Remembering John D

August 4, 2004

Even with the coupling of the stone to the identity of the person involved – John DiGiovanni – the shard would be meaningless to most of us. So why give even a first thought about a broken bit of granite?
The full piece of stone with John DiGiovanni’s name, along with five others, sat in a place passed by millions for more than six years. Those six people were the fatalities in the first attack on New York’s World Trade Center on Feb. 26, 1993, and the granite – part of a memorial fountain – sat between WTC 1 and 2 until the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.
Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, the memorial itself became part of the list of casualties, an ironic icon of the destruction in lower Manhattan. The granite appeared to disintegrate into the unidentifiable rubble of Ground Zero, becoming only something remembered as a by-the-way footnote.
Somewhere in the destruction, however, someone plucked out that 25-pound stone with part of John DiGiovanni’s name. It’s worth some consideration as we approach the third anniversary of the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.
While Sept. 11 is observed as Patriot Day, it’s certain that some people in the United States – and probably more than we’d like to consider – may be tired of remembering that day three years ago. It’s not so much the pain and anguish as much as, well, the bother of bringing up bad feelings. Can’t we just move on and be done with it?
No doubt those feelings also existed on Feb. 26, 1995, when the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey dedicated the World Trade Center Memorial. The work of Elyn Zimmerman, a New York sculptor, included a 18’-diameter, 3.5’-high red-granite piece as the center of the fountain, with a encircling ring with the victims’ names and a memorial inscription:
On February 26, 1993, a bomb planted by terrorists exploded below this site. This horrible act of violence killed innocent people, injured thousands, and made victims of us all.
Among those dead was John DiGiovanni, a dental-equipment salesman who happened to be in the WTC garage when a rented truck — packed with explosives – detonated in an attempt to topple the Twin Towers. He didn’t even work there.
The memorial became the site for a service every Feb. 26 to honor DiGiovanni and the others. That service continues, albeit at a church instead of the current excavation site where the Twin Towers stood. And, at those services for the past two years, is a wooden box containing the piece of granite with the mark of “John D.”
At this year’s service, the Port Authority noted that the recovered piece of granite would be part of a temporary memorial. The 1993 bombing victims will be honored as part of the permanent memorial—Michael Arad’s “Reflective Absence” – to be installed at the WTC site.
While there’s no current plan to include the remnant of the 1993 memorial, perhaps there’ll be a spot somewhere for that rugged piece of red granite. Zimmerman noted, at an art symposium in early 2002, “you can build a lot of stone memorials, and if people are determined, they’ll be destroyed along with everything else.” She’s absolutely right; then again, there’s also a place for a memorial, even if it’s just a small fragment that defies its enemies.
People, in groups and individually, build their own memorials. For some, it involves stone, as many surrounding New York-area communities honored their own with granite replicas of the Twin Towers. Others, such as in London’s Grovesnor Square, offer places of quiet reflection. For myself, it’s that I get up in the morning and go to work and live each day as fully as possible.
It’s not a trivial notion. Sept. 11, 2001, marked a large turning point for me; I didn’t lose anyone in the attacks, and the Twin Towers are only a memory of buildings at the far end of Manhattan that I resolved to visit in a future that no longer exists. That date represents a before-and-after point in my life, however, leading to circumstances that put Stone Business in your hands and my words on this page.
What happened on Sept. 11 – and Feb. 26 as well – motivates me to do my best and making more of what I have. If nothing else, there are more than 2,800 souls who’d want to do the same today and everyday. It’s a dedication that’s real and runs deep, and something more than any amount of stone could represent.
However, that 25 pounds of red granite carries a lot of weight with me. Like any of us, I could be a “John D” somewhere, sometime; that shard of stone is worth my respect on Sept. 11, 2004, and for many, many more Patriot Days to come.