NEW YORK (AP) – A fragment of granite bearing the name “John” – all that remains of a memorial to the six people killed in the first terror attack on the World Trade Center in 1993 – was installed Saturday as the central piece of a new memorial.

In a ceremony above the gaping pit remaining from the Sept. 11, 2001, attack that destroyed the complex and the original memorial, an honor guard of Port Authority officers placed the fragment in a 91/2-foot-tall steel pylon shaped like one of the twin towers.

The rose-colored granite was part of a memorial fountain erected in 1995 to honor those killed on Feb. 26, 1993, when 1,200 pounds of explosives were detonated in a rented van in a parking garage under the towers.

“We have to remember that 9/11 began in 1993,” said Michael Macko of New York City, son of victim William Macko. “My father and these other five people were the first World Trade Center victims, and it’s our duty to make sure they’re not forgotten.”

Nancy Burroughs, sister of victim Stephen Knapp, said “a lot of lessons could have been learned from that bombing that might have made a difference on 9/11.”

The other victims were John Di Giovanni, the “John” on the surviving fragment; Robert Kirkpatrick; Wilfredo Mercado and Monica Rodriguez Smith.

At a memorial Mass in nearby St. Peter’s Church, the Rev. Kevin Madigan said that the 2001 attack “in no way eclipses” the losses of 1993, but makes them “all the more real, all the more personal.”

Gov. George Pataki said the world has “a sacred duty to remember” and Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the new memorial “will speak to generations of New Yorkers of our duty to remain relentlessly vigilant.”

AP-ES-02-26-05 1619EST

Copy the Story Link