Profiles: WTC Oct 21, 2001
Hyfler/Rosner
HASMUKH PARMAR
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Making a Gift of the City
Hasmukh Parmar had a smile to cast away darkness, and that is what his wife,
Bharti Parmar, misses the most these days. She can see that smile when she
recalls the Friday before the twin towers fell, when the couple went on a
nighttime cruise around Manhattan. It was like a second honeymoon, with the
city as a wedding gift of a jeweled skyline, the September breezes like soft
brush strokes.
The following Tuesday morning, Mr. Parmar, 48, the father of two boys, was
back at his job on the 103rd floor of the World Trade Center. He was kept
busy as a computer systems manager for Cantor Fitzgerald but always found
time to chat with friends or lavish attention on his sons. "He was
everything to us," Mrs. Parmar said. "Everything."
At his 14-year-old son's school, Mr. Parmar was a basketball coach. Guitar
was the special bond between Mr. Parmar and his 16-year-old. The father
taught the son to play, amusing him with the songs of Jimi Hendrix and
Carlos Santana. They played together every night when Mr. Parmar came home
from work.
JENNIFER FIALKO
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A Spiritual Journey
At 24, an age when most people are busy with first jobs and apartments,
Jennifer Fialko was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease. She was 29 before she
fully recovered; by then, she felt her cancer had been a gift. "It led her
on a spiritual journey," said Bob Fialko, her father. Weakened by 18 months
of chemotherapy, Ms. Fialko devoted herself to becoming healthy, with
organic food and alternative treatments.
Six years later, she was not simply cancer-free, said Evelyn Fialko, her
mother. She felt marvelous < strong and energetic. Her new mission was to
help other sick people regain their health. She had met "her soul mate," Mr.
Fialko said. And in September she started a new job at the Aon Corporation.
After years in Teaneck, N.J., she was excited to be working in Lower
Manhattan.
Beating cancer made her glow with new confidence, Mr. Fialko said. She felt
she could do anything. "She was convinced she was now going to live to 120,"
said Andrew Fialko, her brother. "And we believed her."
JOSEPH P. ANCHUNDIA
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Friends, Together Again
Joseph P. Anchundia, Judd Cavalier and Ian Crystal were best friends from
grade school. They went off to different colleges, but after graduation it
seemed only natural to get back together in a four-bedroom duplex in Midtown
Manhattan. "When I mention Joe, I have to mention Judd," Mr. Crystal said.
"We always pictured ourselves growing old together, hanging out. We never
got sick of each other."
As children, their bond was going to Flower Hill Elementary School in
Huntington, on Long Island. Later, it was bars. Still later, it was the
monthly rounds of theaters and steakhouses. Mr. Anchundia loved Filli
Ponte's lobster; Mr. Cavalier, who worked with Mr. Anchundia, a trader at
Sandler O'Neill & Partners, liked Smith & Wollensky so much he wanted to
decorate their apartment the same aristocratic shade of green.
But among them, Mr. Anchundia, 26, stood out for being sweet and happy. So
happy, he would wake up at 6 in the morning, crank up Steely Dan, and enter
the shower whistling.
Mr. Anchundia was a middle child and a momma's boy. His last note to Mr.
Crystal, who had gone away to business school, said, "I love you bro bro
broski bro bro. Joe."
JUDSON J. CAVALIER
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The Laid-Back Approach
A couple of days after pledging his fraternity, Sigma Beta, and moving into
his room at the University of New Hampshire, Judson J. Cavalier bought a
bed. More precisely, said his college roommate and fraternity brother,
Nathan Sloan, it was a mattress, and Mr. Cavalier never bothered to get the
box spring or the frame. "He was, like, what you would call laid back," Mr.
Sloan mused.
So laid back that the university invited him to take a semester off to think
about his commitment to academics. With a friend, Mr. Cavalier went to Vail,
Colo., where he figured he could ski a lot, and took a job as a ski-boot
salesman. "He made phenomenal money. Everybody knew he was a good worker,"
Mr. Sloan said. "He just didn't sweat the stuff he didn't have to sweat."
