(rshsdepot) WTC Memorials at NJ Rail Stations

[Bernie Wagenblast <brwagenblast_@_comcast.net>]

Plaques emerge at 11 stations



Friday, April 12, 2002


BY KRISTEN ALLOWAY
Star-Ledger Staff
Seven months later, Sarah Cherry still finds it difficult to pass the
Maplewood rail station.

The simple brick building on Dunnell Road is where Cherry and her three
young children headed many nights to greet her husband, Douglas, as he got
off the train. For her, said her brother, Burns Patterson of Sleepy Hollow,
N.Y., the station remains a bittersweet reminder of a happy family routine.

Yesterday, Cherry gathered her strength and joined dozens of other residents
at the Maplewood station to honor the memory of her husband and the others
who left for work the morning of Sept. 11 and never returned.

Ten similar services were conducted elsewhere along NJ Transit's Morris &
Essex line. Morning commuters holding steaming cups of coffee and briefcases
slung over their shoulders paused to remember those killed in the terrorist
attacks on the World Trade Center.

"It felt so good to see the community there, ... that they would come even
if they didn't know somebody," said Erin Finnegan in Bernards Township,
where she attended the ceremony at the Basking Ridge station with her
children Bridget, 6, Bradley, 4 and Jack, 8 months. Her husband Michael died
Sept. 11.

Of the nearly 700 New Jersey residents killed in the World Trade Center
attacks, most were daily commuters, many of whom rode the train to Lower
Manhattan.

In Maplewood, Cherry and Charles Christophe placed a plaque at the base of a
newly planted pear tree. On the plaque are the names of Douglas Cherry and
Kirsten Christophe.

"Every morning and every evening when I return home, I will see the tree and
it will remind me about Kirsten," said Christophe, who is raising their
19-month-old daughter, Gretchen. "It's a great symbol of the living spirit."

The idea for the rail memorials came from commuters themselves and Joyce
Reynolds, who runs the Heavenly Scent Café at the Maplewood station.

"We lost a lot of commuters but, most of all, we lost a lot of friends,"
said Reynolds.

She approached the Maplewood Township Committee, and Mayor Victor De Luca
coordinated the idea with the other eight communities -- Bernards Township,
Bernardsville, Bloomfield, Chatham, East Orange, Millburn, Montclair and
Mount Olive -- for memorials at 11 stations.

"These were people we sat next to each day," said De Luca, who commutes into
Manhattan from Maplewood. "We're trying to show this is a community that
transcends municipal boundaries, up and down the train lines."

Twenty-seven NJ Transit employees also lost loved ones Sept. 11, and many
attended the memorial services.

For dozens of the victims, the stations along the Morris and Essex and
Boonton lines were where they started and ended their workday -- where
husband and wives exchanged a quick kiss, friends and neighbors made small
talk, children greeted their parents.

Finnegan said her husband preferred to drive into Manhattan because he left
so early in the morning, but that when he rode in, she and the children
would be at the station in the evening. "The kids would start jumping in
their seats: 'Can we get out? What car's he in?' ... There was no better
feeling than to see him jump off the train and grab the kids."

In the first few uncertain days after the attacks, those stations became
touchstones for concern and grief. Residents passing the stations at night
would see a few remaining cars in the lots and worry about their owners.
Makeshift memorials sprung up at a few stations.

Paul Kasnetz was the first member of the public to see the plaque at the
Short Hills station yesterday morning, when workmen briefly removed a blue
tarp to clean the marker one last time before its official unveiling at
8:30. He spotted the name of his neighbor, Frank J. Spinelli Jr., one of
five from Millburn-Short Hills who never came home on that Tuesday.

"Frank lives -- lived -- across the street from me," Kasnetz said.

Spinelli had been at a barbecue at Kasnetz's house just three weeks before
the disaster.

"Everyone will say how nice everyone is when they die," Kasnetz said, "but
he really was."

"He was a special guy," said Spinelli's widow, Michelle, who arrived with
her three children, Nicole, Christopher and Danielle, shortly before the
ceremony. Later, she would say: "He took this path every day."

Along that path now are a flowering cherry tree, five U.S. flags and a large
rock with the plaque bearing the names of Spinelli and Mark L. Charette,
Steven B. Lillianthal, Patrick S. Murphy and Ian Schneider.

"We shall never forget our friends and neighbors who rode the rails with us
that morning but did not return with us that night," it reads in part.

In Chatham, about 80 people gathered at the Fairmount Avenue train station
for the service. Tracy Larkey, who lost her husband Robin, was touched by
the tribute. "I feel sad, but I also think it's a really nice gesture on
behalf of the borough and township to do this," said the mother of three
from Chatham Township.

"Now that it is seven months I can come here without falling apart. ... I'm
a bit stronger now," she added as she kept an eye on her youngest,
2-year-old William, wandering close by.

Jane Maltby, a mother of three who lost her husband Christian, was moved to
tears by the gathering. "We have been through a lot, but it is nice that
people still remember," she said, holding son Sam, 3, in her arms and
keeping daughter Morgan, 6, close at her side.

Chatham Mayor Herbert Kiehn and Chatham Township Mayor Fred Pocci said their
towns remain focused on supporting the 10 victims' families.

"The sorrow is still with us," Kiehn said, reading aloud the names of
borough residents who died in the attack, "Donald Adams, Dennis Buckley,
Anthony Infante Jr., Peter Moutos. Rest in peace."

Pocci added the names of the Chatham Township residents: Paul Gilbey, Robin
Larkey, Christian Maltby, Philip Mastrandrea Jr., Tom Strada, Ken Swenson.

At two stations in Bernards Township, residents gathered to remember 17
residents: David O. Campbell, Stephen P. Dimino, John W. Farrell, Louis V.
Fersini Jr., Michael Finnegan, Christopher H. Forsythe, Steven G. Genovese,
Robert J. Halligan, Kevin J. Hannaford, John Hartz, Matthew T. McDermott,
Stacey McGowan, Ludwig J. Picarro, Stephen E. Poulos, Timothy P. Soulas,
Craig W. Staub and Frank Wisniewski.

"Frank used to take this train, and I would come down with the kids
sometimes to pick him up," said Carol Wisniewski, mother of Allie, 14, and
Jonathan, 11. "He'd get in at 6:20 every night, and we'd be so happy to see
him and eat dinner together. We are having a hard time because Frank was our
life."



Staff writers Phil Read, Bill Swayze and Towanda Underdue contributed to
this report.

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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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