Christina Sunga Ryook, 25; a University of Michigan graduate, who worked in human resources for Cantor Fitzgerald. She served as an officer in both the Asian American Association and the Korean Students Association at U-M. A cultural program with the latter group for adopted Korean children won recognition as best of its kind by the United Asian Associations Organization.
Special to Newsday, By EMILY NGO, September 11, 2011
They came from Pennsylvania, Ohio, California and other corners of the country — 75 in all — to remember one young victim of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Christina Ryook, 25 when she died on the 104th floor of the north World Trade Center tower, was “the most lovely girl. Warm. Charming,” recalled her uncle Charles Shin, 69, of Cleveland.
He was one of those who came to Ryook’s memorial weekend, which included a massive dinner Saturday night.
Ryook, a Westlake, Ohio native who lived in Manhattan, worked in human resources at Cantor Fitzgerald, the financial firm that lost 658 employees that fateful day. “Family, friends, classmates, children. We’re all here,” said Shin.
Lauren Woo, a childhood friend of Ryook’s who lives in San Diego and helps organize the annual gatherings, said usually about 50 people attend.
But this year, there was a larger turnout and her parents, Dae Jin and Kyung, for the first time visited the newly opened 9/11 memorial in lower Manhattan. There, they used blue crayon to make a rubbing of their daughter’s name, Christina Sunga Ryook, as it’s inscribed on the memorial.
Sunday afternoon, some members of the memorial party attended a Cantor Fitzgerald-hosted ceremony under a sprawling white tent in Central Park’s Rumsey Playfield.
Friends and family wore T-shirts in blue — the same blue as Ryook’s alma mater, University of Michigan — with the name of the foundation created in Ryook’s honor. Shin said the foundation funds “scholarships, charities, libraries, everything, because she was our everything.”