Now almost…
By James DeWeese
A quarter of an hour before his shift was scheduled to end, 23-year-old Christopher Santora rushed to a fire call at the World Trade Center, where he became one of the youngest firefighters to perish in the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
Now almost three years after the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York — including 343 firefighters — Santora’s family and a coalition of local businessmen are helping to ensure that no one in the borough forgets the sacrifice of those who died trying to help.
The group is working to erect what will be Queens’ only permanent monument to borough fire personnel who died battling the catastrophe. The monument will include 70 to 80 names because planners intend to honor all the Queens firefighters who lived or worked in Queens and died in the Sept. 11 attacks.
“It’ll be a fitting memorial,” said Santora’s father, Al, of the 16-foot black and gray granite monument that will sit on donated land at St. Michael’s Cemetery in East Elmhurst, where Santora is buried.
The structure, which the group hopes to complete and dedicate shortly before the third anniversary of the terrorist attacks, will consist of two gray granite wings flanking a taller black granite center panel bearing the etched outline of a firefighter in front of the Twin Towers, said Ed Horn, the marketing director for St. Michael’s.
Although the initial concept was more modest in scope, the wings will contain the names of all the Queens firefighters to die in the attacks.
“That’s the way my son would have wanted it,” said Al Santora, a more than 40-year veteran of the Fire Department. “Even though he didn’t know these guys, they were brothers.”
Getting the names, he said, will itself be a monumental task.
“You really don’t want to leave anyone out unless (family members) choose not to,” said Santora. He and Horn must first contact all families, a task complicated by divorces, transfers and moves, Santora said.
Horn said the cemetery is donating space and money for the memorial, which was designed by Bronx-based stone mason Don De Nigris. DeNigris is doing the design and labor for free and will sell the stone at cost, Horn said. Others, including Tony Siano of the Queens Funeral House, and community members Greg Meyer and Gus Antonopoulos, are donating money. Al and Maureen Santora have promised to pick up the rest of the tab.
The group had initially looked to the community for help in financing the project, but the response was negligible, Horn said.
“Things kind of slip away and people start going on with their lives,” Santora said of the attacks. “But either way, we’ll get (the memorial) done. Whatever it takes.”
“He took such a long time to be found — (is there dash here?) the city of New York turned its back on this guy,” Horn said of Santora, whose remains were initially misidentified and released to another family.
Months passed after the terrorist attacks before Michael Santora was finally interred on the second floor of the expansive St. Francis Mausoleum on the St. Michael’s grounds. State troopers, local firefighters and hundreds of community members attended.
The firefighters’ memorial will sit on a plot near the cemetery’s administrative office in the shadow of the recently completed All Souls’ Chapel.
“I think it should be a nice setting,” said Horn, pointing to a towering evergreen tree that shades the spot.
The names on the monument will be accompanied by circular chips that convey biographic background information and digital photographs to hand-held computers through a special reader.
Pennsylvania-based Memory Medallions Inc. agreed to donate one of the button-like metal discs for each of the firefighters eventually listed on the memorial, Horn said.
“You put a little background to a name,” Al Santora said. “Just a name on a piece of stone doesn’t really tell people who we are.”
Among the information that might be included in Christopher Santora’s digital biography is that he, like his retired mother Maureen, and his two sisters was also a teacher. District 30, which covers much of northwestern Queens, named a school after him.
When finished, the monument will also include landscaping and benches for people to sit and contemplate the design, said Horn, who indicated that the group is still looking for donations.
To donate, call 718-278-3240.
Reach reporter James DeWeese by e-mail at news@timesledger.com, or call 718-229-0300, Ext. 157.
