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Port Authority victims remembered

Jennifer Peltz | SPECIAL TO NEWSDAY

4:20 PM EDT, September 11, 2006

More than 400 people gathered in St. Peter's Church in Lower Manhattan to remember the 85 Port Authority of New York & New Jersey workers killed in the 2001 terrorist attacks, as well as six killed in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

"We pray that today, the immediacy of your pain has subsided, and yet the clarity of your cherished memories remains," Gov. George Pataki told the relatives, friends and colleagues of victims who attended the mid-afternoon service. Roughly 2,500 Port Authority employees were working in the towers when they were hit, said Executive Director Kenneth J. Ringler Jr.

Pataki, New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg stressed looking ahead as well as back. Corzine called for more attention to health problems linked to the attacks, and Bloomberg noted that the city had attracted a record 42 million-plus visitors last year.

"We will never be as carefree as we were on Sept. 10, 2001. But the last five years have made us stronger, wiser and better prepared to deal with the challenges ahead," Bloomberg said.

But if the anniversary was a tribute to moving forward, it was not without some sense that five years -- or any amount -- may not be long enough to move on.

Christine Ferer lost her husband, former Port Authority Executive Director Neil Levin, in the terrorist attacks. She has since been appointed to the agency's board of commissioners.

Ferer said she'd had conflicting feelings when a dentist's office and business contacts had suggested appointments on Sept. 11, as though it were any other day.

"I thought, 'This is great, it's business as usual.' But at the same time, though I didn't really say it to anyone, I really felt hurt. It was difficult believe that, perhaps, people could forget what today was."