BY FRANK WILKES LESNEFSKY
When Mark Desire speaks today at the Carbondale Public Library about identifying Sept. 11 victims, Stephanie Spaid hopes listeners remember the stories.
“This man has more than 1,200 individual stories that he could share,” said Spaid, the assistant to the director at the library.
The Carbondale Public Library and Valley Community Library in Blakely will each commemorate the 20th anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks this month with exhibits from the 9/11 Memorial & Museum.
While researching ways to commemorate Sept. 11, Spaid stumbled on Desire’s name. He was very receptive, offering to come and speak, she said.
Desire is the assistant director with the New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner, working in New York City’s DNA crime lab, according to the International Symposium on Human Identification. He is also the manager of the World Trade Center DNA Identification Team, which is dedicated to advancing the science and helping return loved ones to their families.
Desire was part of a four-person team at Ground Zero when the South Tower fell. Since then, he has spent 20 years working to identify the victims of the attack. At 3 p.m. in the library’s second-floor conference room, Desire will tell that story.
“It’s a story of commitment and never giving up,” Desire said. “Pushing the science out of necessity to make identifications so you could return their loved ones to their families.”
Forensic scientists are trained to not get emotionally involved, but it’s different with the World Trade Center, Desire said. He works closely with victims’ families, giving them tours of the crime lab, introducing them to the scientists and showing them the work that goes into identifying their loved ones.
Even after more than 1,200 identifications, the experience is still powerful.
“You get chills,” Desire said. “You’ve been able to do something that 20 years worth of forensic scientists, hundreds of forensic scientists, they hadn’t been able to do, and you finally come through. You finally push the limits of the science.”
Desire has spoken at libraries in New Jersey, but none in Northeast Pennsylvania.
He is the remaining member of the original forensics team assigned to identify the remains of Sept. 11 victims.
“The history and the story, it needs to get out,” he said.
Just outside the conference room where he will speak, the library opened its 9/11 Memorial & Museum exhibit. The Valley Community Library’s version of the exhibit will open Monday.
Titled “September 11, 2001: The Day That Changed the World,” the educational exhibit recounts the events of Sept. 11 through personal stories of those who witnessed and survived the attacks, according to the Valley Community Library. It consists of 14 posters that include archival photographs and images of artifacts from the 9/11 Memorial & Museum’s permanent collection.
Kristen Wallo, the programming and fundraising librarian at the Valley Community Library, said they normally hold a flag ceremony with the local Boy Scouts troop, but because of COVID-19, they thought the posters could give people a way to safely commemorate the day.
The museum only had a limited number of posters to send out, and Wallo was enthusiastic the library was among the recipients.
Fawn Contreras, the youth services clerk at the library, hopes people take away the strong sense of community that arose from the attack.
“How our nation came together in our greatest time of need,” Contreras said. “We saw great acts of braveness with people — the first responders — that helped out, and the strong sense of togetherness that our nation felt afterwards in our time of mourning and honoring those that we lost that day.”
Contact the writer: flesnefsky@timesshamrock.com; 570-348-9100 x5181
Caitlin Heaney West is the content editor for Access NEPA and oversees the Early Access blog in addition to working as a copy editor and staff writer for The Times-Tribune. An award-winning journalist, she is a summa cum laude graduate of Shippensburg University and also earned a master’s degree from Marywood University. Caitlin joined the Times-Shamrock family in 2009 and lives in Scranton. Contact: cwest@timesshamrock.com; 570-348-9100 x5107; or @cheaneywest
