9/11 Memorial Bench Update

Glad to report that the Joe Lenihan 9/11 memorial bench is already replaced as of a day or two ago, and it looks beautiful!

Solid cedar wood, and let's hope it stays that way for good.

I will get a picture up soon.

I Made It!

I made it both on News 12 last evening, and I was featured in the Greenwich Time's article as well!!


My mother made a bootleg video of the News 12 segment!

My mom's volume somehow was  screwy on her phone so you have to crank the volume up.

 

I was very excited about the Greenwich Time article, which quoted my blog numerous times and even included my mother calling the perp a "hideous beast"!  Our whole family was delighted that the article was able to be front page news and I just feel so grateful.

A big thank you to David Hennessey of the Greenwich Time, who wrote such an excellent article and thought nicely to mention the blog!  =]

Greenwich Time- An enduring symbol of a town resident who died in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, a Pomerance Park memorial bench now sits wrapped in yellow caution tape and missing some of its wooden slats, an apparent victim of vandalism.

The bench, which faces a small pond in the Cos Cob park off Orchard Street, features a plaque that reads, "In loving memory. Joe Lenihan. 9-11-01. He loved coming here with his family. Some people come into our lives, touch our hearts, and we are never, ever the same." Lenihan worked as an executive vice president for a financial services company on the 89th floor of the World Trade Center's south tower when terrorists attacked the buildings.
Lt. Kraig Gray, Greenwich Police spokesman, said Monday that the police department is aware of the damage and is considering it a vandalism. Part of the bench's backing was removed sometime over the last few weeks.
Police officers searched the area, but were unable to find the missing piece of bench, Gray said.

Lenihan's wife Ingrid Lenihan, whose family donated the bench to the town, said Monday the family did not know of the incident until they were alerted by Greenwich Time.

The town's Parks and Recreation Department is aware of the damage, she said.

"They already have a work order in to fix it, and it's going to be repaired," she said.
When the bench was being installed, town officials said public property can sometimes be subjected to vandalism, such as youths carving out their initials, she said.
"They kind of warned me," she said. "They said don't be alarmed if something like this happens. I kind of have to look at it that way, or it'll break my heart."
Calls left with the Parks and Recreation department were not returned Monday.
Cos Cob resident and blogger Krystle O'Connor said her mother and sister were walking in the park Thursday when they discovered that a chunk of the bench's backrest was gone, and yellow caution tape had been draped over it.


"We go there almost every day, so I'm sure it wasn't like that for long," O'Connor said, adding that she doesn't know who put the caution tape up.

"It was very precise looking," she said of the damage. "It was strange.

In the months prior to the incident, there had been a chip in the bench in the area that was damaged, she said.

"We were upset just with that," she said.
In her blog, O'Connor said her mother labeled the perpetrator a "hideous beast."
"It is so disgusting that someone would do such a thing," O'Connor wrote. "What a sick person."
O'Connor called on the person or persons who committed the act to come forward.
"It takes just one person to let the proper people know who's responsible for such a disgusting act, and it would clear his or her conscience," she wrote.

david.hennessey@scni.com; 203-625-4428

Yours Truly on News 12

I'm glad that my Memorial Bench blog post made a difference, because today as I was walking with Kaitlyn and her bike through Pomerance we ran into News 12 doing a story on the bench. 

My sending them my post on their facebook is what had tipped them off in the first place, and I ended up talking for a while in front of the camera. 

They got a few shots of Kaitlyn riding her bike (trying to anyways) and took my phone number and e-mail so that they can forward to me people interested in fundraising to fix the bench. 

What have I gotten myself into?! Lol.

And I hope they edit most of me out, I was probably all sweaty and nasty looking lol.

But seriously folks, anyone interested in donating to the cause can feel free to e-mail me at KAOConnor1985@yahoo.com and we will discuss details.


We need to fix this bench!

Outrage in Cos Cob

Cos Cob, CT- A disgraceful act of vandalism left this 9/11 memorial bench looking like it was hit by a bomb. This bench is a dedication to Joseph Lenihan, a town resident who died in the September 11th, 2001 attacks.

