Tuesday October 9, 2001

NEW YORK - A plane heads towards the first World Trade Center tower, seemingly hovering in limbo before impact. The American flag rises in the background.

All on someone's skin.

In the aftermath of the catastrophe, some New Yorkers have commemorated the events of Sept. 11 permanently on their bodies.

Recent weeks have seen a relative increase in requests for patriotic tattoo designs in studios in Greenwich Village and the Lower East Side.

"American flags are very, very popular," Dan Henk, 28, an artist at Andromeda Tattoo on St. Marks Place, said. "Eagles with the flag in the background, basically anything pro-American."

At Fine Line Tattoo on First Avenue between First and Second Streets, the proprietor, Mike Bakaty, and an artist who goes by "Skull" have overseen a few custom designs.

In the largest and most distinct design, the twin towers formed the ones in the number "911." A plane was inked flying towards the first tower, and the entire design was filled in with the stars and stripes of the American flag, Bakaty said.

"We did a Statue of Liberty with the words, 'Never forget,'" Bakaty said. "We also did an American flag on a 69-year-old woman."

Representations have been more symbolic at New York Adorned, a jewelry and tattoo shop on Second Avenue, said Leah Bershad, an employee in charge of the front room there.

"Someone came in and got two black bars," Bershad said. "A woman on the 54th floor (of World Trade Center Two) also came in. She got the number 54, a two because she was in the second building, her birth date and some other stuff in a banner on her wrist."

Henk said artists at Andromeda tattooed a large group of firemen and emergency workers one Monday after the disaster.

"They all got the flag," he said. "They came in all dusty and tired and drinking, which we never usually allow, but who were we to tell them not to drink?"

Still, Henk and Bakaty reported an overall decrease in business.

"September is always the slowest month, regardless," Henk said, "but it's never been this slow."

"It's more slow than it normally would be this time of year," Skull said.

Bershad said there had been no slowdown at New York Adorned.

Of the existing business, most tattoo designs still run along the usual lines.

Bershad said that artists at New York Adorned had done about 10 to 15 WTC-related tattoos, but they were "definitely not the majority" of recent work.

Hen personally did two flag tattoos, and Skull and Bakaty said they had done about five at Fine Line.

"I mean, it's the East Village, there's not a lot of patriots," Bakaty said. "There's lots of commies and alternative lifestyle people."