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Mourners come from near and far

BY BRANDON BAIN, DENISE BONILLA, ZACHARY R. DOWDY, EMI ENDO, JENNIFER SINCO KELLEHER, CARL MACGOWAN, JENNIFER MALONEY, COLIN NASH and LUIS PEREZ | NEWSDAY STAFF WRITERS

September 12, 2006

The chatter of old friends greeting one another at Colors Restaurant stopped Monday when 7-year-old Vanessa Valencia began to sing: "Would you know my name if I saw you in heaven?"

Vanessa lost an uncle to the 9/11 attacks. Her father, Patricio Valencia, lost 73 colleagues from Windows on the World, the restaurant that sat atop one of the World Trade Center towers.

"I would be there, too, but my shift started at 10," said Valencia, 42, of Jackson Heights, now a bartender at Colors on Lafayette Street in Manhattan, which is owned and run by former World Trade Center restaurant workers.

At a memorial breakfast at Colors Monday, former Windows on the World staff joined relatives of their fallen friends.

Many wore T-shirts from ROC-NY, a organization they founded to campaign for restaurant workers' rights. They celebrated their victories -- the success of their restaurant, and the campaigns against abusive restaurant owners. And they remembered those who were no longer among them, lighting white candles next to bunches of white roses.

Gathering for a group snapshot, they chanted ROC-NY's motto in English, Spanish, Arabic, French, Mandarin.

"We are power, we are strong!" they shouted, waving at the camera.

Then they hugged and laughed and cried.

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For more than two hours Monday morning, Chris Whitman stood at the same spot along a sidewalk facing West Street as he tried to listen to the reading of victim names. He barely moved and stared intently even though with the traffic and noise from idling news trucks, he couldn't really make out the names.

"The least I can do is stand here and listen to names being rattled off," Whitman, 37, of Staten Island, said.

Every year, he takes the day off from working as a mechanic and goes to Ground Zero.

"It seems a little different this year," he said, turning briefly to glance at people laying on the grass under the sun. "People are more light-hearted. They're laughing and chatting. It is what it is to each individual."

He said he planned to spend most of the day there: "Day of reflection, I guess you can call it."

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There were hundreds of tiny American flags stuck in the sand surrounding the reflecting pool at the base of the 9/11 memorial in Point Lookout Monday, each with its own tag and handwritten message.

Some had a message of hope, such as "Peace on Earth." Others carried general well-wishes, such as "For all those who passed and all who survived."

Still others had a message only the lost and those closest to them would understand.

"His pet saying was 'Later!' so that's what I wrote," said Cecilia Donnelly of Levittown. "We'll see you up in heaven, later."

Donnelly's son, Lt. Kevin Donnelly, 43, was one of 12 firefighters from Ladder Co. 3 on East 13th Street in Manhattan who died on 9/11. A 23-year FDNY veteran, he also volunteered with the Wantagh Fire Department.