Ten Years Later: Kensington Families Featured in Stories About 9/11

It is exactly ten years since the tragic attacks on the World Trade Center buildings, which killed almost 3,000 people and left about 3,000 children younger than 18 without a parent.

Some of those families were and/or are Kensington residents, and their stories are featured in such places as the New York Times and ESPN.

One of the stories, written by Steve Wulf for ESPN discusses the uplifting story of the Conroy family whose husband/father Kevin Conroy, was killed on September 11. The four children were taken under the wing of Bobby Valentine, former major league baseball player and manager.

The New York Times article focuses on the Vukosa family of Kensington, especially Adam and Austin, who also lost their father, Alfred, when the WTC was destroyed.

Kensington Photographer Catches WTC Inside and Out and Through the Years

Kensington resident and photographer Richard Massie’s photos of the World Trade Center will be featured as a special section of the autumn show “Tales of Breukelen,” which will open this month at the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition (BWAC.)

The exhibition is in honor of the tenth anniversary of the destruction of the WTC on September 11th 2001, and will display views of the WTC from both inside and out using medium-format photos taken during the mid-‘70s through the ‘80s.

The photos follow the development of the towers from when they were first being built, including rare shots of their interiors while they were still under construction. Massie’s goal was to see and show the beauty of the towers at a time when not everyone viewed them with the same artistic eye.

“At the time they were considered monstrosities — they were hated at the time, and considered a boondoggle with public money,” Massie explained. “I was going to try to turn them into something artistically appreciable.”

Also included in the exhibition will be a “works-on-paper” montage which members of BWAC created to be installed in a ceremony in exactly one week, on Sunday, September 11.

You can come visit the exhibition at the BWAC gallery located in Red Hook at 499 Van Brunt Street, Brooklyn.