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September 10, 2026 — REMEMBERING 911 - Herald Community Newspapers

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Bystanders watched the Twin Towers explode. The photo is on permanent exhibit at the 9/11 Memorial Museum at Ground Zero.

25 years later, 9/11 still resonates

By JEFFREY BESSEN

jbessen@liherald.com

We’ll NEVER

FORGET. In remembrance of the brave heroes, the innocent lives lost, and the strength that brought us together.

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Today and every day, we honor.

One-year anniversary, five-year anniversary, 10-year anniversary, 15-year anniversary, 20-year anniversary — and all the years in between — and now it’s been 25 years since a beautiful late summer Tuesday was shattered beyond belief by four planes. The Twin Towers at the World Trade Center in Manhattan, the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia and Flight 93 near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Several other WTC buildings were destroyed or severely damaged in the seven-building complex. Lives were lost — 2,753 at the trade center site — 184 people at the Pentagon — 44 on Flight 93. These numbers do not include the hijackers. The Herald’s special section marking the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks brings together deeply personal accounts of survival, sacrifice and service, along with stories of how Long Island communities continue to honor those affected. Survivors and first responders recall the chaos of that morning and the lasting physical and emotional toll of the attacks, while families share memories of loved ones whose lives were forever changed by their work at Ground Zero. The section also explores the legacy of Sept. 11 across Nassau County, from firefighters and police officers that continue to serve despite health challenges to children and families inspired by the courage of those who responded. Stories examine memorial street names, tributes to volunteer firefighters, photographs

from the Herald archives and the ways families and communities are ensuring that the memories and lessons of Sept. 11 endure for a new generation. We honor those whose names we still remember by preserving their stories through the names and, when possible, photographs of local residents who were killed in the attacks. The Herald’s special section marking the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks is not simply a look back at one of the darkest days in American history. It is also a reflection on the present and, in many ways, the future. A quarter of a century may seem like a long time, particularly to those who were not yet born on Sept. 11, 2001. But for countless people, the impact of that day is not confined to the past. First responders and survivors continue to face health consequences. Families continue to mourn loved ones. Children and grandchildren are growing up with stories of sacrifice, courage and loss that have become part of their own family histories. This special section shares those deeply personal stories. They remind us that everyone experiences Sept. 11 differently. For some, the memories remain as vivid as yesterday. For younger generations, the attacks may seem like history, learned through photographs, documentaries and the stories of parents and grandparents. Yet Sept. 11, 2001, left an indelible imprint on all of us. Its legacy continues to shape our communities, our families and the generations still to come.

•••

By AIDAN WARSHAVSKY

awarshavsky@liherald.com

Courtesy Joe Ruvolo

Joe Ruvolo, a retired NYPD Highway Patrol officer, recalls responding to the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, and the lessons he carried home from that day. Driving through Midtown, Ruvolo said it was eerily quiet. People were walking in the street, but vehicle traffic was uncharacteristically light. He and McNamara crossed 34th Street and drove down the West Side Highway, with people holding up signs and shouting words of encouragement as they passed. Ruvolo was on Chambers Street, just a block away from Stuyvesant High School, when the North Tower fell at 10:28 a.m. With the dust

cloud from the tower’s collapse approaching, He and McNamara ran into the school. After the cloud passed and they stepped outside, Ruvolo said nothing was recognizable “Everything was covered in a dust, and the air was pretty thick,” Ruvolo said. “I walked over to a Poland Spring truck and poured a five-gallon water jug over my head to wash all the dust off.” For two weeks, Ruvolo was assigned to the

•••

25 years later, the memory of 9/11 remains close to the hearts of so many across Long Island and beyond. We honor the lives lost and salute those who acted with extraordinary courage.

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On Sept. 11, 2001, many people left their homes unaware of what the morning would bring. For Hewlett resident Joe Ruvolo, 65, his day began in Springfield Gardens, Queens, with the New York Police Department Highway Patrol. After the South Tower was struck at 9:03 a.m., Ruvolo said every NYPD department was mobilized to Manhattan, but not before he was asked to bring his supervisor 9/11 John Sassano’s Everything was car to the World Trade covered in a dust, Center. and the air was Sassano’s pretty thick. driver, John McNamara, — Joe Ruvolo, Hewlett came into the office after seeing the news and joined Ruvolo. As they were heading toward the Midtown Tunnel on the Long Island Expressway, they saw a sign that read, “New York City closed to all traffic.” It wasn’t long before they could see smoke. “[We] knew that the tower had been struck,” Ruvolo said. “We kind of knew it was a terrorist attack at that point. We knew what we were going into, but we were apprehensive about what we would find when we got there.”

Emergency Operations Center at 1 Police Plaza in lower Manhattan, representing the Highway Patrol. He helped organize escorts for building department officials, food and supply donations to first responders and heavy equipment from across the tri-state area. Ruvolo said leaders assigned to the center were told not to go to Ground Zero because of their roles. When he took a motorcycle there two weeks later, he saw the devastation. He said the air had a “wet concrete smell” and little fires continued to burn. “It was this landscape of debris,” Ruvolo said. “Building debris, an occasional [emergency] vehicle. I came to recognize that everything was pulverized from the collapse.” He said every police officer who responded was assigned an exposure number due to the toxic chemicals in the air and goes for what is called a “Sept. 11 physical.” He noted he’s developed an unidentifiable asthma from inhaling the air at Ground Zero. Ruvolo and his wife, Michele, 60, have two sons — Brian, 28 and Tyler, 24. When they were growing up, he said, he established a rule. “I’ve taught my kids to never leave the house angry and never leave the house without saying ‘I love you,” Ruvolo said. “Many people left the house that day, and some of them, I’m sure, were fighting with their wives and their kids, and people never got the opportunity to say I love you.”

September 10, 2026 — REMEMBERING 911 - Herald Community Newspapers

Joe Ruvolo remembers the morning everything changed

A day of waiting at St. John’s Episcopal Hospital

Almost immediately, the hospital shifted into disaster-response mode. For Dr. Suzanne Noncritical patients were Sirota Rozenberg, Sept. 11, discharged or moved 2001, began like any other to make room for an workday. But as she drove expected wave of critito work, the physician cally injured patients. Staff heard reports of the first members were told to plane striking the World remain at the hospital, Trade Center and quickly and physicians canceled realized the day would be their regular office hours anything but ordinary. as everyone prepared for Rozenberg, who what they believed would has worked at St. John’s be an influx of victims. Courtesy Episcopal Health Services Episcopal Hospital in Far Hospitals outside Dr. Suzanne Sirota Rozenberg has been with Episcopal Health Services Manhattan, including St. Rockaway since 1996, is for 30 years. now chief of dermatology John’s and others near the and program director of Queens-Nassau border, the Dermatology Resiwere expected to receive dency Program at Episcopal Health Services. stable patients transferred from city hospitals She was with the hospital’s family practice so those facilities could focus on treating the team at the time. When she arrived at the most seriously injured. hospital that morning, she ran to the waiting But the anticipated wave of patients never room, where staff members were watching came. the television coverage. “We were sitting and waiting and waiting “I watched the second plane hit, and then for patients to come in,” Rozenberg said. “And the buildings go down,” Rozenberg recalled. no patients from those other hospitals came.” “We were like, ‘Oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, As the reality of the devastation became my God.’” clearer, the hospital staff remained ready to By MELISSA BERMAN

mberman@liherald.com

cers and the lung disease from all the debris,” help. Rozenberg described the atmosphere as she said. “That’s today’s feelings, but then you one of dread mixed with an instinctive desire were dealing with the acute injury.” to do something. For Rozenberg, the effects of Sept. 11 “Everybody’s basic instincts as a physiextended well beyond the hospital. For years cian kicked in — what can I do to help?” she afterward, she said, she said. could not listen to music Staff members while driving. Instead, she initially expected to treat listened constantly to the acute trauma, including news, worried about what broken bones, head injuYou had to learn might happen next. ries and other musculothe new normal Even today, she said, skeletal injuries. Instead, in the world. seeing the two beams of they spent much of Sept. light at the site brings the 11 waiting and watching — Dr. Suzanne Sirota memories rushing back. the news. Rozenberg, Episcopal Health Services “It changed our lives The following day, irrevocably,” Rozenberg said, some patients began arriving with injuries recalling the fear surroundsustained while fleeing Lower Manhattan. ing travel, bridges, airplanes and the possibilRozenberg treated people experiencing pain ity of another attack. “You had to learn the in their legs and joints after walking or runnew normal in the world.” ning long distances to escape the area. Others She also said the experience underscored struggled with anxiety and the psychological the important role health care workers and effects of what they had witnessed. first responders play during crises — even Looking back 25 years later, Rozenberg when the patients they expect never arrive. said the hospital’s expectations that day were “Everybody’s role is important,” she said. focused on immediate trauma. What followed “We’re always the first ones that show up. We in the years afterward was a much longer run to help. We don’t run the other way.” health crisis. ••• “Today, you’re dealing with all the can-

WE REMEMBER September 11, 2001

Honoring the lives lost, the heroes who answered the call, and the strength of their families and our community.

