Bojan Kostic, 34 (from the Sunday NYT)
It was Grand Army Plaza, in front of the Plaza Hotel, that hooked Mr. Kostic on New York. He had grown up in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, and moved to Iowa in the mid-1980's for college. On a school trip to New York, Grand Army Plaza was where the bus let him off.
"That's when he decided to move here," said his fiancee. "He loved it - the energy, the excitement - everything about the city."
He soon dropped out of school and took a job painting houses in Connecticut, eventually enrolling in Baruch College. That was typical of 'Bo,' as people called him: he was straightforward, honest, and reliable...and he knew what he wanted. He liked to arrive at his office at Cantor Fitzgerald by 6 a.m. daily.
In early September, Bo went home to his West side apartment to eagerly sort mail, as he'd been doing for some time, looking for the letter telling him that he was eligible to become a United States citizen.
On the night of September 10th, his fiancee quizzed him for his citizenship test, asking him to name the original 13 states.
"He got them all," she said. "He was ready." |
