BY Daniel Massey
More than 150 people attended a memorial service at Borough Hall Friday as part of a national day of remembrance for victims of last week’s terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and on a plane that crashed in southwestern Pennsylvania.
City workers, government officials and community and religious leaders were among the Queens residents who showed up to pray for those who lost their lives and are missing.
Borough President Claire Shulman praised the city’s uniformed services personnel for the “extraordinary” job they have done coping with the disaster in Lower Manhattan.
The Rev. Frank Schwartz of Our Lady Angels in Forest Hills told the crowd “we have to be a people of peace, a people who work for peace. If we don’t do it, we’ll be no better than those who perpetrated this evil.”
Rabbi Manfred Gans of the Congregation Machane Chodosh in Forest Hills said last Tuesday’s terror attacks took “something very precious” from Americans. “We lost our ability to trust one another,” he said, urging the country’s leaders to make decisions that are “wise, firm and resolute.”
Jay Garcha of the American Sikh Community in Richmond Hill said the terrorist assault was “a test of our strength, courage and commitment to America.”
The ceremony concluded with the singing of “God Bless America,” led by the borough president and the director of community boards, Melinda Katz
