NEW YORK TIMES, May 18, 2002

Tribute Will Signal the End of the Search

By JENNIFER STEINHAUER

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg delicately told New Yorkers yesterday that May 30 would be the day to move on.

On that day, Mr. Bloomberg said, a minute before 10:30 a.m., Fire Department bells will ring and an honor guard made up of uniformed officers, ground zero workers and families of the dead will carry an empty stretcher draped with an American flag up a ramp that runs from the floor of the site to the street. The stretcher, representing the hundreds of bodies never recovered at the site, will then be placed in an ambulance and driven slowly up West Street.

Then, the final I-beam left at ground zero, also covered with a flag, will be taken up the same ramp as the "last load," Mr. Bloomberg said. Taps will play. So will "America the Beautiful." Police helicopters will do a flyby.

After a few remarks, it will all be over, and the image of a post-Sept. 11 New York, in his view, will be that of buildings being constructed and New Yorkers who live in Lower Manhattan pushing strollers and riding bikes down the narrow passageways of the historic neighborhood.

"We will not forget those who were lost," Mr. Bloomberg said. "At the same time, we have an obligation to those left behind to continue the rebuilding that has already started. And we will fulfill both those obligations."

Free tickets for the ceremony will be distributed to family members and those who worked at the site; the procedure for distribution will be announced next week. City officials estimate that several thousand tickets will be available. Some family members are distressed that the ceremony will be held on a Thursday and not over the weekend, something the mayor said was precluded by religious services on both days. And some families were unhappy that the day was picked, in their view, arbitrarily. "You have to pick a day," Mr. Bloomberg said.

During a 45-minute news conference with Gov. George E. Pataki at City Hall yesterday, the mayor took several minutes to describe the ceremony, which will symbolically end the search for remains at ground zero, a painstaking and emotionally draining process that still continues, as the last of the rubble is raked, searched, repiled and raked again in search of human remains. Of the roughly 2,800 people killed in the terrorist attack in Lower Manhattan, about 1,000 have been identified.

But the mayor spent more than half an hour detailing how far the city had come - a new women's clothing store here, a film festival there, and myriad subway stations, streets and businesses reopened, many with the help of government grants - and outlining some of what he expected the future Lower Manhattan to look like.

In his presentation, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, a city and state agency set up to deal with the considerable task of developing the stricken site, seemed transformed into a garden-variety government agency rather than simply an outgrowth of the tragedy.

"The fact of the matter is," Mr. Bloomberg said, "most people believe in the future of Lower Manhattan and all New York City and New York State, and they are looking toward tomorrow."

The recovery effort has slowed considerably over the last month, as the number of people working on the site has dwindled and equipment has gone away. Efforts to identify victims will continue in the medical examiner's office into next year, and as the site is prepared for a memorial and rebuilding, pockets of debris that emerge will be sifted once again. "We will not stop ever if we find any debris that needs to be sifted through," Mr. Bloomberg said.

Relatives of victims who wish to view the site will be still be able to do so at the family viewing room at the development agency's office next to ground zero. Five public hearings will be held this year on how the site should be developed, the first on May 23.

Mr. Bloomberg made it clear that the vigil at ground zero would end when the gate surrounding it was shut. "This is a symbolic end, however, of the process, and a way to say thank you to those that have worked so hard and taken such risks in order to recover those that we lost," he said.

City and state workers have removed 1.8 million tons of debris from the site during more than 3.1 million man-hours over eight months at a cost of about $750 million, far less than the initial estimate of $7 billion.

Rudolph W. Giuliani is known for how he conducted himself after the terrorist attack, and Mr. Bloomberg's aides have said repeatedly that the former mayor wants to be remembered for helping the city to move on. The ceremony will signal that period.

"It important to bring this thing to an end," said one aide. "It is not a political moment. It's a real thing. It's done."