Remembering The Daughter Of A Berkeley Couple 20 Years After 9/11

BERKELEY, NJ — Anyone older than 25 in Berkeley likely remembers where they were on 9/11.

Americans felt a collective trauma as first one and then another plane flew into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001. As the truth dawned on people watching from their TVs that America was under attack, another plane took aim at the Pentagon. A fourth was brought down in a field in Pennsylvania in a final act of heroism by passengers who realized their flight had been hijacked.

Nearly 3,000 Americans, including the daughter of a Berkeley couple, were killed in the suicide attacks carried out by 19 militants associated with the Islamic extremist group al-Qaida.

On the 20th anniversary of the attacks, our state remembers and mourns Colleen Ann Barkow, the daughter of Berkeley residents Tom and JoAnn Meehan.

Barkow, 26, worked as a project manager for Cantor Fitzgerald on the 103rd floor of the North Tower. Barkow helped oversee the building of things, including most recently the firm's cafeteria, according to her obituary.

At the time, she was also using her talents to oversee the building of something special: a new home for her and her husband, Daniel Barkow, in the Poconos.

"This house was their pride and joy," her father said.

The young couple even created a website that tracked their new home's construction phases so friends and family could watch it rise.

She and her husband were planning to move in on Oct. 1. The couple would have celebrated their one-year wedding anniversary the following week on Sept. 17.

Tom and JoAnn Meehan shared their story of losing their daughter with Patch for the 10th anniversary of 9/11.

Read the full story here.

All 9/11 victims will be remembered at memorial services planned across the nation on Sept. 11 to mark the 20th anniversary of the attacks.

In Berkeley Township, officials will commemorate the anniversary on Saturday in Veterans Park at 5 p.m. during the township’s community pride day.

At the 9/11 memorial in Lower Manhattan, New York — an area known for years after the attacks as "Ground Zero" — the names of the fallen will be read aloud.

"Throughout the ceremony, we will observe six moments of silence, acknowledging when each of the World Trade Center towers was struck and fell and the times corresponding to the attack on the Pentagon and the crash of Flight 93," the 9/11 Memorial & Museum wrote on its website.
The annual "Tribute of Light," which are lights pointed to the sky in the shape of the Twin Towers, will go on that night.

Most 9/11 victims were from either New York or New Jersey, where many who lived across the Hudson River from the World Trade Center recall the horror of watching the twin towers collapse from their homes in Hoboken and Jersey City.

More than 2,700 people died at the World Trade Center alone on 9/11, including the passengers of American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175. Another 184 were killed when American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into The Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and 44 died on United Airlines Flight 93 near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.