9/11 Memorial Gaffe: Victim's Name Misspelled

The name of a Sept. 11 victim etched on the just newly opened memorial in Lower Manhattan was misspelled, his family told NBC New York.

I couldn't believe it, said Janice Hart, whose brother, Jeffrey Schreier, died while working in the mail room at brokerage firm Cantor Fitzgerald. Schreier, whose remains were never recovered, was one of 658 from the firm who died that day.

The memorial, which opened Sunday, on the 10th anniversary of the attacks, features 2,983 names etched in bronze panels surrounding 30-foot waterfalls. The square pools replicate the footprints of the twin towers.

Hart, and her husband, David Hart, first noticed the error Sunday after locating Schreier's among the thousands of other names enshrined on the memorial.

As I was looking at the name, all of a sudden, I realized this name was not quite spelled correctly, David Hart said. You feel as though Jeffrey's soul is now looking down and saying, 'Can't you get my name right?

Schreier's first name was misspelled. The inscription reads Jeffery rather than Jeffrey.

This is the only place we could go to have some solace, and to see his name engraved incorrectly was very distressing to us, Janice Hart said.

In a statement Monday, 9/11 Memorial Spokesman Michael Frazier acknowledge the mistake, saying we regret the error. According to Frazier, the letters in Schreier's first name were apparently reversed while entering it into a database.

As soon as we found out about this error, we began working on how to make it right and we're engaged with our fabricators, contractors and the architect to do so, he said.

The memorial told NBC New York on Tuesday that the error would be fixed this week.

It would just be a beautiful thing for us to come down there and see everything perfect and know his soul is at rest, said David Hart.