The sun shines down on 250 faces of those who died on September 11, 2001. Their photos are placed in Angels' Circle on Father Capodanno Boulevard on Staten Island. 

Wendy Pellegrino founded the memorial.

What You Need To Know

  • Wendy Pellegrino started Angels' Circle on the night of the September 11 attacks

  • The community helped her make the memorial into what it is today

  • She holds her ceremony on September 10 so families can go to Ground Zero on the anniversary of 9/11

“It was actually the night of 9/11. Watching TV and watching everything that was happening, I remembered — I get emotional — I remembered feeling so sad that I realized that no one was going to be found and everyone was buried under the rubble,” said Pellegrino. “I came out here at three in the morning, it was just dirt here, and I placed two candles and a sign that I made that said ‘God Bless America’ and the following days people started putting pictures of their loved ones on popsicle sticks next to the candles and the sign and they were still looking for their loved ones. So they would put pictures saying ‘missing,’ ‘have you seen,’ ‘this is my son,’ ‘this is my daughter.’”

Since then, the community has come together to help Wendy make the memorial what it is today: an intersection on a busy road that brings comfort to those who suffered a great loss. All of those placed in the memorial died on the day of the attack. Wendy says she still receives calls to place photos of lost loved ones. 

“It was a sad experience because I was meeting so many mothers who lost their children and yet I felt compelled, I don't know why, to give them a place to come that would not be like a cemetery and the fact that all these people died together and they are here together,” said Pellegrino.

Wendy says that in the nights following the attack she would come out every night to console those that came by the makeshift memorial. 

“There are so many stories here of parents that made their child go to work that morning and didn’t wanna go and suffered immensely from the grief from doing that. There are people that weren’t supposed to go to work that day that changed days with somebody,” said Pellegrino.

Twenty years later, Pellegrino says it is important to continue honoring those that died. She holds a ceremony at the circle every year on September 10, so that families can go to Ground Zero on the anniversary of 9/11. 

Her ceremony was canceled last year due to COVID, so she says this year’s tribute will be even more significant as we remember a day that changed the lives of so many 20 years ago.