Five Victims of Sept. 11 Were Residents of University Park

Five University Park residents were among those who died on the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Charles Falkenberg and Leslie Whittington, and their children Zoe and Dana were on American Airlines Flight 77, which hit the Pentagon.

They were headed to Australia, where Whittington, an associate professor and associate dean at Georgetown, planned to work for a few months at the Australian National University in Canberra.

Zoe, who was eight years old and a student at University Park Elementary, loved reading Harry Potter. She was the first to cross a 31-foot bridge over Wells Run from University Park Town Park to the school, and a small granite memorial near the bridge notes that it is officially the Zoe Falkenberg Memorial Bridge.

Her sister Dana, who was three, was the youngest victim on board the flight.

Inside the Pentagon was University Park resident Sheila M.S. Hein, who was at the Pentagon taking part in an Army internship .

On the 20th anniversary of Sept. 11, as during other times of the year, friends and family, and neighbors, have been laying fresh flowers for the five fallen residents at the University Park Community Memorial, which is made of granite and was constructed in a grove of trees at the end of Wells Parkway in 2005, with five rocks representing each of the victims.

The memorial was designed by University Park sculptor Tom Ashcraft, who is also behind the faces at the Mount Rainier roundabout.

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