‘Powerful’ Sept. 11 Observances Set

A year after the attack on the World Trade Center, somber ceremonies will stress the historic courage of the American people and the intense pain of the tragedy--symbolized by a single rose for each of the 2,823 victims, officials announced Tuesday.

The Sept. 11 observances will feature the mournful sound of bagpipes, the clear notes of taps, a reading of the Gettysburg Address and moments of silence to mark the time the first hijacked plane hit the north tower and the destruction of the south tower.

It will also include candlelight vigils, the kindling of an eternal flame and a massive presence of heads of state who will be in New York for the United Nations General Assembly.

Perhaps the most poignant moment will be the procession down a long ramp by family members to the lowest level of the trade center site, to soil that many of them consider sacred ground.

“Our intent is to have a day of observances that are simple and powerful, that honor the memories of those we lost that day,” said New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who announced New York’s plans with Gov. George Pataki.

“The physical damage and loss of life took place here. The emotional carnage and the attack on freedom really took place around the world.”

The extensively televised event, one of several solemn ceremonies planned in New York and across the country, could well serve as a national memorial, much as the funeral of President Kennedy did nearly 40 years ago.

At the Pentagon, where 189 people were killed when American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the west side of the building, President Bush, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will speak at a ceremony that will be televised but closed to the public.

Later in the day, Bush will travel to the rural site near Shanksville, Pa., where 44 people died aboard United Flight 93, one of four airliners seized by the terrorists. He will then travel to New York.

In Boston, where two of the doomed jets took off, Linda Plazonja of the Massachusetts 9-11 Fund said her organization will begin the day with a breakfast for families of victims and political dignitaries, including Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.).

In Seattle, a silent parade of community leaders, elected officials and citizens will travel to a downtown park about a mile from the Space Needle. Last year, thousands of flowers were left at a fountain that became the city’s unofficial memorial after Sept. 11. The flowers were gathered by the city and composted. Each marcher will receive a bulb, in mulch generated by the original memorial flowers, to plant.

“It’s meant to be a symbol of renewal, to rekindle a sense of hope,” said Casey Corr, communications director for Mayor Greg Nichols.

Events are also planned in Chicago, Miami, Philadelphia and Portland, Ore., among other cities.

The New York ceremony, memorializing the massive number of casualties, will present Americans with an opportunity to find strength in agony, officials and observers said.

“I think that the symbolism is important for all of us, the whole nation,” Walter Cronkite, the retired CBS anchorman and commentator who covered World War II and the Kennedy assassination, said from his home in Martha’s Vineyard, Mass. “There never will be closure for families of those whose bodies were never found. But there will be a form of closure for the nation on this first anniversary.”

In addition to live coverage of the anniversary, television networks will air programs ranging from an exclusive interview with Bush on CBS to a two-hour “Concert for America” on NBC.

Jeff Gralnick, a television news veteran who worked for ABC, NBC and CBS, said the Sept. 11 commemoration is unique among first anniversaries of major tragedies of the last four decades.

While the 1960s assassinations of President Kennedy, his brother Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., as well as the 1986 space shuttle explosion, received extensive coverage when they occurred, there was relatively little airtime devoted to them a year later. Sept. 11 “stands alone in this regard,” he said.

New York’s memorial will begin with a procession of bagpipers from each of the city’s five boroughs to the trade center site. A citywide moment of silence at 8:46 a.m. will mark the time that American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the center’s north tower.

Pataki will recite the Gettysburg Address at the memorial before former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani begins reading the first section of the 2,823 names of people who perished in the attack. Other readers will include family members and people who lost co-workers.

When the reading is completed, a bugler will play taps and New Jersey Gov. James E. McGreevey will read a portion of the Declaration of Independence. The memorial will conclude after another moment of silence at 10:30 a.m., the time the south tower collapsed.

Afterward, houses of worship will be asked to toll bells and the procession of family members will walk down the ramp seven stories to what was once the base of the twin towers. Later in the day, Bush is scheduled to visit the site.

In the evening, Bloomberg and heads of state will light an eternal flame in Battery Park, near the trade center. When the flame is ignited, New Yorkers will be encouraged to hold candlelight vigils in parks and on street corners throughout the city.

Also in New York, the brokerage firm Cantor Fitzgerald, which had offices in the twin towers and lost 658 employees, will have a private remembrance in Manhattan’s Central Park. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey plans its own memorial service for its 75 workers who were killed. Some firehouses will hold ceremonies for firefighters who perished.

More than a dozen plays on Broadway plan to cancel performances, but Bloomberg said he expects schools and businesses to remain open.

The mayor said that plans for the anniversary were formed with “particular attention” to advice from family members who lost loved ones.

And Christy Ferer, the mayor’s liaison with the victims’ families--and whose husband, Neil Levin, director of the Port Authority, which operated the twin towers, was killed--stressed the importance for the grieving relatives to be able to visit the site.

“For them, it remains a cemetery,” she said with tears in her eyes. “Think of what you do a year after someone dies. You go to the cemetery, you pay your respects, you lay the stone, you lay a flower. The mayor and the governor have seen to it that the families can go down that ramp and do that, because for them that is sacred ground.”

Times staff writers Elizabeth Mehren in Boston, Greg Braxton in Los Angeles, Vicki Kemper in Washington, David Zucchino in Philadelphia and researchers Lynette Ferdinand in New York, John Beckham in Chicago and Lynn Marshall in Seattle contributed to this report.