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9/11 families sue for proper burial |
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Written by DeadGirl
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Friday, 19 August 2005 |
By BOB BAIRD
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THE JOURNAL NEWS
(Original publication: August 18, 2005)
The families of World Trade Center victims have been patient and they've shown remarkable self-restraint despite their pain.
After all, no one should have to plead with the government to see their loved ones buried in a dignified and fitting setting.
No one should have to lobby legislators to have their loved ones removed from a dump.
And no one should have to explain why it hurts so much to think about the ashes of a parent, spouse, sibling, child — or anyone else, really — resting atop tons of household garbage.
But that's what families of many World Trade Center victims have found themselves having to do.
They've tried to make their case to the governor and the mayor, to New York City's Sanitation Department and to the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation.
They've attended dozens, if not hundreds, of meetings and hearings. Laura Walker of Airmont, who lost her husband, Ben, in the terror attacks, often brought her three children along and wore a sign around her neck reading, "Their daddy isn't garbage."
They've been denied access to officials or had their concerns dismissed as emotional ranting.
At first they hoped tons of ashes would be returned to what they see as the sacred ground of Ground Zero to be included in a memorial there. But when that goal seemed to be an impediment to an even greater one — getting the ashes out of Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island — they showed flexibility, seeking only a more dignified resting place.
All it got them was a new round of excuses — that it was too monumental a task and that it would be too expensive. One estimate, of about $450 million, seems grossly inflated compared with the $67 million it cost to cart it from Ground Zero and sift it for remains and evidence.
What was left after that process — the "fines," or ashes — is the focus of the World Trade Center Families for Proper Burial, a group founded in New Jersey by Diane and Kurt Horning, who lost their son in the attacks. They've lobbied the New Jersey Legislature, which passed bills requiring the ashes be removed. And they've promoted the efforts of New Yorkers, many of them from Rockland, to have New York's lawmakers do the same. Bills sponsored by state Sen. Thomas Morahan passed twice, only to have companion bills sputter and die in the Assembly at the hands of its leadership.
Yesterday, with the statute of limitations running out, the Families for Proper Burial did what they hoped they wouldn't have to do — what they never should have had to do. They filed a federal lawsuit against New York City and Mayor Michael Bloomberg seeking an order to remove the remains and bury them at a dignified site.
The families are flexible on where that might be, but have often mentioned Governors Island as a suitable place for what they see as a national cemetery on the scale of Gettysburg or Normandy.
Early on in her grief, Laura Walker and two other Rockland women who lost loved ones — Sneh Jain of New City and Margaret Cruz of Pomona — lobbied the county Legislature and local towns in 2003 to pass resolutions urging removal of the ashes. In January 2004, six other Rockland women — all of them mothers who lost children on Sept. 11 — founded a Rockland chapter of WTC Families for Proper Burial.
One of them, Maureen Bosco, was home yesterday with her husband, Bill, preparing for Monday's Minisceongo Golf Club outing that will raise funds for the scholarship they created in memory of their son, Richard, a graduate of Suffern High School and SUNY Geneseo. In four years they've presented $17,000 in scholarships and awards in memory of Rich, who like his father worked for Citibank.
She says the families never wanted to have to file the lawsuit, that they tried every way they could to be heard in other forums. She and several other mothers who visited Albany in June to lobby the Assembly haven't given up on that front. She says they have written to Richard Brodsky, chairman of the Corporations Committee, asking to meet with him before a new session begins. Although every member of his committee urged approval of a bill by Assemblyman Ryan Karben, Brodsky — seemingly at the urging of Speaker Sheldon Silver — blocked its consideration by calling for last-minute changes.
Bill Bosco is less conciliatory. "Mayor Bloomberg doesn't have the spirituality or the heart" to order removal of the ashes, he says.
He says raising issues of cost or where a final burial site might be is a smoke screen. "They're a diversion from the real issue — that the ashes just shouldn't be in a dump."
About 60,000 people have signed a Families for Proper Burial petition, including, says Diane Horning, more than 1,000 relatives of WTC victims.
They're hoping the courts will hear them and do what politicians have not.
"The families aren't looking for any kind of financial compensation" in the lawsuit, says Bill Bosco, adding, "There is none."
http://www.thejournalnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050818/COLUMNIST05/508180301/1019/NEWS03 |
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Taphophilia?
taphophilia (taf′ō-fil′ē-ă)
ORIGIN:
From the Greek words taphos, meaning "tomb" or "sepulcher" and philia, meaning "attraction or affinity to something, in particular the love or obsession with something"
DEFINITION: 1. An excessive interest in graves and cemeteries. 2. A love or fondness for funerals, graves, and cemeteries. 3. In psychiatry, a morbid attraction to graves and cemeteries
Quote Repository
“Some can gaze and not be sick, But I could never learn the trick. There's this to say for blood and breath, They give a man a taste for death.” A.E. Housman
Shirtless and Sculpted
The Men of Mortuaries 2008 Calendar is now available! All sale proceeds benefit KAMMCARES, a breast cancer foundation.
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