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September 10, 2026 — REMEMBERING 911 - Herald Community Newspapers

By ANDREW FRANCIS

afrancis@liherald.com

Like many Long Island and New York communities, Freeport’s losses connected to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks are painful scars on local households and the village at large. These losses, however, have not prevented Freeport from making concerted efforts to remember and honor the legacies of those lost, which has helped their lights burn as bright as ever 25 years later. One of the families forever 9/11 impacted by the terror attacks is the Muldowney family, who This is what we lost two close relatives, Richard do to keep his Muldowney Jr. and Kenneth name out there Watson, who were New York City firemen and courageously went … we can towards danger to help respond to never forget. the devastating destruction that — Kevin Muldowney, occurred during the crumbling of Freeport the towers. Public service is a commitment that the Muldowney family has been familiar with. Richard’s father, Richard Sr., was a Freeport police detective who died in 1999. Kevin Muldowney, Richard Sr.’s son and Jr.’s brother, is a former chief of the Freeport Fire Department and a New York City police detective who retired in 2003. Kevin had the grim task of trying to find is brother at Ground Zero, which he unfortunately could not do. Later on, DNA testing eventually helped identify his remains.

Courtesy Kevin Muldowney

Richard Muldowney Jr. with his son John on a 1997 boat ride. Despite these devastating losses, the Muldowney family has remained focus over the years on ensuring that the sacrifice of their loved ones and the loved ones of the thousands who died on that day or because of those attacks, are not in vain.

“For years we dedicated ourselves to helping and assisting the Tunnel to Towers Foundation in any way which can raise money,” Kevin Muldowney, a long-time Freeport firefighter, the brother of Richard and the cousin of Watson, said of his family. “We attend the [5K] Run and Walk every year with a large group of 100 or more, and we’re very proud of that. This is what we do to keep his name out there … we can never forget.” The Freeport Fire Department and other village officials and residents have been active in preserving the memories and names of 30 Freeport community members who either died in the immediate wreckage of the attacks or from Sept. 11 related illnesses later on. The village holds an annual memorial service located on South Bayview Avenue and Ray Street, the location of a special lighthouse memorial with the names of 26 victims, four more being added this year who succumbed to illnesses. Additionally, a shed memorial structure, which is currently housed at the Freeport Historical Society, is being revived by the fire department and intended to be brought to this year’s commemoration services. “We want all village residents to attend,” Kevin said of this year’s event. “We’ve been blessed with their [village officials’] assistance in everything that we need to keep the structure, the remembrance lighthouse, going. But we would like everybody to attend, especially children. We gotta explain to them that this they were heroes. They were victims and they were heroes.”

•••

Remembering SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 – 2026 Twenty-five years later, we remember the lives lost, the families forever changed,

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September 10, 2026 — REMEMBERING 911 - Herald Community Newspapers

Muldowney family carries forward Sept. 11 stories

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September 10, 2026 — REMEMBERING 911 - Herald Community Newspapers

W E W I L L N EV E R FORGET

By HERNESTO GALDAMEZ

Twenty-five years after the Sept. 11 attacks, students at Mepham High School are learning about an event they never experienced firsthand while carrying forward a tradition created to ensure its victims are not forgotten. For social studies teacher Kerry Dennis, the change in generations is particularly striking. When she began teaching at Mepham 22 years ago, some of her students had lost parents or family members on Sept. 11, 2001. Today, her students were born after the attacks, but many still have personal connections to the day through their families. Bellmore-Merrick’s strong first-responder community has also kept those connections close, Dennis said. “While they didn’t live through the events, I do think that many of them know from their families the significance of those events,” she said. At Mepham, 9/11 is not treated as a single history lesson. Students in Participation in Government, a senior social studies course, spend six weeks studying the events leading up to the attacks and their lasting impact. The unit covers the formation and growth of Al-Qaeda, the attacks, changes to American culture, domestic and foreign policy, the war in Afghanistan and the hunt for Osama bin Laden. Students also examine the attacks’ effects on music, television and sports.

Herald file photo

Students and staff at Mepham High School participate in the school’s annual Stairway Climb, honoring the lives lost on Sept. 11, 2001, and recognizing the first responders who made the ultimate sacrifice. Dennis said students are particularly engaged because many are aware but have never learned the details. “They know what happened, but they don’t know a lot of the details about what happened,” she said. The school has also brought students to the 9/11 Memorial & Museum in Manhattan in the past, an experience Dennis described as memorable and impactful. Outside the classroom, Mepham has developed its own tradition of remembrance. The school’s annual Stairway Climb was created by the Class of 2023 after students were inspired by the Tunnel to Towers Stair Climb at One World Trade Center. Participants climb the

equivalent of 110 flights of stairs throughout Mepham’s three-story building, with the names of the 2,977 victims displayed along the route. The event is named the Manuel Mojica Stairway Climb in memory of FDNY firefighter Manuel Mojica, a Bellmore resident and father who was 37 when he died on 9/11. Mojica’s connection to Mepham made his story especially meaningful. His children, Stephanie and Manny, are Mepham graduates, and Dennis and social studies teacher Chris Patten taught them. Manny was about 5-yearsold when his father died and later became a firefighter himself. For Dennis, honoring Mojica allows students to see that 9/11 affected people from their

own community. “To know that other students who walk through the halls of Mepham had a parent lose their life on that day or sacrifice the way that Manny Mojica did,” Dennis said, “I think it just was fitting that we paid tribute to somebody who had a personal connection to our building.” The Mojica family has continued to participate in the school’s remembrance, connecting current students with the history they are learning. As students climb the school’s stairs, they encounter the names of every person killed in the attacks. For Dennis, that connection between education and remembrance has become increasingly important as fewer students have firsthand memories of 9/11. She was 20 when the attacks happened and said teaching the unit still brings her back to that day. “I just can’t believe that it’s been 25 years,” Dennis said. While today’s students cannot remember where they were on Sept. 11, Dennis believes they can understand its significance through their families, community and the people whose names they encounter at school. “We pledged as a country to never forget,” she said. “I think it’s so important that this not just be a quick event that we go over in a history textbook, especially living in a community that was impacted so profoundly by that event.”

•••

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September 10, 2026 — REMEMBERING 911 - Herald Community Newspapers

At Mepham, a new generation carries the memory

Dedicated street names preserve Baldwin’s 9/11 legacy

By ALLYSON FERRARI

aferrari@liherald.com

Twenty-five years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, reminders of the people Baldwin lost can be found on streets throughout the community. Ten members of the Baldwin community were killed on Sept. 11, 2001. In the years that followed, other Baldwin residents, including first responders and others exposed to the World Trade Center site, died after battling 9/11-related illnesses. Across the community streets have been dedicated in their memory, turning familiar corners into lasting memorials. In April 2003, Tennyson Avenue was dedicated as Brian G. McAleese Place in honor of the 36-year-old New York City firefighter and father of four who was killed in the line of duty on Sept. 11. Nearly 100 people attended the ceremony to unveil the street sign bearing his name. The McAleese family moved to Tennyson Avenue in 1973, and his mother, Ann Marie, was still living there at the time of the attacks. “He loved to be a fireman,” Dawn McAleese, Brian’s widow, told the Herald in 2001. “[Brian] said, ‘When we go to work, we don’t know if we’re coming home that night.’” In March 2011, Silver Lake Place was dedicated in tribute to Terrence J. Manning, 36, who grew up on the street. Manning, a father of two daughters and a computer consultant,

Herald file photo

A street sign bearing Terrence J. Manning’s name stands above Silver Lake Place in Baldwin, where Manning grew up. The street was renamed in his memory in March 2011, nearly a decade after he was killed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. was attending a conference in the World Trade Center’s north tower when the attacks occurred. Perhaps the most recognizable name memorialized on a Baldwin street is Bob Beckwith, the retired FDNY firefighter who became a symbol of the nation’s resilience after Sept. 11. Beckwith had been retired for seven years when he went to Ground Zero on Sept. 14, 2001, to help search for the missing son of his

longtime friend Jimmy Boyle. There, Beckwith stood alongside President George W. Bush atop a damaged fire truck as Bush addressed rescue workers through a bullhorn. With Bush’s arm around Beckwith, the moment was captured in photographs and video seen around the world. Away from the image that made him famous, Beckwith remained deeply rooted in

Baldwin. He and his wife, Barbara, settled on Fairview Avenue after marrying in 1957 and raised six children there. He attended St. Christopher’s Church and spent time at Baldwin American Legion Post 246. Beckwith died Feb. 4, 2024, at age 91 after battling melanoma attributed to his Ground Zero exposure. The Town of Hempstead later renamed Fairview Avenue in his honor. At Beckwith’s funeral, former U.S. Rep. Peter King remembered him as one of a kind. “I want to say that no one is indispensable,” King said in his eulogy. “Bob Beckwith is indispensable.” Baldwin’s street dedications have also come to reflect the continuing toll of Sept. 11. In June 2025, Parkview Place was dedicated as George Tripptree Way, for a Baldwin native and retired FDNY firefighter who died Sept. 23, 2022, at age 70 from World Trade Centerrelated illnesses. Tripptree spent much of his FDNY career with Ladder 173 and Engine 275. After his death, his family requested donations to the Ray Pfeifer Foundation, which assists first responders and others with medical needs. Nearly 25 years after the attacks, the names on Baldwin’s streets serve as permanent reminders that the community’s losses did not end on Sept. 11 — and neither did its commitment to remembering them.

