Bellotti’s class had just read Thornton Wilder’s classic novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey, which concerns the themes of loss, love, and the unexpected in life, themes the class hoped to link to the events of 9/11. In fact, Tony Blair, Prime Minister of Great Britain at the time, quoted a passage from Wilder’s novel at a memorial service in New York for British victims of the attack on the World Trade Center: “But soon we shall die and all memory of those five will have left the earth, and we ourselves shall be loved for a while and forgotten. But the love will have been enough; all those impulses of love return to the love that made them. Even memory is not necessary for love. There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.”
Students attended a workshop about the events of 9/11 before touring the museum and memorial. Since restrictions have been put in place regarding photography, High Tech students Jade Lorences of West New York and Union City resident Diane Zaragoza had the good fortune of producing a video with photos from documented sources and student reactions to commemorate their visit.
The video can only be accessed through the following link: https://youtu.be/AtwTSc7eKGA