The bench faces Cos Cob Pond in Pomerance Park, off of Orchard Street.  Pomerance borders Pinetum and the entrance is near Central Middle School.

My mother took my little sister for a walk today and stumbled upon this mess. My mom posted these pictures on her facebook and called the perputrator a hideous beast. I think she's right.

More police patroling needs to be done, as this is a public town park.  It is so disgusting that someone would do such a thing.  What a sick person.

Add caption

For a while, there was one small chip in the top beam of the bench, and that was enough to upset my family and friends when we walk through Pomerance, which is very often.

I hold out hope that they may be able to figure out who did such a thing, but it looks like it would be hard.

A family portait of Joe Lenihan an his family, courtesy of Connectict Post.

Before the vandalism:

Courtesy of 9/11 Living Memorials on Voices of September 11th website.

The plaque reads:

"In loving memory

JOE LENIHAN

9-11-01

He loved coming here with his family

'Some people come into our lives, touch our hearts, and we are never, ever the same' "

 According to the Living Memorial site, his family were the ones to donate this bench in the first place. God forbid his family sees this bench now.

I'm seriously considering starting a collection for a reward for information, or at least enough money to help rebuild this bench.




If anyone has any information, please contact the Greenwich Police Department. 

If it was a group of stupid teenagers who did this, and I think that is a strong possibility, then all it takes is just ONE person to come forward.  It takes just one person to let the proper people know who's responsible for such a disgusting act, and it would clear his or her conscience. 

Or just live with it.  But don't forget, karma's a b*tch.

This Day In History

Ten years ago.. My lord.

Conservatives Call for Ground Zero Mosque Protest

(CNN) -- Conservative bloggers called for a protest Sunday against plans to build a mosque near the site of Ground Zero in lower Manhattan, where the twin towers of the World Trade Center were destroyed by Islamist hijackers on September 11, 2001.

"Building the Ground Zero mosque is not an issue of religious freedom, but of resisting an effort to insult the victims of 9/11 and to establish a beachhead for political Islam and Islamic supremacism in New York," the group "Stop the Islamicization of America" says on its website.

"Ground Zero is a war memorial, a burial ground. Respect it," says the group, which is run by conservative blogger Pamela Geller.

"No one's telling them they can't. We're asking them not to," Geller told CNN's Joy Behar recently.

"We feel it would be more appropriate maybe to build a center dedicated to expunging the Quranic texts of the violent ideology that inspired jihad, or perhaps a center to the victims of hundreds of millions of years of jihadi wars, land enslavements, cultural annihilation and mass slaughter," Geller said.

She's anticipating about 1,000 people will show up, she told CNN by e-mail Sunday.

The project calls for a 13-story community center including a mosque, performing art center, gym, swimming pool and other public spaces.

It is a collaboration between the American Society for Muslim Advancement and the Cordoba Initiative.

The Cordoba Initiative aims to improve relations between Muslims and the West.

"The Cordoba Initiative hopes to build a $100 million, 13-story community center with Islamic, interfaith and secular programming, similar to the 92nd Street Y," its website says, referring to the cultural institution on the upper East side of Manhattan.

Daisy Khan of the American Society for Muslim Advancement told CNN it was a "community center with a prayer space inside."

She said the project was an opportunity for American Muslims living in New York to "give back" to the community.

"There is a lot of ignorance about who Muslims are. A center like this will be dedicated to removing that ignoranceand it will also counter the extremists because moderate Muslims need a voice," she told CNN. "Their voices need to be amplified."

Local political leaders turned out in support of the community last month after Mark Williams of the conservative Tea Party Express reportedly said the mosque was for "the worship of the terrorists' monkey-god."

"To make room for peace there can be no room for hatred, bigotry or prejudice," council member Robert Jackson said at the May 20 demonstration.

The project has the backing of the Community Board of lower Manhattan. It does not require city permission to go ahead.

The plan has split people touched by the September 11 attacks.

