=20 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- This article was sent to you by someone who found it on SFGate. The original article can be found on SFGate.com here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=3D/c/a/2007/12/09/BAMJTQUQR.= DTL --------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunday, December 9, 2007 (SF Chronicle) Union City dedicates memorial to 9/11's United Flight 93 Jill Tucker, Chronicle Staff Writer The Bay Area memorial honoring those who died Sept. 11, 2001, on Flight = 93 is nestled between a shopping center and a drainage ditch in Union City. At first, the site - dedicated Saturday - appears an odd location to represent such a significant event. The terrorist attacks of 9/11 shook the country to its core, rippling in= to every corner, seemingly leaving no place or person untouched by the tragedy. Given that, perhaps it makes sense to place the austere and regal row of 40 granite stones - one for each of the passengers and crew members who were killed - not in the middle of a metropolis, but in a suburban patch of land called Sugar Mill Landing Park. The Union City site is the first significant and permanent memorial to United Airlines Flight 93. A national memorial at the crash site in Somerset County, Pa., is in the planning stages. Family and friends of those aboard the Newark-to-San Francisco flight filed through the small triangular park, past the winding row of stones, their hands caressing the engraved names of their loved ones as the tears flowed again. Jerry Bingham traveled from Florida to see his son's stone. Mark Bingham died on the plane, one of apparently many who fought against the four terrorists after passengers and crew learned through their cell phones that they were aboard a suicide mission - not a hijacking - headed to Washington, D.C. "I believe this memorial has a heartbeat," Jerry Bingham said. "And it beats for everybody that was saved." Bingham said the loss never gets easier, but he does get more proud - of his son, those on the plane and those left behind who remember. "It's amazing what people can do when they get together," Bingham said, looking at the memorial. "Just like on Flight 93." The memorial starts at a Plaza of Remembrance with three 10-foot-tall gr= ay granite stones that tell the story of Flight 93 and those who contributed to the memorial. They face a tree planted with Pennsylvania dirt from the field where the plane crashed. At the other end of a winding concrete path is the Plaza of Hope with a flagpole surrounded by colorful tiles made by local schoolchildren. But it is the 40 red granite stones that stand out. One side of each is polished smooth and shiny, the other is rough, symbolizing a life unfinished. Each is engraved with a name, age and hometown; above the name is a reflective plate. The mirrors are there so visitors might realize "it could have been any one of us on the plane," said Michael Emerson, the memorial's project manager. Carole O'Hare's mother, Hilda Marcin, was on Flight 93. She was moving to California to live with her daughter. "My mom used to remind me about Pearl Harbor Day," O'Hare said, recalling that the phone would ring every year on Dec. 7. "Little did I think she'd be a part of another day to remember." A few hundred people attended the dedication, with city officials thanki= ng the hundreds more who volunteered their time and money to complete the project. About five years ago, Emerson came up with the idea to build the Bay Area memorial because so many of the flight's heroes had a connection to the area. "They are the model for every future hero to imitate and aspire to be," Emerson said. "Our debt to them is without measure." After the dedication, Carol Heiderich walked back to the stone bearing h= er brother's name: Jason Dahl. Dahl was the pilot. "We keep thinking it's getting easier, but it's not," said Heiderich, of Hollister. As she spoke, she rubbed her fingers across the "43" on his stone. Her brother would be nearly 50 now. "This is wonderful," she said of the memorial set in the small Union City park. Yet the site of the memorial always raises the same question, said Deputy City Mayor Tony Acosta. Why Union City? The answer was simple. "We don't want to forget," Acosta said, but he added there's another reason, too. "We said yes." E-mail Jill Tucker at jtucker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx -------------------------= --------------------------------------------- Copyright 2007 SF Chronicle <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> If you wish to unsubscribe from the AIRLINE List, please send an E-mail to: "listserv@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx". Within the body of the text, only write the following:"SIGNOFF AIRLINE".