December 3, 2008
Rebuilding With New Job
In the spring, a week before Passover, tragedy struck Andrew Zucker's life when his wife, Erica, miscarried two weeks before the due date of their daughter.
By August, Zucker, a 27-year-old lawyer who grew up in North Massapequa, was finally recovering from the loss of his first child and had started a new job on the 85thfloor of Tower Two in the World Trade Center.
Last week, as Rosh Hashanah approached, Zucker's family prepared for another loss, as their pleas for information have gone unanswered.
Family members have been gathering at his brother Stuart Zucker's Woodbury home and finding themselves in an odd state that one family member called "pre-mourning."
Without a body, they cannot begin the traditional seven-day Jewish mourning period known as shiva. Yet chances of finding Zucker are slim. "I think we all know the truth at this point," Stuart Zucker said.
After the first hijacked airliner struck Tower One about 8:45 a.m., Andrew Zucker and his co-workers began fleeing Tower Two. Erica Zucker reached him by cell phone about 8:55 a.m., and he said he was in a stairwell, his brother said. Co-workers at Harris Beach LLP told Zucker's family that Andrew was organizing the evacuation. One recalled seeing him on the 78th floor before the second jet crashed. "I'm convinced he was right near the impact," said Stuart Zucker.
Andrew Zucker's family - his wife, parents, Sue and Saul Zucker of North Massapequa, older brother Stuart and older sisters Gayle Mosenson of Woodbury and Cheryl Shames of North Massapequa - are fielding calls from hundreds of friends - from Plainedge High School in North Massapequa, where he graduated in 1991, to the Bronx district attorney's office, where he worked for a year.
"Anybody that ever met Andrew never forgot him," Stuart Zucker said. "He was loud and outgoing. He got on everyone's nerves four times a day, but did something five times a day to make up for it."
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Copyright © 2008, Newsday Inc.
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