•••

On this, the 25th anniversary of September 11, we pause to remember and honor the lives forever changed by the tragic events of 9/11. We remember the innocent lives lost, the families who were left grieving, and the countless acts of courage and selflessness shown by first responders, firefighters, police officers, military personnel, and ordinary citizens who came together in a time of unimaginable sorrow. As caregivers, the Cecere Family understands deeply the importance of remembering those we have lost. Their lives, their stories, and the love they shared continue to live on in the hearts of those who knew them. May we never forget the lives lost, the heroes who answered the call, and the spirit of compassion and unity that emerged in the face of tragedy.

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September 10, 2026 — REMEMBERING 911 - Herald Community Newspapers

SEPTEMBER 11, 2001

25 YEARS LATER

WE REMEMBER. WE HONOR. WE THANK YOU. On September 11, 2001, we lost firefighters, police officers, Port Authority officers, paramedics and EMS workers, and thousands of innocent civilians who never made it home. Twenty-five years later, Paraco pauses to remember those we lost, and to honor the courage of the first responders and heroes who continue to inspire us. Your service and sacrifice will never be forgotten.

Thank you.

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September 10, 2026 — REMEMBERING 911 - Herald Community Newspapers

Courage and loss remembered 25 years later

By CHRISTIE LEIGH BABIRAD, HUNTER FENOLLOL & CAROLYN JAMES

of the Herald

Long Island residents continue to remember the nearly 3,000 people who died and the profound changes 25 after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. For many, the day remains defined by memories of fear, uncertainty and loss — but also by the courage of first responders and the unity that followed. “We should never forget; that’s the major thing,” said Theodore “Ted” Corn, a captain with the Deer Park Fire Department’s Fire Police. “My son Jason is a survivor of 9/11. He was a lawyer working in the towers. He was in the North Tower. It took almost eight hours before we knew he made it out.” Corn also lost several friends from his fire department. Joe Pinto, now the Town of Oyster Bay’s parks commissioner, was working at LiRo Engineering and Construction Managers in Syosset when the attacks occurred. “Like most people, I remember exactly where I was that morning,” Pinto said. As news came of the attack on the Pentagon and the crash of United Flight 93 in Pennsylvania, he said, the sense of uncertainty grew. “Hearing about the Pentagon and the

Pittsburgh flight increased the uncomfortable feeling that no one anywhere was safe,.” Pinto began volunteering at Ground Zero on Sept. 15, working as many as 15 hours a day through June 2002. He continued returning periodically for three years. For Ken Haskell of Seaford, the attacks brought devastating personal loss. Haskell, then a New York City firefighter and former NYPD officer, was off duty when the first plane struck. Having responded to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, he feared the towers could be targeted again. “I knew we were being attacked,” Haskell said. “I went right to my firehouse.” He and other off-duty firefighters commandeered a bus and headed to Manhattan, where his brothers, Tommy and Timmy, were already responding. Both were killed. Haskell later learned that Timmy had gone back up the North Tower to help a fallen firefighter. Tommy died in the South Tower. He was a captain with Ladder 132. “I was proud of my brother, not surprised at the choice he made,” Haskell said of Timmy. Haskell now helps lead Seaford’s 9/11 Memorial Committee, which funds museum trips and scholarships honoring the five Seaford alumni killed in the attacks. “You never forget what happened,” he said. “You have a greater appreciation for life in

many ways.” The attacks also transformed Americans’ sense of security, leading to tighter airport security and changes at major public events. “I welcomed the increase in security because I felt it was a small price to pay to increase the safety of those who traveled by planes and to those who went to major events,” Pinto said. Babylon Town Supervisor Richard Schaffer said the impact was particularly personal on Long Island. “September 11th changed America, but it changed Long Island in a very personal way,” Schaffer said. “We lost 48 of our neighbors in Babylon Town that day, and the impact of that loss is still felt by their families and throughout our community.” Curtis Edwards, a North Babylon High School guidance counselor at the time, said the attacks changed Americans’ understanding of their vulnerability. “I believe the events of 9/11 changed everyday life in America and we became aware of what could happen, and what was possible, from a national security and safety perspective,” Edwards said. Jeffrey Myers, a retired North Babylon teacher and current Board of Education member, said preserving those lessons becomes increasingly important as a generation with no

Courtesy Ted Corn

Ted Corn, a captain with the Deer Park Fire Department’s Fire Police, remembers the fear and uncertainty of Sept. 11, 2001, when his son Jason escaped from the North Tower. Corn also lost several friends from his fire department in the attacks. firsthand memory of Sept. 11 grows up. “They should learn about the courage and selflessness displayed by our first responders and by ordinary citizens who helped one other,” Myers said. “As an educator, I think it is important that Sept. 11 does not simply become another date in a history book.” Corn said the unity that followed the attacks should not be forgotten. “People came together after it happened,” he said. “Now it’s starting to fade away again.”

•••

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ON THIS

25th Anniversary OF SEPTEMBER 11

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We honor the innocent lives lost, stand with the families forever changed, and pay tribute to the courage of our first responders. May their legacy inspire us to serve one another with kindness and unity.

A firefighter’s daughter finds her calling

By ALYSSA R. GRIFFIN

agriffin@liherald.com

As the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks approaches, I find myself thinking about my biggest inspiration: my father. At the time of the attacks, my family was preparing for my second birthday party. My dad, Raymond L. Griffin III, was a firefighter with Ladder 45. When the attacks happened, he dropped everything and rushed into Manhattan. For months afterward, he and other first responders returned for cleanup and recovery efforts, searching for their fellow firefighters. He never found anyone alive. I was too young to understand the magnitude of what had happened or what my dad and so many other first responders experienced. But as I grew older, I began to understand how deeply that day had affected him, our family and countless others. Throughout my childhood, he taught me not just to remember that day, but to honor the sacrifices that were made. For some households, 9/11 was a day of remembrance. In mine, it became a day of hurt, honor and pride in your community. Growing up, I witnessed firsthand the emotional and physical effects the attacks left on families, especially my own. Knowing my dad lost multiple friends that day and still lives with those heartbreaking memories has made every anniversary personal. For some people, 9/11 is a painful memory from 25 years ago. For my family, its effects continue today. It has been more than three years since my dad was diagnosed with stage 4 World Trade Center cancer. I was 23 when we got the news, and my heart sank. My dad is my hero, and I didn’t know how to process the possibil-

Alyssa R. Griffin/Herald

Alyssa R. Griffin credits her inspiration of becoming a journalist to her father, Raymond L. Griffin III, a retired rescue firefighter.

ity that the person I had always looked to for strength was facing something so frightening. Being there for him through each step, I watched the ups and downs of his journey. He never showed fear of being sick, but pain for losing what he loved to do most – help people in fires. Despite having to retire, I’m grateful that I get to spend more time with him and make more meaningful memories

together. After multiple surgeries, his scans are now clear of all cancer cells. My dad is the bravest man I know. His commitment to service extended far beyond Sept. 11. In addition to serving with Ladder 45 at the time of the attacks, he later served as a firefighter in Rescue 4. He was also on FEMA Task Force One and still serves as a commissioner with the Ronkonkoma Fire Department. He devoted his life to helping others and caring for his community, and he continues to do that today. Watching him taught me that serving a community can take many forms. It means showing up when people need you, caring about your neighbors and understanding that being part of a community comes with a responsibility to help make it stronger. I don’t run into burning buildings like my dad did. As a journalist, I serve my community differently. I work to give people a voice and make sure readers know about the decisions, events and issues that affect them and the places they call home. The professions may be different, but the lesson behind them is something I learned from him. Everything I know about being part of a community began with watching my dad. Twenty-five years after Sept. 11, I’m proud to carry that lesson with me and to serve communities in my own way. To my dad, you are more than just my father. You’re my hero. Thank you for showing me what it truly means to care for your community and your family. I love you, Dad.

•••

We Will Never Forget... Twenty-five years ago, amid the wreckage at Ground Zero, we witnessed not just devastation, but devotion — first responders, volunteers, and everyday people giving everything they had for strangers they would never meet. I was there among them, and what I saw has stayed with me ever since. Today, we think first of the nearly 3,000 lives lost, and the families who have carried that grief for a quarter century. We think, too, of those who worked tirelessly in the wreckage — searching, recovering, and caring for others, often at great personal cost. We remember them all, honoring their sacrifice and finding strength in the unity that carried us through then, and that carries us still. Today, and always, we stand together in remembrance.

