the neighborhood remembers

Last night, just after sunset, Blake, Garrett, and I took a walk along the Shore Road Promenade. Unbeknownst to us was the fact that, as it was the eve of the seventh anniversary of 9/11, a dress rehearsal for the Tribute in Light was scheduled for the same time, and as we walked north along the path, the lighted Manhattan skyline just ahead of us in the distance, we were privy to a fantastic view of that striking memorial.

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Sprinkled throughout my neighborhood are street signs like this:



Though in conversation and everyday direction-giving, 82nd Street is called just that: 82nd Street, one block of it has been renamed "Mark D. Hindy 9/11 Memorial Way." A little further down the same street the memory of another person has been preserved by a renamed block of road. And so it continues as you wind through the streets of the neighborhood.

Who are these people? I found myself wondering shortly after we moved here. And why this stretch of road?

Apparently this neighborhood was incredibly affected by the attacks on September 11, 2001, because it was home to a large percentage of FDNY firefighters, NYPD officers, and talented financiers employed in Lower Manhattan. The loss was pretty devastating to this little corner of Brooklyn, and some say it was the neighborhood hardest hit. To remember their loved ones, friends, neighbors, and family members renamed and dedicated sections of streets in their honor as 9/11 Memorial Ways. I can only assume that the renamed blocks were where, or near where, those who died resided.

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Perhaps tonight we'll walk again down to the bay to get another glimpse of the Tribute in Light. Perhaps we'll walk down 82nd Street, and perhaps, as we do, we'll wonder about Mark D. Hindy, the neighbor we never got to meet.