Due to Ash Wednesday observance, commemorative Mass to be held this year at Church of St. Francis of Assisi in Midtown
The Port Authority will commemorate the 27th anniversary of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing on Wednesday, February 26, with a solemn tribute to the six victims and an unborn child who lost their lives during the attack.
As has been the tradition every year since the attack, there will be a solemn tribute of a Catholic Mass at the Church of St. Francis of Assisi, located at 135 W. 31st Street – between Sixth and Seventh avenues – in Manhattan. In prior years, the Mass was held at St. Peter’s Church on Barclay Street in Lower Manhattan, which was unavailable this year due to the Ash Wednesday observance. The Mass will start promptly at 9:55 a.m. and attendees are asked to arrive no later than 9:40 a.m.
Following the Mass, a brief ceremony and moment of silence will be held at 12:18 p.m. near the North Pool on the 9/11 Memorial Plaza, followed by a reading of the names of the victims.
Four Port Authority employees and an unborn child died in the attack including 61-year-old senior structural maintenance supervisor Robert Kirkpatrick; 48-year-old chief maintenance supervisor Stephen Knapp; 47-year-old assistant chief mechanical supervisor Bill Macko; and 35-year-old Monica Smith and her unborn child. Also killed in the attack were 45-year-old John DiGiovanni, a dental products salesperson who had parked in the underground parking garage, and 37-year-old Wilfredo Mercado, a receiving agent for the Windows on the World Restaurant.
In addition to those who died, more than 1,000 suffered injuries when a truck bomb detonated below the North Tower of the World Trade Center, requiring a mass evacuation of both towers.