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September 10, 2026 — REMEMBERING 911 - Herald Community Newspapers

elsewhere in Manhattan. I stepped outside to the East River esplanade to see if On the morning of anything was visible, but September 11, 2001, I from that vantage point arrived at Rockefeller the city looked strangely University sometime benormal. tween 6 and 7:30 a.m., as I Around 1 p.m., I usually did depending on decided to try driving whether I stopped at the home. The bridges were gym. open, and I made my way I was already at my to the Queensboro Bridge. desk when I noticed the I ended up in the outer first sign that something lane, driving slowly among was wrong: the internet Courtesy Joseph Fernandez massive crowds of people went down. A few minutes Franklin Square resident Joseph walking out of Manlater, my wife called. She Fernandez, a quarter century after hattan. No one looked was off from work that day the Sept. 11 attack, reflected on the back — everyone moved and walking our daughters loss of a younger Rockefeller forward except for one University colleague. to grammar school. She person standing on the asked if I was OK. I told bridge supports taking pictures of downtown. her yes, aside from a mildly upset stomach I glanced toward where the towers from the night before — our 13th wedding should have been and saw only plumes of anniversary. smoke. The sight left me disgusted and heartI then realized she had the television on sick. The only communication during that in the background, something she never did drive home was the car radio, listening to the in the morning. She told me a plane had hit popular sports radio show, which of course the World Trade Center. Then she paused and had no conversations of sports that day. said she had just seen a second plane strike I reached home (in Franklin Square) the other tower. She told me they were calling around 5 p.m., having been able to call my it a terrorist attack. wife earlier to tell her I was on my way. Only Working on the East Side of Manhattan, then did I finally see the footage of what had I couldn’t see anything happening downtown. happened — how the towWith the internet down struck, how they ers were and my old cell phone fell, and I watched live as 9/11 offering no data or news, I the third building, 7 World had no way to understand I glanced toward Trade Center, collapsed. what was unfolding except where the towThe next day proved through phone calls — and even harder. Manhattan ers should have soon, I couldn’t make any. was closed, and my boss Both the landline and my been and saw only told me to stay home. He cell phone failed, leaving plumes of smoke. also asked whether I had me feeling isolated. I manThe sight left me seen Sal the day before. aged to reach my brother in disgusted and Salman Hamdani had South Carolina. I asked him been working with us heartsick. to call our mother in Flushfor a few months. I was ing to let her know I was — Joseph Fernandez, his direct supervisor and Franklin Square safe, and he also contacted scientific mentor. my wife. Sal was a Pakistani As coworkers arAmerican who had immigrated as a baby, a rived, including my boss, our administrative U.S. citizen with a chemistry degree, a police assistant suggested using the old AM/FM cadet, and a trained EMT. He was conscienradio we still had. Through that radio, we learned about the attack on the Pentagon and tious, kind, empathetic, and bright. He hadn’t come to work on 9/11, and I assumed he had the crash of Flight 93 in Pennsylvania. We listened as the reports came in that the towers stayed home once the towers were hit. His mother was searching for him, especially after had collapsed, one after the other. At some discovering he had accidentally left his cell point the landlines partially returned, and I phone at work — something he did often. received a few calls from scientific colleagues

September 10, 2026 — REMEMBERING 911 - Herald Community Newspapers

Fernandez recalls colleague Salman Hamdani

By JOSEPH FERNANDEZ

Holden Leeds/Herald

The Franklin Square and Munson Fire Department paid tribute to those who died on 9/11 at last year’s ceremony in Rath Park.

What followed was an investigation into Sal that, in my view, turned ugly. As his family became more assertive in trying to locate their missing son, the media grew more aggressive, labeling him a “person of interest” and putting his face in headlines. Eventually his knapsack was found at Ground Zero, and it became clear he had likely gone there to help because of his EMT training. I spoke with a New York detective and told him exactly that: Sal was a good young man who wanted to help. His remains were found in the rubble and identified by DNA in February 2002. I attended his funeral

at a large Manhattan mosque, surrounded by his family, friends and fellow police cadets. The experience changed me. Although I continued working in science at Rockefeller until retiring in 2018, my drive and passion for research were never the same. Other matters felt more important. Commuting into Manhattan after 9/11 became difficult both emotionally and logistically, often requiring me to arrive before 6 a.m. And I never mentored another young scientist after Sal. His loss stayed with me.

•••

September 10, 2026 — REMEMBERING 911 - Herald Community Newspapers

A survivor reflects on that fateful morning

By BOB PALLESCHI

the gravity of the situation. The acrid smell of jet fuel was apparent. I turned to my running mate and said, “jet fuel” that’s not good.” He nodded in agreement. I grew up in the 1960s across from Kennedy airport, and he having spent time in the military at an air base. The smell is distinct although not commonly recognized.

For many the horrors of that day have faded or at best linger in their thoughts while being prodded annually. For others such as myself, the memories of those gruesome events endure. Most will remember the clear blue sky that morning which was a refreshing signal of the end Courtesy Bob Palleschi The tragedy unfolds of heat and humidity and The memory of 9/11 continues to What happened after a herald of the cool crisp resonate for Bellmore resident Bob that was like a movie, days of fall that lie ahead. Palleschi. a war movie, a bad war The early morning serenity movie. We were not out of the elevator for gave no indication of the melee that was soon more than a minute or two and the second to take place. plane hit at 9:03 a.m. The building shook and Within hours the whole world would the debris from the impact, which included change. Throughout, history many events portions of the plane, fell to the ground changed the world — wars, depression, blocking the exit. Then screaming and panic famines and the like — but few changed the ensued. world as quickly as the terrorist events of Sept In the crowd I came upon an employee 11. who was older, sickly and struggling mightily Although my attention that day was with her asthma. We escorted her through directed at a business call that began at 7 a.m., the crowd and when I was trying to figure the loud bang did not go unnoticed by my out what next an MTA officer appeared, she colleague. In fact, not being accustomed to said softly and calmly to take her to the subdowntown, he asked what caused the debris way station where trains were running one to blow around on what earlier was such a stop in order to get people calm day. out. The office we had chosen Soon we were on the 9/11 for our monthly call was on E train arriving at Canal the east side of the south The serenity of Street, theoretically out of tower looking towards Brookdanger. As I reached the the suburbs stood lyn. Although I could see the station level there was an in stark contrast tons of debris floating in the unoccupied pay phone. air 59 stories up in the air, I to the havoc of As perfect as anything could not see the devastation Manhattan. had gone that morning, and havoc that was behind I reached into my pocket — Bob Palleschi us. The tower was ablaze with and found five dimes and people leaping to their death two pennies. It cost 50 to escape the inferno. cents to call Nassau County where I live. It As we were preparing to leave, there was was 9:15 a.m. My wife answered on the first a knock at the door and a very familiar voice ring she was terrified and told me she had calling out, “Bob are you in there?” It was a picked up our son from school and was waitcolleague who was assigned as a searcher. ing to hear from me. With an excited voice he said, “We must She told me that she had received over evacuate, everyone else is out already.” 100 calls. She also asked if I knew where our It seemed that no one knew we were in nephew was. He had begun working with the this spare office until he saw my briefcase on firm a year or so earlier. I calmly told her I my desk and knew that I was somewhere on was heading to the fallback site, and I would the floor. He informed us that the building find him and we would both head home. had been evacuated 15 minutes earlier. The I now began to recognize the scope of the floor was eerily empty when we left the office. situation. And then reaching the street level I had no inkling of the chaos that was I had a clear view south down what I think about to ensue. As we began our way down was Sixth or Seventh Avenue. I could see the the 118 flights of stairs, we were stopped gaping holes in both buildings with flames halfway by a security guard who said that shooting out. the building is secure you can go back to As I worked my way through the crowdyour offices. Easier said than done, when in a ed streets, I met a fellow employee whom I building that has 110 floors. had known for several years; he was in shock Having no understanding of the depth and kept mumbling something about Ameriof the situation we foolishly decided to take can Airlines. I did not understand but soon an elevator. It was a quick ride to the lobby, which was the route back to the 59th floor. As I would have the full picture. It was when I reached the fallback center that was bustling the doors opened, I caught my first sense of

Herald file photo Dozens of fire department personnel stood in salute of their fallen heroes on Sept. 11, 2025.

Herald file photo At last year’s Bellmore 9/11 ceremony, Gerard Prior was on hand to lay a wreath in honor of his late son, Kevin.

with activity, I was told that they had hit the Pentagon and that a plane from Newark Airport was missing. I remember thinking how that could be coming here. It was then I realized how feeble our practice drills were and how ill-prepared we were for such an event. It proved to be true again as we were then evacuated from that building a few minutes later. At about 10:30 a.m., after deciding that two evacuations in one day were enough, I began the walk from Canal Street to Penn Station. Stopping on the way to grab a glimpse at a TV wherever I could catch one, I saw the horrible scene that continued to unfold downtown.

After 25 years, what’s next?

