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(rshsdepot) Stations of Honor - Memorials Set for Rail Commuters Lost Sept. 11



STATIONS OF HONOR;
MEMORIALS SET FOR RAILCOMMUTERS LOST SEPT. 11

The Record (Bergen County, NJ)...03/08/2002

JOHN CICHOWSKI, STAFF WRITER

Carrying messages and photographs attached to two dozen white balloons, the
widow, children, and grandchildren of Peter Wallace climbed a bluff
overlooking Long Island Sound and released their memorial skyward in
January, some four months after the family patriarch was killed in the World
Trade Center attack.
"We watched the balloons go for miles and it seemed as if we were sending
them to heaven," recalled Wallace's daughter, Alison Smith of Pequannock.
"It was very emotional, but soon we realized how empty it was, because we
have no stone, no special memorial, no permanent place to remember Dad. "
That is expected to change April 20 when a plaque in the Lincoln Park man's
honor is unveiled at the NJ Transit station on Route 202 and a tree is
planted outside. The borough is also considering a memorial at the clock
tower of a CVS pharmacy being planned on Chapel Hill Road.

"The family asked us to do something, and we were glad to accommodate them,"
Mayor David Baker said.
The train station memorial appeals to Smith and her family because her
father was Lincoln Park's only resident rail commuter to perish in the Sept.
11 attack.
An employee of the Marsh & McLennan insurance brokerage and investment
services company, the former Marine moved with his wife, Charlotte, from
Queens three years ago, and became a fixture on the Boonton Line each
weekday morning and evening. He would have been 67 on Jan. 22, the day his
family released balloons in his honor.
Memorials to Sept. 11 victims are popping up throughout North Jersey. In
Madison, a portion of a beam taken from Ground Zero is being crafted into a
memorial in James Park, where it will be installed near a World War I
memorial. Mayor John J. Dunne calls this piece of land a "sacred spot. "
Three borough residents and three former residents will be honored there;
two of them were rail commuters.
Along NJ Transit's Morris and Essex Line, a campaign is under way to honor
as many commuters as possible from areas served by the line in Sussex,
Morris, Someret, Union, and Essex counties. So far, Maplewood, Bernards
Township, Bernardsville, Millburn, East Orange, Montclair, and Chatham are
participating.
These joint memorials are planned for April 11, the seven-month anniversary
of the terrorist attacks. The commemorations were organized by a mayors'
group led by Maplewood Mayor Victor DeLuca, also a rail commuter. DeLuca won
the support of NJ Transit, then took the idea to each mayor along the line.
"I took the initiative after commuters suggested it to me," DeLuca said. "In
talking with the other mayors, we agreed to raise money to plant trees and
put up plaques honoring the victims at each of the train stations in
participating towns. " Baker did the same, but Lincoln Park's memorial will
coincide with the commemoration of the borough's 80th birthday.
The train station memorials along the Boonton and Morris and Essex lines are
unusual. Although commemorations are being organized elsewhere, no train
station memorial is planned for other rail commuter towns throughout Morris,
Bergen, and Passaic counties, according to NJ Transit spokesman Ken Miller.
"We endorse the idea and encourage mayors to get behind it," Miller said.
He said towns must supply the trees, finance the memorials, and seek formal
NJ Transit permission before installing plaques with the names of victims.
Mayors in Bergen and Passaic counties said families of commuter victims had
not suggested train station memorials to them.
"I think the other counties lost many more people than Bergen did,"
Hackensack Mayor John F. "Jack" Zisa said.
"We lost people, of course," said Wayne Mayor Scott Rumana, "but other towns
in Essex and Middlesex lost far more. Maybe, when everybody hears about the
plans in some of the other commuter station towns, they'll want to do the
same thing. I'm sure the mayors will go along with it. " Construction on a $
150,000 Middlesex County memorial will begin this month for the Freedom
Plaza rail station at Woodbridge Avenue and Main Street in Metuchen. Borough
officials plan to install a 16-foot-tall clock and replace a stairway that
will include plaques listing the names of the dead from several communities
on each side -- at least 16 commuters in all. A fund-raising effort is being
conducted by the Metuchen-Edison YMCA.
Despite the rail station commemoration, Lincoln Park's Baker said he still
envisions a clock tower memorial for World Trade Center victims at the CVS
pharmacy project at Route 202 and Chapel Hill Road, which is expected to
receive approvals soon from the borough's Planning Board.
"The builder says this project can be completed quickly -- sometime this
year," the mayor said.
Charlotte Wallace made it clear that her family did not press the town for
action on either memorial.
"This is not something we are lobbying for or think we deserve," she said.
"But we do think it is important and appropriate to commemorate the memory
of my husband somewhere. " "It would be nice," added her daughter, "to have
someplace to go to remember dad. "

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The Railroad Station Historical Society maintains a database of existing
railroad structures at: http://www.rrshs.org

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End of RSHSDepot Digest V1 #312
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The Railroad Station Historical Society maintains a database of existing
railroad structures at: http://www.rrshs.org