Editorial: Remembering 9-11

On the 13^th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, Brooklynites are stopping to pay tribute to the people lost on that fateful day and the heroes who put themselves in harm’s way to help strangers.

For those of us living in the city on September 11, 2001 — a day that began in sunlight but quickly darkened as the news of first one and then a second plane flying into the Twin Towers gave way to a plume of smoke that obscured the sky — the feeling of horror in all our hearts has lasted way past the time when the smoke finally cleared.

As many have said, remembering what transpired is critically important.

We join our neighbors in saluting the heroes of 9/11, sung and unsung, and in pausing to commemorate those who should never be forgotten, as well as in offering our support to those whom they left behind.

GOING GOLD

We applaud the landmarks that are lighting up gold to mark Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. Despite the Empire State Building’s callous refusal to provide support to families fighting pediatric cancer and to help raise awareness of this devastating disease, we are delighted that landmarks across the city and around the world have chosen to go gold as part of the Gold World Project.

Most recently, the Parachute Jump in Coney Island glowed gold, the same weekend as residents began adorning Bay Ridge with gold ribbons as part of Go Gold,  Bay Ridge, a grassroots campaign with the laudable goals of raising awareness and providing support to families who are struggling with the illness.

If you look at the cover of this newspaper, you will see that we have also decided to go gold, with our masthead changing color for this very special cause that deserves our attention and support.

Together, we hope, we can make a difference in this difficult struggle.

R IS FOR RETURNING

While the MTA isn’t making any promises, it appears that repairs to the tunnel that the R train uses to go between Brooklyn and Manhattan are ahead of schedule, with completion due this fall.

That is great news for the thousands of commuters who have had to go out of their way to get across the East River since the tunnel closed in August, 2013, to fix damage caused by Superstorm Sandy.

We look forward to the return of the R’s full route, as we know our neighbors do.

Quite simply, it can’t happen soon enough.