As I walked up Seventh Avenue, somewhere around 14th Street, I noticed ambulances and emergency vehicles sitting in traffic, trying desperately to get to the heart of the debacle. One took my breath away; it was from the Bellmore Fire Department; that

firehouse was four blocks from my house, almost 33 miles away. Each of these incidents added to my realization as to the gravity of the situation. A few hours later I was on a slow moving and packed railroad trip home. When the train exited the tunnel in Queens and daylight reappeared sometime after 3 p.m., I noticed the signs of normal life. The streets were full of cars heading somewhere, children were playing in the playgrounds. It all seemed so unreal. The serenity of the suburbs stood in stark contrast to the havoc of Manhattan. It seemed to me that for most people, regardless of your perspective, the enormity of the event was too vast to comprehend. The enduring effects were, as yet, unforeseen. The immediate changes were understandable: troop mobilization and deployment aimed at retribution, heightened security, metal detectors, lockdowns, shutdowns all Continued on page 16

September 10, 2026 — REMEMBERING 911 - Herald Community Newspapers

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Continued from page 14

and need support?” “Why is our current culture so willing to condemn, so willing to persecute, prosecute and even expel those that need the most help?” These negative remnants are not only the result of the events of Sept. 11 but have deep roots in history. It should be all our hope that compassion transcends time, circumstances and ideologies. It should have no boundaries. It requires the basic aspect of humanity, valuing life, caring for people and accepting the flaws that others have. It is the beginning of the solution to ending hatred and prejudice.

•••

Courtesy Bob Palleschi

Mary Ann McCarthy surveyed the wreaths at the Bellmore 9/11 memorial that honored her brother, Sean, in 2025.

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caused the world to shrink and close in on itself. The long-term effects such as cultural mistrust, xenophobia and heightened religious discord will unfortunately endure for at least the remainder of my lifetime if not further. In consideration of this milestone, I reached out to some former colleagues including my running mate that day. One of my old friends offered sadly, “there is still no solution to the hate and terrorism that continues to infect the world.” My running mate, upon reading an essay I wrote earlier this year, agreed with my cultural evaluation including the question, “Why as a society have, we strayed from the basic logic that people are inherently good

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September 10, 2026 — REMEMBERING 911 - Herald Community Newspapers

AMITYVILLE

ATLANTIC BEACH

BABYLON

BALDWIN

PETER O’NEILL

BETTINA BROWNE

NEIL LEVIN

CHARLES P. LUCANIA

TARA DEBEK

RICHARD MULDOWNEY

PAUL SARLE

ALVIN BERGSOHN

RICHARD BRUEHERT

BALDWIN

BAYSIDE

BAYVILLE

BELLMORE

JAMES CARSON

JOSEPH J. COPPO, JR.

TERRENCE J. MANNING

BRIAN McALEESE

JOEL MILLER

EDWARD W. SCHUNK

MICHAEL MULLAN

JONATHAN S. RYAN

BRUCE GARY

BELLMORE

BETHPAGE

BROOKVILLE

DEER PARK

EAST MEADOW

WILLIAM ESPOSITO

MANUEL MOJICA

ANDREW STERN

LONNY STONE

CLAUDE D. RICHARDS

TIMOTHY O’BRIEN

STEVEN COAKLEY

STEPHEN LAMANTIA

ANN W. McGOVERN

EAST MEADOW

EAST NORWICH

EAST PATCHOGUE

ELMONT

FARMINGDALE

FARMINGVILLE

CARLOS DOMINGUEZ

TIMOTHY BYRNE

CHRISTOPHER CIAFARDINI

THOMAS A MAHON

CHRISTOPHER P. SLATTERY

MICHAEL HEALEY

THOMAS HETZEL

IRWIN ERKER

DANIEL BARETHEL

FRANKLIN SQUARE

FREEPORT

GARDEN CITY

ROBERT EVANS

MICHAEL HAUB

SALVATORE LOPES

JILL METZLER

BROOKE ROSENBAUM

TIMOTHY HIGGINS

DAVID GARCIA

DAVIS WEISS

DAVID LEISTMAN

HEWLETT

HUNTINGTON

HUNTINGTON STA.

INWOOD

ISLIP

KINGS PARK

LAKE RONKONKOMA

LAWRENCE

HOWARD JOSEPH LAWRENCE MICHAEL FRANCIS J. JOSEPH RUDY SELWYN RIVELLI JR STACK TADDONIO SADOCHA CORBETT MASTROCINQUE The photographs on pages 17-20 feature people who lived in, or were natives of, the communities served by Herald Community Media

THOMAS JURGENS

KEVIN O’ROURKE

Continued on next page

September 10, 2026 — REMEMBERING 911 - Herald Community Newspapers

9/11 Honoring the fallen:

September 10, 2026 — REMEMBERING 911 - Herald Community Newspapers

Never Forgotten: Remembering the men and w LINDENHURST

LONG BEACH

LYNBR

LAURENCE NEDELL

MICHAEL SCOTT CARLO

TERRENCE HATTON

STEPHEN HOFFMAN

MICHAEL KLOEPFER

NOELL MAERZ

KENNETH J. MARINO

GREGORY STAJK

RICHA CAPR

LYNBROOK

MALVERNE

MALVE

EMELDA PERRY

GLEN J. WALL

WILLIAM WREN

PAUL ZOIS

SCOTT BART

BRUCE BOEHM

JASON CEFALU

KEVIN N. COLBERT

ROB DEANGE

MALVERNE

MASSAPEQUA

MASSAPEQUA PARK

MELVILLE

MERRICK

MERR

WILLIAM STECKMAN

DIANE M. URBAN

THOMAS HASKELL

DONALD McINTYRE

TIMOTHY ROY

JEFFREY G. GOLDFLAM

LARRY BECK

GARY BOX

MICHA CAW

MILLER PLACE

NEW HYDE PARK

NORTH BABYLON

N. MASSAPEQUA

NORTH WOODMERE

NORTHPORT

OCEANSIDE

OCEAN

PETER MARTIN

MATTHEW GRZYMALSKI

ANDRE FLETCHER

LESTER V. MARINO

TIMOTHY ROY

IRA ZASLOW

DANIEL P. TRANT

JAMES BARBELLA

JOSH BIRNB

OCEANSIDE

OSYTER BAY

PLAINVIEW

PORT WASHINGTON

QUEE

WILLIAM SPITZ

MARC ZEPLIN

JOSHUA T. ARON

BROOKE JACKMAN

EDWARD J. PAPA

ADAM R. UHALTER

BART J. RUGGIERE

JOHN “PEPE” SALERNO

CA ASA

ROCKVILLE CENTRE

ROCKVILLE

STEVEN GELLER

PETER GENCO

EDWARD F. GERAGHTY

JAMES G. GEYER

GEOFFREY E. GUJA

JOSE THOMAS A. MIKE TERRENCE HUN HOBBS HANNAN HATTON The photographs on pages 17-20 feature people who lived in, or we

ROOK

LYNBROOK

ARD RONI

DENNIS BUCKLEY

RICHARD FITZSIMONS

MORTON FRANK

WILLIAM GARDNER

MIKE HANNAN

MICHAEL HORN

TIMOTHY MCSWEENEY

PATRICK O’KEEFE

ERNE

MALVERNE

BERT ELIS JR.

JEFFREY DINGLE

JACQUELINE DONOVAN

JOHN FANNING

WINSTON GRANT

JAMES HARAN

RALPH LICCIARDI

ROBERT T. LINNANE

MARK SCHWARTZ

RICK

MERRICK

AEL J. WLEY

RONNIE GIES

DAVID GRIMNER

ARAM ISKENDERIAN

KEVIN PRIOR

ADAM D. RAND

BRIAN SWEENEY

MICHAEL A. TAMUCCIO

FRANK VIGNOLA

NSIDE

OCEANSIDE

HUA BAUM

JOHN FLORIO

THOMAS GARDNER

TIM HAVILAND

JAMES KELLY

TOM KELLY

KENNETH J. MARINO

LAURA MARCHESE

JEFF NUSSBAUM

ENS

QUEENS

ROCKVILLE CENTRE

ARL ARO

GABRIELA S. WAISMAN

JANICE ASHLEY

FRANK H. BRENNAN

MATTHEW BURKE

JAMES COVE

THOMAS CROTTY

JACQUELINE DONOVAN

ROBERT FAZIO

ROCKVILLE CENTRE

THOMAS M. MCHALE

RALPH MERCURIO

MICHAEL MULLAN

JAMES F. MURPHY IV

JUHN J. MURRAY

E CENTRE

EPH VINCENT D. DAVID ELIZABETH C. NTER KANE LEISTMAN LOGLER ere natives of, the communities served by Herald Community Media

Continued on next page

September 10, 2026 — REMEMBERING 911 - Herald Community Newspapers

women whose lives were taken on September 11, 2001.

