By Elizabeth O’Brien
Family, friends and co-workers of the six people killed in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing gathered on Thursday, Feb. 26 to remember the victims on the 11th anniversary of the attack.
Victims’ names were read three times during a 20-minute memorial Mass at St. Peter’s Church on Barclay St.: John DiGiovanni, Robert Kirkpatrick, Steven Knapp, William Macko, Wilfredo Mercado and Monica Rodriguez Smith, who was pregnant.
Father Kevin Madigan called the six “the first victims in a new kind of war,” marked by the innocence of those killed and the randomness of the violence. After the service, family members traveled by bus to the World Trade Center site, where they observed the exact time of the bombing, 12:18 p.m.
Friends and relatives began their day with a breakfast, at which the Port Authority unveiled a tabletop scale model of a temporary memorial to commemorate the victims until Michael Arad’s “Reflecting Absence” design is constructed at the site. The permanent memorial to the 1993 victims, a circular granite fountain etched with victims’ names, was destroyed on Sept. 11, 2001.
A small fragment of the fountain that was discovered will be incorporated into the temporary memorial, a nine-foot, stainless steel column whose design received praise on Thursday. No location has been chosen yet for the temporary memorial, said Steve Coleman, a Port Authority spokesperson.
“I loved it—very elegant,” said Nancy Seligo, who worked with Knapp and Smith and survived the 1993 and 2001 attacks on the Twin Towers.
“I think it’s a fitting temporary memorial,” said Charles Maikish, who was the director of the world trade department of the Port Authority at the time of the 1993 attack. “It’ll restore for them at least for a time what they lost on 9/11.”
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