"Lower Manhattan should be made into a shrine for the people who died there," said Michael Valentin, a retired city detective who worked at ground zero. "It breaks my heart for the families who have to put up with this. I understand they're [building] it in a respectful way, but it just shouldn't be down there."

Others such as Barry Zelman said the site's location will be a painful reminder.

"(The 9/11 terrorists) did this in the name of Islam," Zelman said. "It's a sacred ground where these people died, where my brother was murdered, and to be in the shadows of that religion, it's just hypocritical and sacrilegious. "

But Marvin Bethea, who was a paramedic at ground zero, said it was "the right thing to do."

"I lost 16 friends down there. But Muslims also got killed on 9/11. It would be a good sign of faith that we're not condemning all Muslims and that the Muslims who did this happened to be extremists," he said. "As a black man, I know what it's like to be discriminated against when you haven't done anything."

Newly Released 9/11 NYPD Photos Show WTC Collapse

NEW YORK – Newly released aerial photos of the World Trade Center terror attack capture the towers' dramatic collapse, from just after the first fiery plane strike to the apocalyptic dust clouds that spread over lower Manhattan and its harbor.

The images were taken from a police helicopter — the only photographers allowed in the air space near the towers on Sept. 11, 2001. They were obtained by ABC News after it filed a Freedom of Information Act request last year with the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which investigated the collapse.

The chief curator of the planned Sept. 11 museum, which is compiling a digital archive of attack coverage, said the still images are "a phenomenal body of work" that show a new, wide-angle look at the towers' collapse and the gray dust clouds that shrouded the city afterward.

The photos are "absolutely core to understanding the visual phenomena of what was happening," said Jan Ramirez, chief curator at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum.

The images of the dust clouds rising as high as some downtown skyscrapers "are some of the most exceptional images in the world, I think, of this event," Ramirez said.

ABC said the NIST gave the network 2,779 pictures on nine CDs, saying some of the photographs had never been released before.

The network posted 12 photos this week on its Web site, all taken by ex-NYPD Aviation Unit Detective Greg Semendinger, who was first in the air in a search for survivors on the rooftop. He said he and his pilot watched the second plane hit the south tower from the helicopter.

"We didn't find one single person. It was surreal," he told The Associated Press on Wednesday. "There was no sound. No sound whatsoever, but the noise of the radio and the helicopter. I just kept taking pictures."

He took three rolls of film with his Minolta camera, plus 245 digital shots. Semendinger said he gave the digital images to the 9/11 Commission and believes those images were released by the NSIT. In the days after the attack, he e-mailed some of the photos to friends and several were posted on the Internet.

Later, nine of the images were published in a book called "Above Hallowed Ground: A Photographic Record of Sept. 11" without his consent. The book was a tribute to the officers who were killed that day.

The photos capture the enormous scope of the dust that enveloped the area.

In some images, the tops of the nearby Woolworth Building and other skyscrapers can be seen rising above the billowing dark plume against a clear blue sky. Buildings can hardly be seen at all in one image — just a burst of dust clouds hanging over the serene Hudson River at the southern tip of Manhattan.

A close-up image from earlier in the morning shows orange flames and black smoke rising past the antenna on top of the north tower, the first hit by a hijacked plane.

Ramirez said the museum, which is slated to open in 2012, saw a selection of the photos at police headquarters several years ago.

They are extremely important because the NYPD aviation unit had the clearance to be up in the air in lower Manhattan only "moments after the first tower was hit," and stayed in the area for the remainder of the day, she said.

Sometime after 10 a.m., she said they were able to "predict that the north tower was going to fall." It did just before 10:30 a.m.

The museum hopes to get a complete set of the photos.

"We've had our sights set on this body of visual evidence for several years," Ramirez said.

Semendinger retired from the NYPD in 2002 after 35 years, 20 of them in aviation. He said he has thought about publishing his work from those days.

"I almost didn't realize what I was seeing that day," he said. "Looking at it now it's amazing I took those pictures. The images are ... stunning."

Coast Guard to Review Exercise After Potomac Security Scare

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The U.S. Coast Guard promised a "thorough review" after a training incident Friday along the Potomac River briefly triggered concerns about the security of President Obama on the eighth anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

The Coast Guard will "take a good, hard look" at how it handled the routine training exercise to determine if the security scare that followed could have been avoided, Vice Adm. John Currier said.