September 10, 2026 — REMEMBERING 911 - Herald Community Newspapers

A Legacy of Lives Never Forgotten ROCKVILLE CENTRE

ROCKVILLE CENTRE

KAREN NAVARRO

MAUREEN OLSON

CHRISTOPHER PANATIER

ANDREW ROSENBLUM

EDWARD W. SCHUNK

MICHAEL J. SCHNITZER

MICHAEL H. SEAMAN

JOHN A. SHERRY

STEPHEN SILLER

ROCKVILLE CENTRE

SCARSDALE

SEAFORD

PAUL TALTY

STEPHEN TIGHE

MARY LENZ WEIMAN

JOHN WRIGHT

JOAN CULLINAN

TIMMY HASKELL

TOMMY HASKELL

JOHN PERRY

ROB SILWAK

SEAFORD

STATEN ISLAND

SYOSSET

UPPER BROOKVILLE

VALLEY STREAM

MICHAEL WITTENSTEIN

ADRIANE V. SCIBETTA

FREDERICK VARACCHI

BERNARD E. PATTERSON

ROBERT CAUFIELD

VINCENT GIAMMONA

AMARNAUTH LACHHMAN

CRAIG MONTANO

MICHELE NELSON

VALLEY STREAM

WANTAGH

WESTBURY

ORIO JOSEPH PALMER

WALWYN STUART

MADELINE SWEENEY

GLENN THOMPSON

RAYMOND YORK

JOSEPH ZACCOLI

LEE FEHLING

PAUL TALTY

THOMAS P. DEANGELIS

WEST HEMPSTEAD

WEST ISLIP

WOODBURY

BRUCE BOEHM

JOHN FANNING

TERENCE McSHANE

MARK HARLAN ROSEN

LAURENCE POLATSCH

The photographs on pages 17-20 feature people who lived in, or were natives of, the communities served by Herald Community Media

SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 - 2026 For 25 years, Herald Community Newspapers has shared the stories of the people and communities of Long Island — including the stories of courage, sacrifice and resilience that emerged from September 11. Today, we pause to remember the lives lost, honor the heroes who answered the call and stand with the families and communities who carry their memory forward.

May we always remember. Never Forget.

Maria Rose Abad Richard A. Aceto Christy A. Addamo David Scott Agnes Joseph Amatuccio Joseph P. Anchundia David G. Arce Janice Marie Ashley Robert John Baierwalter James Barbella Scott D. Bart Lawrence I. Beck Alvin Bergsohn Joshua David Birnbaum Janice Lee Blaney Bruce D. Boehm Gary R. Box Michael Boyle Michelle Renee Bratton Thomas M. Brennan Frank H. Brennan Daniel J. Brethel Herman Charles Broghammer Bettina Browne Richard Bruehert Andrew C. Brunn Dennis Buckley Nancy Clare Bueche William F. Burke, Jr. Timothy G. Byrne Michael Cahill George C. Cain Roko Camaj Jonathan Neff Cappello Richard Michael Caproni Dennis M. Carey, Sr. Michael S. Carlo James Joseph Carson, Jr. Paul Regan Cascio Robert J. Caufield Michael J. Cawley Jason Michael Cefalu Joni Cesta William Chalcoff Christopher Ciafardini Stephen Colaio Mark Colaio Kevin Colbert

James Lee Connor Jonathan Connors Kevin Michael Cosgrove Michael S. Costello Timothy John Coughlin James E. Cove Michele T. Coyle-Eulau Thomas G. Crotty Neil James Cudmore Laurence Curia Manuel DaMota Vincent Danz William T. Dean Thomas P. DeAngelis Robert J. DeAngelis, Jr. Andrea B. DellaBella Martin N. DeMeo Michael L. DiAgostino Joseph D. Dickey, Jr. William J. Dimmling Carlos Dominguez Kevin W. Donnelly Jacqueline Donovan Jennifer L. Dorsey-Howley Christopher Joseph Dunne Robert D. Eaton Michael Hardy Edwards Erwin Erker William Esposito Robert Edward Evans Keith G. Fairben John Joseph Fanning Terrence Patrick Farrell Robert Fazio, Jr. Lee S. Fehling Robert J. Ferris Ryan Daniel Fitzgerald Richard P. Fitzsimons John Joseph Florio Stephen Mark Fogel David J. Fontana Robert Foti Jeffrey Fox Peter Christopher Frank Morton H. Frank Brett Freiman Arlene Fried Andrew K. Friedman Peter J. Ganci, Jr. David Garcia

William Arthur Gardner Thomas A. Gardner Bruce Henry Gary Paul H. Geier Peter Genco Edward F. Geraghty James Geyer Vincent Francis Giammona Ronnie E. Gies Steven A. Giorgetti Olga Kristin Gould White Gilbert F. Granados Winston Arthur Grant Wade Brian Green David Grimner Matthew James Grzymalski Michael Hannan James A. Haran Timothy S. Haskell Thomas T. Haskell, Jr. Terence S. Hatton Michael Haub Timothy A. Haviland Michael Kevin Healey Gary Herold Thomas J. Hetzel Brian C. Hickey Timothy B. Higgins Thomas A. Hobbs Ronald Hoerner Stephen Gerard Hoffman James P. Hopper Michael J. Horn George Gerard Howard Kris Robert Hughes Joseph G. Hunter Robert Hussa Jonathan Lee Ielpi Michael Patrick Iken Douglas J. Irgang Aram Iskenderian John Francis Iskyan Brooke A. Jackman Robert Thomas Jordan Jane Eileen Hagan Josiah Anthony M. Jovic Thomas Jurgens Paul W. Jurgens Douglas G. Karpiloff Thomas R. Kelly

James J. Kelly Joseph A. Kelly Timothy C. Kelly Ronald T. Kerwin Michael Kiefer Robert C. King, Jr. Glenn Davis Kirwin Ronald P. Kloepfer Ryan Kohart Frederick Kuo, Jr. Thomas Kuveikis Amarnauth Lachhman Stephen LaMantia Peter J. Langone Thomas Langone Edward Lehman David Leistman John Robinson Lenoir Jeffrey Earle LeVeen Neil Levin Ralph Michael Licciardi Robert Thomas Linnane Elizabeth C. Logler Salvatore Lopes Charles P. Lucania Sean Patrick Lynch Farrell Peter Lynch Michael F. Lynch Noell Maerz Brian Magee Charles Wilson Magee Thomas A. Mahon Joseph Daniel Maio Joseph E. Maloney Terence John Manning Laura A. Marchese Edward J. Mardovich Lester Marino Kenneth J. Marino Vita M. Marino Peter Charles Martin Kathy Nancy Mazza-Delosh Brian G. McAleese Justin John McCarthy Matthew Thomas McDermott Brian McDonnell Katherine M. McGarry-Noack Ann W. McGovern William McGovern Patrick J. McGuire

Thomas Michael McHale Robert Carroll McLaughlin, Jr. Alok Kumar Mehta Stuart Todd Meltzer Charles Mendez Ralph J. Mercurio George Merkouris Jill Ann Metzler Joel Miller Henry A. Miller, Jr. Joseph Mistrulli Manuel D. Mojica, Jr. Craig D. Montano Michael G. Montesi Dorothy Morgan Richard T. Muldowney, Jr. James F. Murphy, IV Karen Susan Navarro Marcus R. Neblett Michele Ann Nelson John Ballantine Niven Jeffrey R. Nussbaum Michael O’Brien Timothy Michael O’Brien Patrick O’Keefe Gerald Olcott Maureen Lyons Olson Kevin O’Rourke Patrick J. O’Shea James Robert Ostrowski Peter Owens, Jr. Richard A. Palazzolo Orio Joseph Palmer Christopher M. Panatier John Paolillo Edward J. Papa Robert Parro Michael J. Pascuma, Jr. Horace Robert Passananti Avnish Ramanbhai Patel Dipti J. Patel Bernard E. Patterson Durrell V. Pearsall, Jr. Thomas E. Pedicini Anthony Perez John William Perry Laurence M. Polatsch Steve Pollicino Richard N. Poulos Kevin M. Prior Contined on next page

This list represents 497 people from Long Island lost from the 9/11 attacks. • Nassau County list is from the memorial, dedicated in 2008 gathered from www.nassaucountyny.gov • Suffolk County list is from the memorial, dedicated in 2009 gathered from voicescenter.org/living-memorial/memorials/suffolk-county-911-memorial

September 10, 2026 — REMEMBERING 911 - Herald Community Newspapers

NASSAU COUNTY

Remembering our Long Island neighbors

September 10, 2026 — REMEMBERING 911 - Herald Community Newspapers

Honoring the Long Islanders we lost and the legacy left behind

John F. Puckett

Christopher Quackenbush Harry Raines Adam David Rand Gerard F. Rauzi Gregory Reda Robert M. Regan Kenneth F. Rice, III Claude Daniel Richards Joseph R. Rivelli, Jr. Donald A. Robson Antonio J. Rodrigues Brooke David Rosenbaum Andrew Rosenblum Timothy Roy Bart Joseph Ruggiere Susan Ann Ruggiero Adam Keith Ruhalter Michael Thomas Russo Jonathan S. Ryan Matthew L. Ryan Francis John Sadocha John S. Salerno Wayne Saloman Frank Gerard Salvaterra Alva Jeffries Sanchez Karen Helene Schmidt Frank G. Schott, Jr. Edward W. Schunk Mark Schwartz Michael H. Seaman Howard Selwyn Jeffrey James Shaw Daniel J. Shea Joseph P. Shea John Anthony Sherry Allan Shwartzstein Stephen G. Siller David Silver Peter Siracuse Christopher Slattery Robert Sliwak Kevin Smith James Gregory Smith Donald F. Spampinato, Jr. John Anthony Spataro Robert W. Spear, Jr. William E. Spitz Gregory Stajk