Mr. Cavalier, 26, did graduate, and was hired by Thomas F. O'Neill, his
next-door neighbor growing up in Huntington, N.Y., and a founder of Sandler
O'Neill & Partners. He was about to be promoted from bond research to
salesman. "Being a bond salesman, you made a lot of money and you played
golf with the guys," said another childhood friend, Ian Crystal. "That was
perfect for Judd. He was there."
DIARELIA MENA
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A Line of Strong Women
Strong women they make in Diarelia Mena's family: matriarchs, and lots of
them, too < six sisters in Diarelia's mother's generation. And who can count
all the cousins between here and Panama City who keep in touch through a
sprawling e- mail group? Diarelia Mena was the youngest, the baby, the much
fussed-over little princess, and didn't she know it, with her winning smile,
her spontaneous three-day jaunts to the Bahamas?
She became a mother herself < her daughter, Karelia, is 2 < and she married
the toddler's father, Victor Barahona, whom she had known from her childhood
visits to Panama from Brooklyn. But like other mothers in her family, Ms.
Mena, 30, worked hard outside the home, too: she was a computer programmer
at Cantor Fitzgerald, regularly arriving there around 10 a.m., after
household chores were done, and staying late. On Sept. 11, she showed up
before 9 a.m. so she could leave early, to begin graduate courses at
Columbia.
She needed to make more money for, among other life necessities, shoes. Ms.
Mena was a tall woman who craved stiletto heels, wedges, sandals, boots; the
more the better, the higher the better yet. Now see her as her mother
remembers her: after midnight on Christmas Eve, visiting family in Panama
City, her long hair loose as she moves from house to house, nibbling
tamales, dancing the merengue until sunrise, swaying confidently on those
towering shoes.
STACY SANDERS
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An Expanding Circle
When Stacy Sanders was captain of the crew and swim teams at Andover, she
was famous for her "psych notes."
They were short missives to her teammates, sent before big meets. They were
all meant to uplift, but each one contained a personal detail. They were all
signed with a heart next to her name. To her father, John, the notes were
one of the many ways she went the extra distance to make others feel at
home.
"She went out of her way to make other people feel comfortable," Mr. Sanders
said. "With her friends, she would always end their conversations with, `I
love you.' Many of them learned to say that."
She had a large circle of friends, he said. But Ms. Sanders, 25, who had
been working on a technology project for Marsh & McLennan at the World Trade
Center, also had a knack for befriending her friends' parents, their sisters
and brothers, even their grandparents. It was not uncommon, Mr. Sanders
said, for her to spend an evening having dinner and seeing a movie with her
boyfriend's grandmother, for instance. Ms. Sanders and her boyfriend, Bryan
Koplin, were shopping for rings and considering marriage. "She had an
incredible capacity to make herself a part of their families," Mr. Sanders
said. "As a consequence, we all became a part of so many families."
L. PATRICK DICKINSON
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Keeping It Simple
L. Patrick Dickinson loved jaunts to Hershey Park in Pennsylvania, visits to
Williamsburg, Va., and trips to Las Vegas. But most of all he relished
family time at home in Marlboro, N.J., sitting by the pool, relaxing on the
couch while his daughter Erin, 7, fell asleep on his belly, or playing a
mean game of Trivial Pursuit.
Mr. Dickinson, 35, a stockbroker on the American Stock Exchange who worked
for Harvey Young Yurman, spent long days in the hectic world of futures and
options trading, standing on the floor of the exchange. On Sept. 11, he was
having his weekly Tuesday morning meeting at Windows on the World. With him
were five colleagues from his company, including his brother-in-law, who is
also missing.
With his days so frenzied, Mr. Dickinson kept it simple when he was away
from work, said his wife, Linda. "It was enough for him to look at the stars
at night or relax by the pool," said Mrs. Dickinson, who met her husband 18
years ago when the two worked at a five-and-dime store in Jersey City. She
is expecting their second child in December.
W. WARD HAYNES
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Sold on the Car
W. Ward Haynes really wanted the car. Not that it made a whole lot of sense.
The car was a Porsche Boxster. Two people could squeeze in it, and that was
about it.
