By Kristie Cattafi The Gazette (Hawthorne Edition)
Hawthorne business owners have jump-started the borough’s 9/11 memorial donations with four business owners donating a total of $15,000.
Hawthorne officials break ground on the 9/11 memorial site in 2012.Photo/Kristie Cattafi
Mayor Richard Goldberg said at the June 5 council meeting that recently a local business owner asked how the memorial plans were going. Goldberg said he told him the borough had to scale back some of the original designs because of money. Goldberg told the council that the man, whose name he didn’t want to reveal, donated $5,000 to the cause and said he would reach out to other business owners. Goldberg said as of now four business owners have donated a total of $15,000 with the promise to reach out to more businesses.
“We really appreciate his generosity,” Goldberg said.
The borough received a 24-foot piece of World Trade Center steel in November 2011. The piece of steel was retrieved from a John F. Kennedy International Airport hangar where pieces of steel and 9/11 artifacts are kept including beams, equipment left behind and first responder vehicles. The steel was escorted from the airport by Hawthorne police, fire and EMS members who brought the piece to Rescue Five on Lafayette Avenue and Goffle Road on a Downes Tree Service Co. flatbed truck, which donated its time and resources to the cause.
Goldberg said he has plans to create a memorial park for Hawthorne’s first responders in between Rescue Five and the Hawthorne EMS building, which are located next to each other and separated by a grassy open space area. The memorial would also be the new home for the fireman’s memorial that is currently located outside of the municipal building on Lafayette Avenue.
The memorial will have four monuments representing police, fire, EMS, and municipal. Each entity has submitted drawings of what is wanted on the monuments.
Administrative Assistant Charlene Elvin said the large donations received from the local business owners has been a “shot in the arm” for the fundraising and exactly what the borough needed to have the dedication this September.
Anyone interesting in donating to the memorial can find information on www.hawthornenj.org.
