By: JOSEPH KELLARD
Neighbor Ellen Igoe is spearheading this project that features a bench for each of the 11 men and women who once called Oceanside home. The nameplate on one bench will bear the name of Barbella's father, James, a property manager for the Port Authority World Trade Department at the World Trade Center. Igoe is working to have the benches ceremoniously unveiled this September on the fourth anniversary of that horrific day.
"I really truly believe that every resident of Oceanside who perished on Sept. 11 should be memorialized in Oceanside somehow," Igoe said. "So this is my way of doing that."
During Barbella's summer vacations from elementary school, she went religiously with her father and family to the park pool, and later attended nearby Boardman Middle School. So despite living across town, she sees this area of Oceanside as her neighborhood.
"It's nice that at the park there's the new soccer field and baseball fields and the playground," Barbella said, "so it's a perfect spot to honor the people that lived in Oceanside for so many years."
Igoe was inspired to adopt this project after reading a Herald letter to the editor by Barbella written after Oceanside resident Frank Spingola had two monuments erected at the Nassau County-owned triangle at Long Beach Road and Davison Avenue in 2002. His monuments featured the names and photos of two FDNY firefighters from Oceanside killed at the WTC, Ken Gardner and Ken Marino. Barbella felt that as long as the monuments were on public property, then the names of every Oceanside victim -- civilian and rescue -- should have been memorialized.
To erect such a monument, she contacted the Oceanside Chamber of Commerce, who she claimed was unreceptive. While Igoe said she believes this shouldn't be the chamber's responsibility, she nonetheless shared Barbella's belief in an all-inclusive monument, and reached out to her.
"Ellen is a private citizen doing this, and I think that's great because it's more than I could have asked for," Barbella said. "I wasn't expecting a private citizen to reach out to me and do this. I think she's a great person."
Igoe waited for the Town of Hempstead to install its new soccer field at the park, completed last October, so that she could better strategize where to place the benches. She envisions most of them lined along the rear of the park that looks out onto the bay, and may install two benches by the baseball fields along Greentree Drive, one for John Florio, a FDNY firefighter who coached little league in town, and the other for Jeff Nussbaum, a senior vice president of foreign currency for Carr Futures Associates, who as a boy often played ball on those diamonds.
"Ideally I would like them to be where people can see them and sit on them and read the names of those who were killed that day," Igoe said. "I think it's something that kids need to remember."
"I think it's a beautiful gesture," said Arlene Nussbaum, Jeff's mother, "and would be a wonderful tribute to all those that were killed that day, whatever their connection to Oceanside was. It's time that the town recognized their own."
Since Sept. 11, there have been various ceremonies in Oceanside that honored just the fallen firefighters, from street-sign dedications to the unveiling of monuments. A ceremony was held Jan. 8 in which Spingola had two more monuments unveiled on Davison Avenue that specifically name the firefighters but refer to the civilians broadly as "those who lost their lives at the World Trade Center." At the ceremony, Barbella's mother, Monica, held up a placard that read: "What about the civilians?" Echoing her daughter's thoughts, Monica said that even if privately-funded, a monument that goes up on government property should list the names of each victim.
Amy Haviland lost her brother, Robert Spear Jr., an FDNY firefighter, and husband Tim, a vice president for insurance brokerage Marsh McLennan. Haviland believes that while firefighters like her brother should be especially noted, civilians like her husband also deserve to have their names listed somewhere, somehow in town.
"I don't understand why there was never anything put in Oceanside for all the victims," Haviland said.
Igoe was quick to point out that while Senator Dean Skelos and Town Supervisor Kate Murray are behind her project, Town Councilman Anthony Santino gave her the idea for the park benches to honor all the victims. As long as the benches are privately purchased, the town will provide the space for them at its park, a town spokesperson said.
Haviland purchased a bench each for her brother and husband that stand side-by-side among other benches dedicated to 9/11-victims on the Long Beach boardwalk, and said she'd be happy to pay for Igoe's benches that would honor her relatives at Oceanside Park.
But part of Igoe's plan is to have all the benches paid for without the victims' families spending a dime. "Our goal is not to have the families donate any money," she said.
For more information, donations and contact information about the victims for this bench project, contact Igoe at cutlerigoe@aol.com or 678-0705.
Comments on this story? DMiller @liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 213.
