9/11 Ground Zero Recovery, Nino's Restaurant, 2002, by Kristan Tetens
From MemoryArchive
Who: Kristan Tetans What: Ground Zero Relief When: New Year's Day, 2002 Where: New York, New York
Nino's Angels: New Year's Day 2002 at Nino's Restaurant. 9/11 recovery efforts, New York City
[Kristan Tetens, of East Lansing, Michigan, is a public relations manager at Michigan State University. In January 2002, she led a group of MSU faculty and staff to New York City, where they volunteered for a week at three different Ground Zero relief organizations, including Nino’s Restaurant.]
Shortly after noon on New Year’s Day 2002, halfway through our first volunteer shift at Nino’s Restaurant on Canal Street, a group of angels appeared. Heavily wrapped against the bitter cold, with tinsel halos perched on their heads and white-feathered wings poking out from beneath their coats, they burst through the door with frosty breath and wide smiles.
Nino’s had been supplying free meals to Ground Zero rescue and recovery workers around the clock since September 12. At its busiest, six weeks after the attack, the restaurant served more than 5,000 buffet-style meals a day. Its owner, Antonio “Nino” Vendome, had managed to create an oasis of calm and consolation that many recovery workers preferred to the official Salvation Army commissary. At Nino’s, they could get exactly what they needed, whether that was time alone to come to grips with what they had just seen at “the pit” or a couple of gregarious partners for a card game.
The restaurant was a comfortable haven from the overwhelming devastation several blocks south. The walls of its two small dining rooms were covered from floor to ceiling with vibrant drawings and handmade holiday cards sent by schoolchildren across the nation, including more than a hundred that our group had delivered on behalf of students at Forest View Elementary School and Spartan Village School. Behind the bar, a collection of badges given to Vendome in gratitude by firefighters, police officers, and emergency medical technicians held place of honor. Garlands of origami paper cranes hung in pink, red and orange swags from the ceiling, representing the wish for world peace. The recovery workers who had become regulars at Nino’s were used to seeing celebrities. Susan Sarandon, Kathleen Turner, Leonardo DiCaprio, Mia Farrow, Dan Quayle, Don King and the reigning Miss USA were among those who had stopped by to express their support. By the first week of January, when our group dished out penne pasta, sausage and peppers, veal and chicken parmesan, most didn’t bat an eye when a famous face strolled by.
The angels, however, got their attention.
They turned out to be from Texas, five fair-haired brothers and sisters ranging in age from four to thirteen. With their parents, they had piled into a van the day after Christmas and driven more than 1500 miles to New York City. They had come, dressed as angels, to sing—to lift up their voices in support of the heroes who continued to be an example of strength and courage for the rest of the nation.
With a jostling of wings, they arranged themselves at one end of the main dining room and began to sing “Amazing Grace,” a cappella, with heartbreaking simplicity and sweetness. Within ten seconds, conversation had stopped and all eyes and ears were fixed on the young singers. A firefighter who had been sitting alone at the bar, silently weeping, paused and looked up.
The children could not have known that it had been a particularly difficult day at Ground Zero. The bodies of ten firefighters had been found that morning, three of them from a single unit, Ladder 118 in Brooklyn Heights. Two New York Fire Department chaplains whose dusty gray faces matched their dusty gray jackets had come in shortly afterward to grab cups of strong coffee before heading back out into the frigid, overcast day. Their tired eyes told me everything I needed to know about the personal toll that September 11 was continuing to exact on those most directly involved with the recovery effort. While the children sang, however, it was possible to believe that America would get through this terrible tragedy. The appearance of those angels was a small mercy that made life bearable for the recovery workers eating at Nino’s that day, and for those of us humbly serving them.