Federal agency emergency operations centers were not aware of or notified about the exercise on the Potomac, and they began implementing response procedures, a federal source said.

Even the police department's Harbor Patrol, which is responsible for patrolling the Potomac, was not notified, law enforcement sources in Washington said.

The patrol has now demanded the Coast Guard notify it in the future before any training exercises on the Potomac, the sources said.

The Coast Guard did not alert other agencies when it conducted the exercise, Currier said.

He said the U.S. Secret Service, which protects the president, was not notified, stressing that the exercise was routine and happens four times a week.

The training incident took place as Obama was traveling across the Memorial Bridge following an event at the Pentagon shortly before 10 a.m. ET. CNN personnel saw what appeared to be a Coast Guard vessel working to prevent a boat from trying to enter a security zone.

Minutes later, there were reports on police scanners that the Coast Guard fired 10 rounds of ammunition.

A Department of Homeland Security representative later said no shots of any kind had been fired.

"Reports in the media were based on overheard radio calls made over a training frequency," the Coast Guard said in its statement.

The Secret Service said Obama was back at the White House by the time reports surfaced of shots being fired.

The Federal Aviation Administration put a "ground halt" on a small number of flights Friday at Reagan National Airport after the security scare, Currier said.

Reagan National is near where the training activity occurred.

White House Plans To Release Plane Flyover Report & Photo

(CNN) -- The White House indicated Wednesday that a report and a photo from the controversial low-altitude New York flyover by a 747 plane used as Air Force One could be released soon.

Earlier, White House officials had said that there were no plans to release photos to the public.

But the tone seemed to change on Wednesday.

"The report, I believe, will be concluded at some point this week. We'll release its findings and release a photo," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said during his daily press briefing.

The review, led by Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina, will focus on "why that decision was made and to ensure that it never happens again," Gibbs said.

The flyover, officials said, was a training mission -- it was also a government-sanctioned photo shoot.

Military officials also estimate that the mission and the photo shoot, aimed at updating file photos of Air Force One -- cost $328,835 in taxpayer money.

But they said "the hours would have been flown regardless, and the expenses would have been accrued on a different mission."

The photo shoot, which President Obama said he was "furious" with, happened on April 27. The image of a low-flying plane accompanied by an F-16 fighter jet sent some New Yorkers into the streets and into a panic -- reminding them of the tragic 9/11 attacks on the city.

Building evacuations also took place across the Hudson River in Jersey City, New Jersey. Read more of Obama's reaction

White House Military Office Director Louis Caldera later apologized for the flyover.

Witnesses reported seeing the plane circle over the Upper New York Bay near the Statue of Liberty before flying up the Hudson River.

A YouTube video showed people standing in a parking lot, watching the plane approach. As it nears, they begin to run. "Run, run!" said one person. "Oh my God," cried another.

A 911 call, released later by the Hudson County Sheriff's Department in New Jersey, illustrated the fear and panic felt by residents since the 9/11 attacks.

"There's a plane falling. There is a big aircraft falling like 9/11," a man says to the operator. "Everybody is running and people are crying and panicking."

CNN iReporter Tom Kruk, who saw the plane and took a photo, called the sight of the aircraft low in the sky "unsettling."

Mayor Michael Bloomberg was visibly angry last week. "I'm annoyed -- furious is a better word -- that I wasn't told," he said, adding that the decision by the White House Military Office and Federal Aviation Administration to withhold details about the flight were "ridiculous" and "poor judgment."

But according to Air Force Capt. Anna Carpenter, local law enforcement agencies and the FAA had been notified of the exercise.

New York Police Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne confirmed that department had been alerted about the flight "with directives to local authorities not to disclose information about it."

That decision riled local media.

"Given that we are not big on reminders of 9/11, we could have done without the whole thing. But the FAA outdunced itself by asking the NYPD to keep the photo op a secret, as if no one would look up and say, 'What the hell?' " the New York Daily News said on April 28.

