BITTERSWEET: President Obama is all smiles yesterday as he meets with police officers at the 1st Precinct, but the mood turned somber when he joined 9/11 families. (AP)
They thought it would be easier to come back now that the devil was dead.
And even though they cheered and applauded, and went to Ground Zero yesterday to personally thank the president of the United States for putting a bullet in the brain of that evil, murderous Osama bin Laden, the day still ended the way it did the day before, without their parents, without their children, without their husbands and wives.
“Nothing will ever bring back my father,” said Victoria Giordano, 21, of Staten Island, whose firefighter dad, Jeffrey, died on 9/11. “But the president told us he would never forget about us.”
Giordano’s emotional embrace with President Obama highlighted a day 10 years in the making that many thought they’d never live to see.
But there was Obama in all his glory, the conquering hero who had slain the wicked beast with his mighty Navy SEALs.
Hours earlier, jaded New Yorkers and picture-taking tourists jammed the streets of lower Manhattan hoping for a chance to see Obama’s lengthy motorcade.
Ten years earlier, these same avenues had been caked with thick dust from two fallen towers, an apocalypse come to life in a city that was off-limits to terrorists.
“I want my kids to get a glimpse of Barack Obama,” said Gina Goldman, 45, as she stood behind a barricade along Liberty Street, with her 3-year-old daughter and her 5-year-old son.
They stood behind a sign that said, “We have always loved you,” which was not nearly as big as the “We love you” sign that hung from their window several stories above them.
Goldman and her husband, Walter Schupfer, bought a condo across the street from Ground Zero three years ago, a front-row seat to the rebirth of lower Manhattan.
“Our family has grown with the site,” Goldman said. “It felt like the right thing to do and the right thing to tell my children.”
Around the corner along Church Street, enterprising vendors hawked “Mission Accomplished” T-shirts and American flags. Awestruck tourists craned their necks to see the skyscrapers behind the fence that were rising from the ashes.
Suddenly, a roar rose up from the crowd. Pedestrians thought the president had arrived. But the cheer was for a firetruck returning to Engine Co. 10 near the World Trade Center. Along its windshield in big block letters were the words, “We Support Our Troops.”
Shouts of “USA! USA!” filled the downtown air.
Moments later, the crowd came to life again as Obama arrived for a solemn wreath-laying ceremony.
There, with the help of Fire Lt. Joseph LaPointe, Obama laid a wreath filled with red roses and white and blue hydrangeas. He clasped his hands, bowed his head and closed his eyes for 20 seconds.
“I think it was a pretty nice thing to come back here,” LaPointe said later about the president’s visit. “I told him thank you for getting the job done.”