But there was the matter of the golf clubs. Both he and his wife, Ann,
played golf. It did not look like two bags could even fit in the trunk.
Ward-O, as he was known, insisted they could, if they were square-bottomed
bags rather than round- bottomed ones.
And then there was the matter of the children: three of them. Where would
they go? Well, the family had a larger vehicle for full-family trips. And
starting in August, Mr. Haynes, 35, was no longer commuting by car from his
home in Rye, N.Y., to his office in Stamford, Conn., but taking the train to
his new job as a broker at Cantor Fitzgerald. So why shouldn't he have a fun
weekend car? At least, that was his argument.
Hesitantly, Mrs. Haynes surrendered. He got his car the weekend before Sept.
11. "The family could not fit in it < ever," Mrs. Haynes said. "But he
really wanted it."
He went zipping around, giving everyone a ride. He picked up his 85-year-old
grandmother. Mrs. Haynes figured that ride would not last long. They were
out for two hours.
DOROTHY TEMPLE
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There for Support
Dorothy Temple, who moved to New York from Montgomery, Ala., as a child,
never had children of her own, but she had a large extended family. "Anytime
anything happened with a relative anywhere, Dorothy was there to support
them," said a niece, Falana Temple, who lived with her aunt in Bushwick,
Brooklyn, after her mother died.
Ms. Temple, 50, a longtime employee of the State Department of Taxation and
Finance, lavished attention on her nieces and nephews, taking them on trips
to Disney World, Mexico and San Francisco, and keeping up with their
accomplishments.
She had a number of friends, many of them in Albany, but for the most part
"she was a very private person," said another niece, Jada Temple.
Ms. Temple, who walked with a cane because of an old knee injury and weighed
more than 200 pounds, used a van service for the disabled to get to work.
She told her relatives that she planned to retire soon because of her
condition.
EDWARD MAZZELLA
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Leaving a Legacy
Edward Mazzella worked on Wall Street for over 40 years, the last few as a
senior vice president for equity sales at Cantor Fitzgerald. He was killed
three days before his retirement date, Sept. 14.
His life's other enduring constant was family. Mr. Mazzella, 62, and his
wife, Kay, were married for 40 years. Since early in their marriage, they
had hosted a grand family dinner every Christmas Eve. About two dozen people
always came for a spread of crabmeat sauce on pasta, shrimp scampi and cold
fish salad, and plenty of fun.
"They were always very gay, very animated, wonderfully boisterous times,"
said Ann LoPresti, his sister-in-law.
In 1993, to everyone's surprise, Mr. Mazzella took to watercolors. Since
then, he had done about 100 paintings of flowers, apples, sailboats,
treehouses, even a bird cage and a top hat and cane. He framed the paintings
and gave them to family members. His children, Susan and Michael have the
most, 15 each. "It's almost like he had a need to leave a legacy," Ms.
LoPresti said. "He didn't know, but that's how it's turned out."
SAREVE DUKAT
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Living Life Joyously
When Sareve Dukat, at age 20, resolved to marry her high school sweetheart,
Joel Shapiro, there was no talking her out of it < not even by her mother,
who thought she was too young. The other day, Mr. Shapiro recalled his
wife's response to her mother this way: "She said, `You have a choice:
Either I will hide his socks when you come to visit, or we will get
married.' "
Ms. Dukat, 53, was an opinionated woman. She knew what she liked and she
went for it. She worshiped Mickey Mantle. (Her husband's preference for
Sandy Koufax did not change her mind.) Early mornings, at least twice a
week, she walked her "aerobics walk" along Riverside Park. On weekends, she
walked along the beach at the family's summer home on Long Beach, on Long
Island, solving "the problems of the world," her husband said. She loved to
travel. She went to every sports event she could.
And not a week went by that she did not go to the theater, usually with a
colleague, Jon Schlissel. They worked for the New York State Department of
Taxation and Finance, on the 87th floor of 2 World Trade Center.
As Mr. Shapiro put it, "She was committed to living her life joyously."
