‘A place for reflection’: World Trade Center memorial in Calverton grew out of one man’s vision in the months following terror attacks

The small memorial park in Calverton is mostly inconspicuous to passing motorists, unless their eyes happen to fall on the sign identifying the place as the World Trade Center Memorial.

Two circular structures made of stone and bricks, symbolizing the Twin Towers, are surrounded by a manicured lawn, shade trees and other plantings. In the center is a granite monument that bears a bronze plaque with a simple inscription: “World Trade Center Memorial: In memory of those who perished and served at the World Trade Center, September 11, 2001.”

The memorial, located at the corner of Edwards and Riley avenues in Calverton was built in the months that followed the 2001 terrorist attacks. It is the vision of Calverton nature photographer Hal Lindstrom, who thought the town should have a permanent memorial.

Lindstrom sketched out his vision and took it to town hall, seeking a home for the memorial. Officials were skeptical at first — so was his wife, Cathy, Lindstrom recalls. Who would build it? Where would the funding come from?

“I thought that people needed a place to come to, where they could sit and reflect, meditate or pray,” Lindstrom said this morning at the park. “I knew I had to do this,” he said, looking around.

Town officials told Lindstrom he’d need to get an architect to draw up plans, so he reached out to local builder Owen Brothers Construction. The company had an architect draw up plans based on the design he’d conceived and when he brought them back to town hall, officials agreed to provide the land.

“I drove right past this spot on the morning of the attacks,” he recalled pointing to Riley Avenue. “I didn’t know what was going on. When I got home, my cousin called and said, ’Turn on the TV.’ And I saw the second plane crash into the tower and just explode,” Lindstrom said, shaking his head.

“I couldn’t grasp what was happening. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing,” he said.

A few months later, the idea for the memorial park came to him. Lindstrom raised nearly $50,000 from local businesses and residents to fund the construction of the memorial. He also received donations of some of the materials, including cement and stones for the low wall encircling the perimeter of the brick monument. Even the students at Riley Avenue Elementary School chipped in, saving up their ice cream money to make a $500 donation to the effort.

The park was dedicated shortly after the one-year anniversary of the attacks.

“It just shows you when you have an idea you can make it a reality,” Lindstrom, now 70, said this morning.

He comes to the memorial every year on Sept. 11 to spend time in reflection.

Lindstrom is not alone. Though the Town of Riverhead does not hold a ceremony at the park — since the dedication ceremony in 2002, it has held just one ceremony there, on the 10th anniversary of the attacks — many people visit the site on their own, especially on the Sept. 11 anniversary. Some leave cut flowers, others leave cards, still others, like Lindstrom, come to sit and reflect.

For so many, despite the passage of time, memories of Sept. 11, 2001 are still vivid — for others who experienced personal loss, the pain on this day is still real and emotions are still raw.

Irene and Nick Andreadis of Mattituck came to the park after a memorial service at St. John the Baptist Ukrainian Catholic Church this morning.

Irene Andreadis lost her brother, Oleh Wengerchuk, in the collapse of the South Tower, where he worked as a transportation designer in the 91st floor offices of Washington Group International, a large engineering, construction and management consulting firm.

Wengerchuk, 56, was married to his childhood sweetheart and the father of a daughter, who was then 23. He was born prematurely in Vienna, Austria during World War II, as bombs fell around the hospital, where most of the medical staff had already evacuated to a basement bomb shelter. The newborn was not expected to survive, but he did and he came to the U.S. with his mother and older brother, refugees who were relocated from a displaced persons camp in Germany.

“Oleh was a proud American of Ukrainian descent,” Irene Andreadis wrote in a memorial statement she read at the 2009 Ground Zero ceremonies. “Our mother was devastated to outlive her son. She stood here in the wreckage of twisted steel 10 years ago, struck by the irony that Oleh was born during an air raid in a hospital that was being evacuated during the horrors of World War II and miraculously survived.

“Yet he was murdered on a beautiful Tuesday morning at work right here on American soil 56 years later — disappearing without a trace — vaporized in the flames of 9/11.”

Wengerchuk’s remains were never recovered.

When his next of kin were chosen to read some of the names during the ceremonies at Ground Zero in 2009, Nick Andreadis went to the 9/11 museum to find out as much as he could about each of the people whose names were on the list the family of Oleh Wengerchuk would read.

“It occurred to me I had this list of names. I wanted to know something about them — what they looked like, what they did, who they were… I spent about two and a half hours there reading,” Nick Andreadis recalled. “It was a profound experience. It shook me to the core.”

The Mattituck couple were among about a dozen people who came to spend a few moments at the Calverton memorial this morning between the hours of the crashes and the collapse of the two towers.

“I’ve always wanted to stop here,” said Pete Foppiani of Rockville Centre, who was on his way to visit family in Orient. Today, passing the memorial on the morning of Sept. 11, he decided to pull over.

Eighteen years ago, Foppiani, a technician, was sent on a call in Astoria that morning.

“I got as far as Shea Stadium,” he said. “The elevation there is pretty high and you have a clear view of the skyline. The first tower had already come down. I pulled over and took in the sight of the remaining tower in flames, the black smoke billowing in the sky. Then suddenly, the black smoke turned white,” he said. “I realized I had just witnessed the building collapse.”

Another visitor at the memorial this morning listened to Foppiani recount his memories of that tragic day. The man, who declined to give his name, said he’d recently retired from the NYC Fire Department. He was on vacation the week of Sept. 11, 2001, he said. He was putting his his kids on the school bus and heard a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. He went back inside and turned on the TV in time to see another jetliner hit the second tower. Soon, he was on his way to Ground Zero.

“I relive it every year. For some reason, this year it’s hitting me harder than in the past,” he said, his voice choking with emotion.