Fanaticism Deplored At Candlelight Vigil

Photo Dominick Totino

Borough President Helen Marshall (at podium) addresses those in attendance at the Memorial Candlelight Vigil at McManus Park, Astoria Heights, on Monday, September 12. Rose Marie Poveromo, United Community Civic Association president (far l.) looks on, as do (center, l to r.): Assemblymember Ivan Lafayette, state Senator George Onorato and Assemblymember Michael Gianaris.

Ceremonies and services to remember and honor the various law enforcement and first responder agencies who died in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001 were held throughout the metropolitan area. One such ceremony was the Memorial Candlelight Vigil at McManus Memorial Park, 81st Street and the Grand Central Parkway Service Road, Astoria Heights on September 12, sponsored by the United Community Civic Association (UCCA) and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. The yearly ceremony commemorates the 75 Port Authority employees, the 343 New York City firefighters, 23 police officers and nearly 3,000 civilians who died at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001 when the Twin Towers collapsed after terrorists flew airliners into the buildings.

UCCA President Rose Marie Poveromo told the more than 400 people in attendance that the grove of trees that makes up the memorial had been planted shortly after the terrorist attacks to commemorate “not only the Port Authority employees who so tragically perished on that horrific day four years ago, but all those thousands of innocent souls—mothers, fathers, sons and daughters, sisters and brothers and friends, firefighters, police and EMS men and women, heroes all, and thousands of ordinary people who went to work, never to return home to their families—slaughtered by a group of worthless, fanatical dregs of inhumanity, who in the name of a religion morally debased by political evildoers, changed our lives and these United States forever.”

Poveromo went on to thank the elected officials and other guests in attendance at the candlelight vigil, state Senators George Onorato and John Sabini, Assemblymembers Michael Gianaris and Ivan Lafayette, City Councilmembers Peter Vallone Jr. and Eric Gioia, Borough President Helen Marshall, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown, Queens County Clerk Gloria D’Amico and Phil Kraft, representing Congressmember Carolyn Maloney and Angela Den Dekker, representing Congressmember Joseph Crowley. She also acknowledged Retired New York City Fire Department Deputy Chief Al Santora and his wife, Maureen, who attended the vigil to honor the memory of their son, New York City Firefighter Christopher Santora, who perished in the World Trade Center collapse.