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Families join together for 9/11 anniversary

By Justin Rocket Silverman | amNewYork Staff Writer

September 12, 2006

The Adams and the John families met early Monday morning on the sidewalk just outside their neighboring Flatbush apartments.

They took the subway into Manhattan together, the same route Patrick Adams and Charles Gregory John used to take when the two men worked as security guards at Fuji Bank on the 81st floor of 2 World Trade Center.

Although both men survived the initial impact of a 767 hitting the floor directly above them, both perished when the tower went down 56 minutes later.

"His co-workers told us later that Charles was the one who got them in the elevator that day," said Cleveland John, who came to honor his older brother at Ground Zero Monday. "He was always helping people. That's just the kind of person he was."

Cleveland John turned 44 this year, the same age his older brother was on 9/11. He explains that the grief has not loosened its hold on the family, and if anything, has only gotten worse.

"We still can't bring ourselves to talk about the reality of the situation," he says. "It's been five years of anguish, anger and sorrow."

Charles John was an active member of the Brooklyn Winthrop Lions Club, and had bought a ticket to travel to a Lions event in Montreal. His departure was scheduled for September 12, 2001.

Patrick Adams was 61 years old on 9/11, and less outgoing than his friend Charles. But the two shared also the experience of growing up in Guyana.

His wife Allison Adams was the first reader of names at Monday's Ground Zero memorial. Eventually all 2,749 people who died at the World Trade Center would be named, but her husband is 10th on that alphabetical list.

"It was OK reading the names until I got to my Patrick, then I just broke up," she said. The memory caused tears to well up in her eyes.

The Adams' daughter Balynda took her mother by the arm and followed the John family back to the subway station.