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Mourners pack Zucotti Park for 9/11 memorial ceremony
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Despite pouring rain and biting wind, more than a thousand people packed into Zucotti Park Friday morning, across the street from where the Twin Towers once stood for a memorial ceremony marking the eighth anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
Beginning around 7 a.m., family members and close friends of those who lost their lives that Tuesday morning clutched photos of there loved ones in one hand and umbrellas in the other as they one by one made their way into the park.
"I'm here, because I don't know where else I could be today," said John Quinn of Midwood Brooklyn, whose best friend Joyce Ann Copetano was killed when Tower 1 collapsed; she was on the 83rd floor. "The weather won't stop me. I've been here every year for the past seven years and I have to be here to remember my friend Joyce."
Those who mourned the loss of loved ones said that while eight years has gone by, the time has not healed all their wounds.
"People ask me, 'It's been eight years, isn't it time to move on?' but I just can't," said Deborah Barton, tears rolling down her face. "To lose somebody like that ... I just can't let go, you know. Time has passed but the wound is still very raw and to know that his service is going on and to not be here, I, I just couldn't do that."
At 10:29 a.m., the exact time that Tower 1 collapsed, a man in the crowd said, "My brother just died. He was a firefighter on the 44th floor." He began to cry, then let the picture of his brother chained around his neck fall from his hand and embraced this reporter as the church bells tolled.
After their loved one's name was read, mourners were ushered over to the World Trade Center site and were permitted to lay a flower in the reflecting pool, which serves as a temporary memorial.
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