William V. Steckman Eric Thomas Steen Andrew Stergiopoulos Andrew Stern Lonny J. Stone Thomas Strada Walwyn W. Stuart, Jr. Christopher P. Sullivan Brian E. Sweeney Kevin T. Szocik Michael Taddonio Keiichiro Takahashi Paul Talty Michael Andrew Tamuccio Brian John Terrenzi Glenn E. Thompson Stephen E. Tighe Stephen K. Tompsett Diane Marie Urban John Damien Vaccacio Matthew G. Vianna Frank J. Vignola, Jr. Joshua S. Vitale Garo Voskerijian Glen James Wall Mitchel Scott Wallace Charles Waters Patrick J. Waters, Jr. Walter E. Weaver Dinah Webster Steven Weinberg David Martin Weiss Mary Lenz Wieman Glenn E. Wilkinson Crossley Williams, Jr. William Eben Wilson Donna Wilson Glenn J. Winuk David Wiswall Michael Wittenstein William Wren John W. Wright, Jr. Raymond York Joseph Zaccoli Ira Zaslow Paul Zois Joseph J. Zuccala Andrew Steven Zucker

SUFFOLK COUNTY

Andrew Anthony Abate Lt. Brian G. Ahearn Capt. James Amato Joseph John Angelini Jr. “Joe” Joseph J. Angelini Sr. Ezra Aviles Sheila P. Barnes Craig Michael Blass Frank J. Bonomo Kimberly S. Bowers Peter Brennan Donald J. Burns Thomas M. Butler James Christopher Cappers Judson J. Cavalier Nicholas P. Chiofalo Jr. Susan M. Clyne Steven Coakley “Steve” Stephen J. Colaio Robert D. Colin Ronald Comer Joseph A. Corbett “Joe” Kevin M. Cosgrove Lt. John A. Crisci Dennis A. Cross Michael Curtin Vincent D’Amadeo Tara M. Debek Anna DeBin Martin N. DeMeo “Marty” Thomas F. Dennis “Tom” Lt. Andrew Desperito Judith Diaz-Sierra Jerome M.P. Dominguez “Jerome” Raymond M. Downey Sr. Gerard Duffy Michael J. Duffy Patrick T. Dwyer “Paddy-D” Dennis M. Edwards Eric Adam Eisenberg Mark J. Ellis William Lawrence Fallon Jr. olores B. Fanelli Capt. Thomas Farino FF Terrence Patrick Farrell Thomas P. Farrelly

Andre G. Fletcher Ana Fosteris Thomas Gambino Jr. Cynthia Giugliano Jeffrey Grant Goldflam Calvin J. Gooding Lt. Geoffrey E. Guja Philip T. Hayes Lt. Michael K. Healey Lt. Timothy Higgins Kris Robert Hughes Jake Denis Jagoda Maxima Jean-Pierre William R. Johnston Christopher D. Jones Andrew Jordan John Katsimatides Frederick H. Kelley Thomas R. Kelly “Tommy” Thomas J. Kennedy Gary H. Lee Robert Michael Levine Carlos R. Lillo Farrell P. Lynch Louise A. Lynch Lt. Patrick John Lyons William J. Mahoney II Joseph E. Maloney “Teddy” Debra M. Mannetta “Debbie” Edward Joseph Mardovich Lt. Peter C. Martin Jose Martinez Rudolph Mastrocinque “Rudy” Brendan McCabe Michael Desmond McCarthy William J. McGovern “Bill” Thomas M. McHale ”The Laugher” Terence McShane Martin E. McWilliams Rocco A. Medaglia Raymond Meisenheimer Charles M. Mills Jr. Thomas Mingione Frank V. Moccia Sr. Capt. Thomas Moody Richard Muldowney Jr. Kevin James Murphy Lt. John P. Napolitano

Manika Narula Laurence Nedell Peter A. Nelson Frank John Niestadt Dennis O’Berg Lt. Daniel O’Callaghan Patrick O’Keefe Peter J. O’Neill Jr. Michael C. Opperman Michael J. Otten Durrell V. Pearsall Jr. Joseph John Perroncino Edward J. Perrotta Glen Kerrin Pettit B.C. Richard Prunty Lincoln Quappe Edward Rall Lorenzo Ramzey Matthew Rogan Joseph M. Romagnolo Mark H. Rosen Lt. Michael Thomas Russo Francis John Sadocha “Frank” Paul F. Sarle Dennis Scauso John G. Scharf Gerard P. Schrang “Juice” Stanley Smagala Jr. Daniel Laurence Smith “Danny” Kevin J. Smith Bonnie S. Smithwick B.C. Lawrence T. Stack Daniel Suhr James Joseph Suozzo Robert Sutcliffe Michael Taddonio Brian T. Thompson John J Tipping II Michelle Titolo Daniel Patrick Trant “Dan” John T. Vigiano II “Vig” Joseph V. Vigiano “JoeyVig” John Wallice Jr. “Red” Derrick Washington Kenneth Watson Walter E. Weaver Oleh D. Wengerchuk Lt. Glenn Wilkinson

September 10, 2026 — REMEMBERING 911 - Herald Community Newspapers

If you or a loved one have been experiencing complications as a result of the cancer treatments you received post-exposure, our centers may be able to help. Schedule an appointment today at one of our convenient locations across Long Island. Mercy Hospital Rockville Centre (516) 705-3950 St. Joseph Hospital Bethpage (516) 520-2788

We thank you for your service

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After serving at Ground Zero following •9/11, Minimal retired wait NYPDtimes officer Pat Burke faced serious health challenges years later. Her journey to healing led her to the Center for Hyperbaric Medicine & Wound Healing at St. Catherine of Siena Hospital, where she found hope and relief through hyperbaric oxygen therapy.

St. Catherine of Siena Hospital Smithtown (631) 784-7200 Good Samaritan University Hospital St. Charles Campus Port Jefferson (631) 465-2950 Good Samaritan University Hospital Bay Shore (631) 969-8383 *Please note that hyperbaric oxygen (HBO₂) therapy is not available at this location.

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Scan the QR code to read Pat's full story of hope and healing. chsli.org/services/wound-care

September 10, 2026 — REMEMBERING 911 - Herald Community Newspapers

Surviving the beige ‘snow’ that never disappeared

ourselves off and eat before we got to my sister’s. We sat at my sister’s for hours watching TV and waiting for my co-worker’s sister that On the morning of Sept. 11, I was in my lived near the railroad tracks to let us know office on William Street facing Dutch Alley. when the railroad started again. One of the employees came onto the floor The only other significant thing that I screaming and crying the World Trade Center remember from that day was when I arrived is on fire. Someone slapped her to calm her at my sister’s she told me to call my husband down. because he had been unable to reach me. I We all thought there was a garbage can tried to use my cell phone but the cell service on fire and she was panicking for nothing. A interrupted and said there was no service person put on their radio and we all learned because of a tornado. I used her landline. a plane had crashed into the building. I comThe next few days (home in North Bellmented it must be a terrorist attack because more) were filled with anxiety. My son told what pilot would crash into a building with me how the principal had called classmates a river next door for a safer landing. (My to his office only to see them leave crying. husband had told me about landings when he He knew I regularly ate at the Trade Center took flying lessons a few years earlier.) and didn’t know if I was My boss and I went alive. My daughter was at back to work until a loud school in Maryland and noise and the building 9/11 they had their crashes shook like we were in an down there to deal with. My office earthquake. My windows Where was mom? popped open from the window had the My husband dragged pressure. We were so glad beige snow on it me to a special service at the day before our office through the day. I our temple for the surviwindows had both the froleft the job eight vors and I learned about zen locks and the cracked temple members that lost years later. glass replaced. If it hadn’t, their lives. My friend’s we would have been torn to —Leslie Ostrow neighbor died because pieces from the flying glass. he was a visiting lecBuilding officials had turer that morning at the everyone go to the lobby. My boss and I had a Trade Center and my mom’s friend daughter deadline so we continued to work until someone came up, gave us blue hospital masks and was alive because she was fired from her job there the day before but lost her fiancé. told us we had to evacuate. They were afraid A woman in my certified accounting the building might have a gas leak. class was alive because she got to her job at I called my sister’s office and asked if I the Trade Center late because of a toothache could bring some co-workers there to wait keeping her up the night before. I wondered for transportation out of the city. The railways what happen to my fellow commuters that and the buses were not running. Within moworked there. Were they alive or dead? We ments my sister called and told me she was never exchanged phone numbers, so I’ll sending her staff home and that we should never know. come to her apartment. Returning to work the following week, I We set out from my office with our masks met people on the train going into the city to on and trudged through the beige snow as it look for their love ones in hospitals. William continued to fall. We passed long lines of poStreet was now a conduit for wires so we lice cars, ambulances and fire engines going had to go up and over the wooden stairs to toward the Towers. It was so amazing as we cross from the subway to my office. Some of came out from under one of the bridges and my coworkers tried to go out and take some the cloud of dust was gone and the sun was pictures. shining. The church had a wall covered in notes As we passed through Chinatown and flowers. A store window on Broadway covered in dust, the storeowners came out to was blown out but the neatly stacked shirts offer us bottles of water and fruit. It was so in the window remained covered in the beige appreciated. I thought, “Who says New Yorksnow. ers aren’t neighborly?” The view of the Towers was blocked by When we got further uptown, we found buses to prevent people from taking pictures, an open restaurant to wash our faces, dust By LESLIE OSTROW

Steve Sachs/Herald

At the 2025 commemoration for 9/11, Bellmore officers saluted all those whose lives were lost that day.

