By JOSEPH KELLARD
Now, however, Marc¹s name and image ‹ along with those of eight other Oceanside civilians who died at the World Trade Center ‹ finally grace a monument in their honor in the center of town.
For Leona Zeplin, Marc¹s mother, having her son memorialized where he loved growing up since he was a toddler was very meaningful. ³We come back often and look at the tree, and now we have something else to remember Marc by,² Zeplin said about her son, whom Newsday once named its delivery boy of the year for his route around his Oceanside neighborhood. He was 33 and working at Cantor Fitzgerald when he died on 9/11. ³He had very strong feelings and memories for Oceanside,² his mother said.
Last Saturday, after attending Honors Night at Zeplin¹s alma mater, Oceanside High School, two evenings before ‹ during which an annual scholarship is given out in his name to deserving students ‹ Leona and her daughter, Jocelyn Paradise, attended the memorial dedication ceremony at Veterans Memorial Plaza on Davison Avenue, across from the Oceanside Library.
³Marc was here all his life and always came back after he¹d moved,² Paradise recalled about her brother, who had moved to Westchester with his wife and two young boys.
Paradise cried when the monument was unveiled and she saw the oval-shaped photo of her brother and his name engraved in the gray marble. Wives, children, parents and other relatives hugged, locked arms and wiped away tears as they too gathered around the monument that honored Zeplin, Janice Ashley, James Barbella, Joshua David Birnbaum, Timothy Haviland, James ³Kells² Kelly, Laura A. Marchese, Jeffrey Nussbaum and William E. Spitz.
Spitz¹s stepson, Andrew Pitagorsky, an OHS graduate who now lives in Manhattan, was also overcome with emotion. His stepfather was also working at Cantor Fitzgerald on the morning of Sept. 11. ³It¹s kind of hard coming back here,² Pitagorsky, 28, said about his return to Oceanside, ³because that¹s where my family was together when we realized he wasn¹t coming home.²
Spitz, 49, came into Pitagorsky¹s life when he was 10. ³He was a great guy who really guided me into the person I am today,² Pitagorsky said.
An avid surfer, Spitz also routinely jogged around Oceanside and shared a love of sports with his stepson, and the duo often attended Mets and Jets games together. In fact, they tailgated outside the Meadowlands before a Jets game two days before 9/11. That Tuesday they were supposed to meet again, to have lunch with Spitz¹s boss so that his stepson might interview for a job at Cantor Fitzgerald. As if losing his stepdad in the attacks weren¹t horrific enough, Pitagorsky¹s brother-in-law was also working for Cantor Fitzgerald, and also died. ³We had a big loss on that day in our family,² he said.
The ceremony¹s keynote speaker, Margie Miller of the South Nassau Communities Hospital¹s World Trade Center Family Center, now in Baldwin, shared other vignettes like these.
The 9/11 families sat in rows of chairs on Davison, facing the monument, as Miller remembered Kelly, 39, a mortgage broker for Cantor, as a devoted family man, a huge Mets fan, and the maker of a special concoction of popcorn and M&Ms. When she spoke of Birnbaum, a 24-year-old who got his first job at Cantor Fitzgerald five months after graduating from Columbia University in May 2001, she told of his passion for music, golf and the Yankees. Ashley, 25, a Rockville Centre resident who graduated from OHS and worked for Fred Alger Management in the World Trade Center, was remembered for her love of painting and travel.
Backed by a stiff breeze, Miller noted how nature, such as the wind, the cold and the rustling of autumn leaves, reminds the families of their loved ones, as do certain emotional moments. ³When we are weary and in need of strength, we remember them,² said Miller, whose husband, Joel, the head of disaster recovery for Marsh & McLennan at the trade center, also died. ³When we¹re lost and sick of heart, we remember them. When we have joys we yearn to share, we remember them.²
While Miller remembered Marchese, 35, who worked for the Alliance Consulting Group, highlighting her sincerity and loyalty as well as her enjoyment of skiing and watching football, her mother, Lorraine, wiped away tears from under her sunglasses. Marchese, a native of Freeport, had lived in Oceanside for only 10 days, with fiancé Joseph Mendez of Island Park, when she died. Her mother said she was ³very appreciative² that her daughter was included on the monument.
Nussbaum, 37, a senior vice president of foreign currency for Carr Futures Associates, was a lifelong Oceansider and baseball player whose name graces scoreboards on ball fields at both Oceanside Park and OHS, where he played ball and attended school.
