Faces On The Bus

By Andrea Appleton
POSTED OCT. 3, 2006

On a day of endless tributes, Bruce Gorman’s stood out. For the fifth anniversary of 9/11, he brought a converted bus plastered with 2,876 photos of the victims and parked it on Cedar Street near the World Trade Center site. He’d etched the windows with iconic moments from that day, American flags, military symbols. He’d mounted a large gilt eagle statue, wings outspread, on the cab roof. A retired Navy Chaplain’s assistant, Gorman said he spent six months and $30,000 on his creation. Then he drove it all the way from Atlantic Beach, Fla for the occasion, stopping at the Pentagon and the Flight 93 crash site in Shanksville, Pa., along the way.

“I thought, all these memorials are gonna take so long and there’s no real tombstone for those people, so I thought I’ll build them one and bring it to ‘em,” he said. The bus is named “Light a Candle in September,” after a Jennifer Renee song that inspired him. Gorman didn’t know anyone who was killed in the attack. But, he said, “They’re me and you. It’s like I know them.”

Face after face lined the outside of the bus and the interior walls and ceiling, all in alphabetical rank. Like photos of old silent film stars, there was something slightly unreal about them.

“I brightened their smiles and their eyes to reflect that they’re still shining in our hearts,” Gorman explained. He found all the photos online and retouched each one. A few faces are missing, their photos unavailable.

Br. Paul Keenan from the Church of St. Francis of Assisi in Midtown lifted his brown robes and climbed up into the mobile memorial. “People kept saying, ‘There’s something over there you’ve got to see,’” he said. He looked around, nodded. “It’s amazing. Everywhere you turn it’s someone’s life.” With all the crowds around Ground Zero, the bus interior was a rare quiet refuge. Kevin Thomas, a volunteer firefighter from New Jersey, sat for a bit on bench, looking up at the wall and fingering a rosary. He said it was the first time he’d been able to return to the site since the attacks. “I lost 343 brothers that day,” he said. He turned to Gorman as he walked down the backdoor ramp. “Thank you.”

Gorman isn’t sure what lies ahead for his bus. “I really wanted to leave it here with New York City,” he said. “So I hope I can do that. I want to start building my War on Terror Memorial sometime soon.”