On Saturday evening, civic leaders Wally Marks, and Lyn and Marc Cohen, representing the Miracle Mile Civic Coalition and the First-In Fire Foundation, placed flags and remembrance notes at the 9/11 Miracle Mile stone monument installed 2008 honoring American Airlines Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. The monument commemorates the heroic efforts of Capt. Charles Burlingame, his crew, and passengers, including a group of students and their teachers bound for a naturalist field trip to Santa Cruz Island.
Captain Burlingame’s brother Brad was a Miracle Mile resident and a friend of Cohen’s and also of former Miracle Mile Resident Association president Jim O’Sullivan. Together they worked to install the monument in Hancock Park. The monument is set among a grove of trees planted with the LA/Hollywood Beautification Team from 2004 to approximately 2015.
Burlingame and his wife Diane visit the monument annually, as do firefighters from Fire Station 61.
“The trees honor the students and the flight crew,” Cohen told the Buzz. “There is one tree for firefighters and one tree for police officers “standing guard” on watch over those loved and lost.”
Cohen said the group intended for the memorial to be a permanent installation in the park.
“This is now sacred ground,” explained Cohen. “This is a wonderful evolving story with contributions from the Page Museum of the Natural History Museum, with support at all levels of the museum from the president down, working closely with community leadership of the Miracle Mile Civic Coalition, First-In Fire Foundation, Miracle Mile Residential Association, Los Angeles Fire Department, Los Angeles Police Department, Miracle Mile Chamber of Commerce, LA County District 3 Supervisors Office, the D.A.R , clergy (both pastors and rabbis), local schools, most key local businesses, and corporations (like the Original Farmers Market, Park LaBrea, Walter Marks Realty, etc.).”
In the past, 9/11 ceremonies have included representatives of all these groups, including state officials. The ceremonies usually concluded with blessings and a moment of silence, and often by joining hands together and
singing “God Bless America,” recalled Cohen, who said she regrets that such ceremonies were not possible this year because of COVID.
“It has been our pleasure and our honor to do this service as a public trust,” said Cohen. “We hope next year beyond COVID, the Museum could join with us to further protect and spruce up this historic site.”
