Sept. 11, 2006: The Stories

Still seeking answers in New York City
People with suburban ties recall their role in September 2001

BY JAMES FULLER
Daily Herald Staff Writer
Posted Monday, September 11, 2006

NEW YORK - The rising sun streaks the morning sky, and visitors stake out spots at ground zero.

TV news reporters are stationed on the rooftop of buildings overlooking this hallowed ground. They chronicle the attacks. They interview the widows, the rescue workers sickened by the toxic dust.

America still seeks answers.

That quest draws thousands, the mourners and the curious, to the site of the nation's most lethal terror attack. Almost 3,000 people died here. Nearly half were never recovered.

Lower Manhattan bustles again, but people slow down and look as they walk by. Even New Yorkers who didn't lose most-cherished loved ones can't forget.

Janet Stevens was compelled to do something that awful day five years ago. The former Lake Zurich resident went to see if anyone could use a 55-year-old massage therapist. She soon found a gig at St. Paul's, a church near ground zero.

Wednesdays from 2 to 8 a.m. for six months, she tried to rub away the horrors for the workers. She'd go home covered in ash and dust. But she'd never go to ground zero.

Today, she finally made it.

"It's not what you expect," Stevens said. "You can't prepare for it. ... All of us, we'd do it again in a New York second. We did what we had to do."

Gone, today, is the 10-story pile of steel, ash, glass and remains. Gone are the seas of letters, trinkets and "Have you seen this person?" posters. Gone are the triage centers, the morgues, the firefighters sleeping on the streets, using helmets for pillows, searching for their brethren for weeks without going home.

What remains is the pain.

Pat Gambaro, a former Wheaton resident, is executive vice president of operations for the New York Board of Trade, which lost five people on Sept. 11. It might have been six if Gambaro hadn't gone to visit his newborn grandson.

Including the New York Mercantile Exchange, he lost 33 colleagues. His cousin Anthony Colandonato, a Cantor Fitzgerald broker, was also among the dead.

"I don't cry," Gambaro said. "I didn't cry at my dad's funeral and we were closer than close. I don't show my emotions."

Today, though, he's tearing up when the 33 names are read at a commemoration ceremony at the Board of Trade. Wives, fathers, daughters too small to reach the microphone deliver messages of love to those lost. Rudy Giuliani speaks.

Gambaro, who got the market reopened six days after the attacks, will persevere.

What's less clear is how the shaking and tearful, here and at ground zero, will persevere without their loved ones. Five years have not filled the void.

Bells toll all day long, counting off the victims. Night comes. Hearts break anew.

Five years are in the books.

America has not forgotten.