She was also committed to him: they stayed married for 33 years. "She was
and is my emotional core," Mr. Shapiro said. "Now there's this void that
someone described as a toothache of the heart. It isn't always a sharp pain.
But it never goes away."
MICHAEL R. WITTENSTEIN
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Every Day a Casual Day
Michael R. Wittenstein loved game shows, the Jets and Mets, and good < or,
truth to tell, bad < jokes. When he graduated from the State University of
New York at Albany 13 years ago, he told friends he planned to be a
proctologist or a game show host. Don't ask.
Instead, he became a bond trader for Cantor Fitzgerald, working in London
and California, as well as New York. He was delighted when the firm did away
with its dress code; ever after, he was sighted only in khakis and polo
shirt.
He was on the phone with a client in California when an explosion rocked the
skyscraper. He called back to apologize that the phone had been
disconnected.
In April, he moved out of his parents' home in Seaford, on Long Island, to
live with his fiancée, Carrie Bernstein, in Hoboken, N.J. They were supposed
to be married this Saturday. Ms. Bernstein went to a Devils- Rangers hockey
game the other night with his brother Jeffrey. "She seems all right," he
said.
STEVEN P. GELLER
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Kitchen Improvisations
How to describe Steven P. Geller's love of cooking? Envision a man prowling
the touchstones of Upper West Side cuisine < Zabar's, Citarella and the like
< looking, say, for the perfect green pepper. Imagine a Food Network
enthusiast for whom an episode of "Iron Chef" was reason to drop everything.
"I have pots and pans here that are worth more than my jewelry," said his
wife, Debra Geller, with complete seriousness and not a trace of resentment.
Mrs. Geller suspects that she may have been the catalyst for Mr. Geller's
quest for great food. "I come from a long line of non-cooking women," she
confessed. Her husband, she suggested, most likely gravitated toward the
kitchen as "a sort of survival technique."
Mr. Geller, a 52-year-old institutional trader at Cantor Fitzgerald,
embraced the role. Presentation < the more ostentatious the better < became
a pet cause. He wore chef shirts and he cooked not by the book < heavens, no
< but like a jazz artist. He made their daughter, Hali, 12, his chief
assistant and partner in cuisine. "He was sort of cloning himself," Mrs.
Geller said.
THOMAS SABELLA
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No Stranger to Heroism
Thomas Sabella, a firefighter with Ladder Company 13, was no stranger to
heroism. In 1998, he ran up six flights of stairs in a burning Upper East
Side tenement and rescued a man who was leaning out of a fifth-floor window.
The city honored him for his bravery the following year.
His wife, Diana, who met her husband at Susan Wagner High School in Staten
Island when she was just 16, accepted his choice of a high-risk occupation.
"I never really worried," she said. "I always knew that he knew what he was
doing, and that he would do his best."
Mr. Sabella, 44, had many hobbies. He went skiing and snowboarding with his
daughter Nicole, 10. He grew tomatoes and cucumbers in his Staten Island
garden, and he made his own red wine, giving away bottles as holiday gifts.
Their son James, 6, used to have an ambition shared by many little boys.
These days, his mother said, "he says, `I was going to be a fireman, but I
don't know, now.' "
RAYMOND KWOK
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The Perfect Son
Raymond Kwok was the best son any Chinese parents could hope for. At age 31,
he worked as a network administrator for Cantor Fitzgerald and lived in
Flushing with his parents as well as his wife and their 9- month-old
daughter, following the Chinese tradition to serve his parents in old age.
"Everything they asked for, he gave it to them," said Yunyu Zheng, his wife.
"When they berated him, he never talked back." The couple bought a
three-bedroom condo just before Ms. Zheng gave birth, and he moved his
parents out of their apartment in Chinatown, where the family had settled
after they immigrated to America 20 years ago.
"I know the worst thing for him would be not to see his daughter growing
up," Ms. Zheng said. "He was very content. Our child is cute, and his
parents really care for us. The two of us really loved each other. We had
never fought. We only wished to have a few more children."
Karen, their baby, has just learned to say "baba" in the past week.