The New York Post, in its editorial on the same day, said: "The FAA had long preferred to keep passengers ignorant of these dangers. Better to have people panic, it seems, at the sudden sight of low-flying aircraft over Lower Manhattan. ... Someone needs to straighten out these folks -- quick."

The controversy had some questioning President Obama's declaration of a new era of openness, who on January 21, said: "The old rules said that if there was a defensible argument for not disclosing something to the American people, then it should not be disclosed. That era is now over."

So why, exactly, didn't that initially apply to the photos? An advocate for government disclosure said it should, and that it's "silly" and "absurd" to withhold them.

"These are public records because they were done on government time, with government resources, and government personnel," said Patrice McDermott of openthegovernment.org.

In New York, news that the photos might not be released reignited public outrage over the incident.

It doesn't seem right," said Kurt Wallin from New Jersey. "If we spent the money to have these photos taken, they should be available for the public to see."

Emily Ritter from Park City, Utah, added: "I feel like maybe they're covering it up because it's been seen in a bad light already ... maybe they are still worried about their image and don't want to be seen in a bad light."

911 Calls Show Plane Terror

Video: 911 calls show plane terror 0:47
As a White House plane flew low over Manhattan, 911 operators fielded calls.

9/11 Cover-Up Connection: Black Boxes Found 15 Hours After Buffalo Crash

One of a plethora of cover-ups surrounding 9/11 is the FBI’s contention that the black boxes onboard the two planes that crashed into the World Trade Center were never found, a claim that has been further discredited following the news that the black box onboard flight Q400 that crashed last night in New York was found within 15hours.


In 2004, New York firefighters Mike Bellone and Nicholas DeMasi went public to say they had found the black boxes at the World Trade Center, but were told to keep their mouths shut by FBI agents. Nicholas DeMasi said that he escorted federal agents on an all-terrain vehicle in October 2001 and helped them locate the devices, a story backed up by rescue volunteer Mike Bellone.

As the Philadelphia Daily News reported at the time, “Their story raises the question of whether there was a some type of cover-up at Ground Zero.”

“At one point, I was asked to take Federal Agents around the site to search for the black boxes from the planes,” he wrote. “We were getting ready to go out. My ATV was parked at the top of the stairs at the Brooks Brothers entrance area. We loaded up about a million dollars worth of equipment and strapped it into the ATV,” said DeMasi.

“At one point, Bellone said he observed the team with a box that appeared charred but was redish-orange with two white stripes. Pictures of the flight recorders on the NTSB and other Web sites show devices that are orange, with two white stripes,” reported the newspaper.

“There was the one that I saw, and two others were recovered in different locations - but I wasn’t there for the other two,” Bellone said. He said the FBI agents left with the boxes.”

In addition, a source at the National Transportation Safety Board later told Counterpunch, “Off the record, we had the boxes….You’d have to get the official word from the FBI as to where they are, but we worked on them here.”

Suspicions surrounding the so-called failure to locate the black boxes at the World Trade Center can only be heightened by the news that the black box from last night’s tragic plane crash in Buffalo was discovered within a mere 15 hours.

Furthermore, both the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder were in perfect condition, as you can see from the image below.

“The black box of a commercial airliner that nose-dived into a Buffalo house in New York has been retrieved, about 15 hours after the incident,” reports Press TV.
The flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder “have been found and they are on their way back here,” said Ted Lopatkiewicz a spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), AFP reported on Friday.
The motivation behind lying about the recovery of the black boxes on 9/11 is obvious - any aspect of the recordings of the onboard conversations between the pilots or the movements of their plane that didn’t coalesce with the official story would have destroyed the fairy tale that was being constructed around the attacks in the very minutes and hours after they started to unfold.
Questions about how a handful of men with box cutters could have overpowered burly ex-military pilots and scores of passengers with apparent ease would not have gone unanswered.
The circumstances surrounding the Buffalo crash and the Beijing skyscraper fire are two events that happened in the same week which offer stark contradictions and only place the credibility of the official 9/11 story further in doubt.
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