaleen Tallon, whose firefighter brother Sean Tallon was killed on Sept. 11.
Once again this year, the city will hold four moments of silence to mark the times that two hijacked jetliners hit the twin towers, and for the two times that each tower collapsed. For the first time since 2001, Sept. 11 is on a Tuesday.
But the ceremony was moved off the trade center site this year because of increased construction at ground zero. The victims will be remembered in a nearby park just southeast of the site, while thousands of family members planned to descend briefly below street level to lay flowers at a spot near the fallen twin towers.
After threats by family members to boycott the ceremony and hold their own shadow remembrance, the city relented and agreed to allow them to descend briefly into the pit to lay flowers on the dustybedrock.
While other ceremonies were planned around the country, including near the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field where two other hijacked jetliners crashed that day, Osama bin Laden planned to appear in a new video and read the will of one of the hijackers.
A fire union spokesman said no organized demonstration of messages were planned against Giuliani, or about the blaze last month that killed two firefighters at a skyscraper that had never been torn down since it was heavily damaged on Sept. 11.
But the toxic tower will be in view of people attending the ceremony, providing another grim reminder of the Sept. 11 legacy six years later.
Giuliani, who has made his performance in the months after the 2001 terrorist attacks the cornerstone of his campaign, said last week that his appearance wasn't intended to be political.
"I was there when it happened and I've been there every year since then. If I didn't, it would be extremely unusual. As a personal matter, I wouldn't be able to live with myself," Giuliani said Friday.
Several family members worried that Zuccotti Park, just southeast of ground zero, would be too small to accommodate the thousands of people. City officials said there was actually more space availablethan at the previous location, and said that fewer people were attending the ceremonies each year.
With this Sept. 11 more than others, more people were questioning whether anniversary fatigue was setting in.
Some New Jersey communities that lost many people in the attacks said their ceremonies were being scaled back, and a local television station, WABC-TV, initially decided not to air the four-hour-plusceremony live. The station changed its mind once the public complained.
In Washington, President George W. Bush will help mark the anniversary with a moment of silence Tuesday morning on the South Lawn of the White House. At the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Robert Gates will host a memorial observance for relatives of those who died in the attack there.
A ceremony is also scheduled in western Pennsylvania at the site of the crash of hijacked Flight 93.
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