Prior to the ceremony, before Miller recalled that Nussbaum was nicknamed ³mayor of the Hamptons² because of his ³fun and friendly big-hearted spirit,² Arlene Nussbaum, his mother, said of the memorial, ³I think it¹s beautiful, and I want future generations to come to know what happened on 9/11, not only for Jeff, but for all the people who perished that day.²
Since the attacks, numerous memorials have sprung up, some honoring individual victims and others paying more general tribute, such as the garden, waterfall and tree plantings at Schoolhouse Green and the streets that have been renamed in honor of rescue workers. Meanwhile, others called for an all-inclusive memorial to all the victims from Oceanside ‹ a call that grew louder after two monuments were installed at Veterans Memorial Plaza in January 2005.
The late Frank Spingola, a longtime Oceanside resident, commissioned and funded the monuments, which, after getting approval from the Town of Hempstead, he mounted on a small parcel of property between the town parking lot and Davison Avenue. One honors veterans of foreign wars and those who lost their lives at the World Trade Center, and the second honors four New York City firefighters with ties to Oceanside who died: John Florio, Thomas Gardner, Kenneth Marino and Robert Spear Jr.
During the 2005 ceremony, Monica Barbella, the wife of the late James Barbella, 53, an ex-Marine who was a property manager for the Port Authority World Trade Department, held a placard that read, ³What about the civilians?² Barbella believed that if a government agency installed a monument ‹ even a privately funded one ‹ on its property, then it should list the names of all the victims from Oceanside, not just firefighters.
³If it was in Mr. Spingola¹s yard or on fire department property, that would be fine,² Barbella said then. ³If it¹s on town property, then all the names of the Oceansiders who died should have been on there.²
Town of Hempstead Supervisor Kate Murray, who spoke at last Saturday¹s ceremony as well as those two years ago, said that once she learned that the families of the civilian casualties felt slighted, she immediately reached out to them, and started working on an idea to honor them. ³We certainly didn¹t want to turn a good thing into an object of exclusion Š,² Murray said. ³Hopefully, today we¹ve come to fruition, and I hope it¹s provided some healing, not only on that local issue, but the greater issue of these families losing their loved ones.²
The new monument was made possible by Roger Folz, president of Folz Vending in Oceanside, through the Elliot Howard Folz Foundation, established in honor of his late son. Folz thanked Oceanside resident Mike Scarlata ³for making me aware that funds were needed for this special occasion,² and called the nine Oceanside victims ³the first casualties in the war on terrorism. These people will forever be remembered as our true personal heroes.²
Town Councilman Anthony Santino recalled Sept. 11 as a day when ³the mongers of hate and destruction tried to strike out at this country, Š at our tolerance, diversity and decency as a society Š They may have broken our hearts that day, but they did not break our spirit and resolve Š that brings people together from every walk of life, from every part of the globe, to this country to share in the American dream. And these nine residents that we remember and honor today, were so much a part of the good that is inherent in the American dream.²
Santino also addressed the site of the monuments, a slither of property between the parking lot and Davison Avenue. Locating them across from the library, Santino said, was an appropriate place, where children and adults come together to deepen their understanding of the world and broaden their minds. ³If they pass by, even for a fleeting second, and whether it¹s 10, 20 or 30 years from now,² Santino said, ³they will remember what happened on that day, and they will remember who we lost Š and celebrate their lives.²
Among those in the audience were Nassau County Legislators Jeff Toback and Denise Ford, Oceanside School District Superintendent Dr. Herb Brown, Fire Department Chief Thomas McDermott, the Rev. Patrick Sullivan of St. Anthony¹s Church, Rabbi Philmore Berger of Temple Avodah, Oceanside American Legion Commander Linda Petrizzi and resident Ellen Igoe.
Immediately after the January 2005 ceremony, at the suggestion of Santino, Igoe began an effort to install benches at Oceanside Park dedicated to each of the Oceansiders killed on 9/11. ³I really, truly believe that every resident of Oceanside who perished on Sept. 11 should be memorialized in Oceanside somehow,² Igoe said at the time.
Among those who had expressed interest in the benches was Amy Haviland, who lost both her husband, Timothy, a 41-year-old vice president and project manager for Marsh McLennan, and her brother, Robert Spear, an FDNY firefighter. Haviland had purchased benches for her brother and husband that stand amid other benches dedicated to 9/11 victims on the Long Beach boardwalk. Igoe said she continues to work on the project.
Comments about this story? JKellard@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 287.
Photos by Arthur Findlay/Herald
