Artist's tribute on display at Sahara West

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By JAN HOGAN

VIEW STAFF WRITER

Recent visitors to the Sahara West Library might have noticed the two displays near the entrance, collectively titled "Schwinn Towers."

They are the work of Tony Abraham, 40, an instrumentation technician for the Regional Transportation Commission who originally hails from Queens, N.Y. He lived there until he graduated high school, before entering the Air Force to become an aircraft mechanic.

Abraham maintains his longtime hobby as a bicycle restorer, something he began as a child. That, combined with the New Yorker's reaction to Sept. 11 resulted in the patriotic tribute at the library.

He restored two bicycles to commemorate the five-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks. It took seven months of work. Both bikes date back to 1971, which was about the time the towers opened. He added a special touch to one -- an antenna -- to make it even more relevant to the tragedy. One of the towers had an antenna, the other didn't.

"Some people don't pick up on the relevance, the antenna part," he said.

Kim Clanton-Green, branch manager at Sahara West Library, said she didn't notice the connection, either. But she did notice people stopping to view the exhibits every time she passed that way.

"Mr. Abraham has done displays for us before, and people are always commenting on his work, his craftsmanship," she said. "We always get positive remarks on his work."

Abraham's brother Sammy is a longtime police officer in New York and was part of the cleanup effort after the towers fell.

"Television doesn't come close to telling you what it was like, the smell of death and all," Tony Abraham said.

He said his brother's stories of what he experienced at Ground Zero inspired him to create the display. One bike is a coaster-brake style and cost $1,500 to restore. The other is a five-speed bike. The latter is the one with the antenna. It cost $3,000 to restore.

A friend who also felt touched to remember the tragedy with his handiwork was Mike Sciortino, who owns a number of paint and body shops. He handcrafted and painted a guitar that has patriotic phrases, such as, "We will never forget."

The display also includes smaller items such as bumper stickers, a framed poster of a firefighter raising the American flag, a candleholder with two tall towers on a skyline, NYPD patches and American flags.

Abraham's wife, Maria, is credited with the title for the display.

"I was going to call it something different, but then she said, 'Why don't you call it 'Schwinn Towers?' " he said. "There it was, right in front of me, and I didn't even see it."

The display was unveiled on Sept. 1 and will stay up through this month.