Bellmore Second Assistant Chief Daniel Donovan escorted Lisa Rand to the 9/11 memorial to lay a wreath honoring her late brother, Adam, at last year’s remembrance ceremony.

and when my friend took a picture of that the policeman standing near by confiscated her camera and told her it was by order of Mayor (Rudy) Giuliani. Frankly, as a local worker effected by this event I was angered. All the political people were being featured nightly by the mess on the news, but we couldn’t take a picture. It should be noted that our picture of a store with beige snow was lost and although there is a museum about the event the store-

front was not included. My office window had the beige snow on it through the day. I left the job eight years later. It’s that snow that caused several of my medical issues; Environmental Protection Agency (Administrator) Christine Whitman said it was safe. I’m lucky, I didn’t get cancer but many have suffered and have died from the beige snow.

•••

hfulmer@liherald.com

For Malverne resident Anisa Mkwanazi-Sessoms, Sept. 11 is not only a day she remembers. It is also the day that changed her family’s life in ways they would not fully understand for years. Mkwanazi-Sessoms was in second grade at Maurice W. Downing Elementary School when her mother picked her and her brother up from school after the terrorist attacks. She remembers seeing a female police officer with blonde hair and bangs standing near the front office as students were sent home. When she got home, she sat in front of the television, watching the images of the World Trade Center. She saw the first plane hit the tower and then watched as the second plane struck the other tower. At 8-years-old, she did not understand the magnitude of what she was seeing. “I didn’t really understand what that meant and like why it was happening,” she recalled. Her father, Mark Mkwanazi, was a New York City police detective who was heading to work that morning. He was traveling through the tunnel when he saw the plane hit the World Trade Center. In the days and months that followed, Mkwanazi spent months at Ground Zero as part of the rescue and recovery efforts. For his family, the consequences of that work continued long after he left the site. Mkwanazi-Sessoms remembers her mother making her father remove his clothes when he came home because of the debris he carried with him from Ground Zero. In the years following the attacks, he also developed a persistent cough and continued to have his health monitored because of his exposure. At the time, Mkwanazi-Sessoms did not understand what

Courtesy Anisa Mkwanazi-Sessoms

Anisa Mkwanazi-Sessoms, left, with her father, Mark Mkwanazi, her brother and her mother in a family photo. Mkwanazi, an NYPD detective who spent months at Ground Zero after the Sept. 11 attacks, died in 2017 from a 9/11-related illness. those symptoms could mean. As she grew older, she began seeing information about health problems among first responders and others who had been exposed to the conditions at Ground Zero. The connection between her father’s health and his work there gradually became clearer. Sixteen years after the attacks, Mkwanazi became seriously ill. He died in 2017 at age 58. Mkwanazi-Sessoms said his illness was ultimately linked to his exposure at Ground Zero and his death was considered a line-of-duty death. The delayed impact of 9/11 was difficult for her to understand.

“I just didn’t understand why it would be affecting him all those years later, like 16 years later,” she said. Mkwanazi rarely talked about what he experienced at Ground Zero. Mkwanazi-Sessoms said her mother told her that the work was difficult, particularly seeing the devastation and recovering victims. But when she remembers her father, she does not want his life to be defined only by 9/11. She remembers a father who loved old Western movies, riding his bike, traveling and taking his children to the park or for ice cream. Even after retiring as a detective, he continued working. He was also excited about becoming a grandfather. Mkwanazi-Sessoms gave birth to her daughter only weeks before her father became seriously ill, and he never got the opportunity to meet her. That loss has made 9/11 personal in a way that MkwanaziSessoms could not have understood as a child watching the towers on television. Her father survived the attacks. He returned home. He continued raising his family and living his life. But the exposure he endured at Ground Zero remained with him. “Although he did not lose his life that day, 16 years later I lost him because of what happened that day,” Mkwanazi-Sessoms said. For Mkwanazi-Sessoms, remembering Sept. 11 means remembering not only those who died that morning, but also the first responders who survived and carried the consequences of their work with them for years afterward. Her father was one of them.

•••

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By HAILEY FULMER

September 10, 2026 — REMEMBERING 911 - Herald Community Newspapers

Remembering a life changed by Ground Zero

From Ground Zero to Uniondale’s next generation

By STACY DRIKS

sdriks@liherald.com

When the planes struck the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, Jessica Ellerbe was a seventh grader sitting inside the chapel at Long Island Lutheran Middle School in Brookville. She remembers the sudden seriousness that swept through the school. Students whose parents worked in the towers were taken from the chapel. Classes ended early, buses arrived and Ellerbe was left wondering why her father wasn’t home. At the time, her father Leonard Ellerbe was a New York City ironworker with Local 40, working atop the Williamsburg Bridge. “I just remember thinking, ‘oh my God, my dad is on one of the bridges’,” Jessica recalled after the planes hit the Twin Towers. “And when he works on bridges, he works all the way on the top, so I wondered if the plane got out of control — I didn’t know what happened.” With cellphone service disrupted due to the high volume of calls Jessica, her sister, Victoria, and mother, Nicole waited at her grandmother’s house for word. Leonard finally returned that evening, to only leave again as the Uniondale Fire Department headed out to help the FDNY recover bodies as he was a volunteer and a Junior Fire Fighter adviser, leading to learn basic firefighting and rescue skills. Jessica said he was always at Ground Zero. “They were helping to recover bodies, and they were going over there for days,” Jessica said. “And days would turn into weeks that they were going back and forth. “He found people that were alive and people that were not alive. I think as an adult now, realizing you were literally looking for people no matter if they were alive or not — it didn’t matter,

Courtesy Jessica Ellerbe

Jessica Ellerbe followed in the footsteps of her father, Leonard, joining the Uniondale Fire Department’s junior firefighter program in 2002 when she was 13, after watching him respond to Ground Zero following the Sept. 11 attacks. as long as the family had a piece of them to just bring back.” Since Leonard was going back and forth every day, he didn’t have time for himself. At home, his family made sure he had food and a proper mask to protect him from inhaling toxic fumes of the 400 tons of crushed concrete, which later affected survivors or volunteers with respiratory problems or cancer. Leonard had a collapsed lung. although he is alright now according to Jessica.

SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 Est. 1978

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A Day of Remembrance

It’s a day we will always remember: It’s a day we will never forget. It’s a day of our countries vulnerability in a world of the unknown. The unknown hit our country fast and with vengeance. We, as a people, stood tall and proud; fighting for our freedom; our way of life. In the midst of many ashes of innocence and sorrow, We, America, will always remain forever:

written by Sue Ellen Silva

9/11

WE WILL NEVER FORGET

Carol Gallo-Turschmann 516-902-1750

Michael A. Turschmann 646-522-9249

“My mom worked at Mercy Hospital in Rockville Centre, she always had masks and said ‘wear a mask. I don’t care what they tell you, wear it!,’ she said. “All of the ironworkers are in good physical shape because they have to be. He didn’t even know he has a lung collapse it was a few months later.” Watching her father respond helped shape Jessica’s own path. She had already planned to follow him into Uniondale’s junior firefighter program when she became eligible at 13. After Sept. 11, however, that desire took on a greater meaning. “I was following his footsteps to begin with because that’s just natural,” she said. “And then after that I’m like, oh my gosh, we really need people to do this.” After joining she became the first female chief at the department. Leonard rose to lieutenant as well. Now an ex-chief who remains active with the Uniondale Fire Department, Jessica is helping another generation understand the responsibility that comes with answering the call. Becoming a firefighter herself has also given Jessica a different understanding of what her father did. As a child, she knew only that he kept leaving home. As a firefighter and she now understands what it meant to repeatedly enter an unprecedented disaster scene and work alongside others searching for strangers amid the devastation. Today, passing those lessons to firefighters who came after her is part of what “never forget” means. “I think it’s to like, remember that this can happen any day to any of us,” Jessica said, “and that we’re there to prepare the new generation of firefighters to be ready for any incident like this.”

•••

NEVER FORGET Our Hopes Are The Struggles Of The Next Generation

Geri Barish Executive Director 1359525

September 10, 2026 — REMEMBERING 911 - Herald Community Newspapers

By ROKSANA AMID ramid@liherald.com

Five Seaford High School alumni were killed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and their names continue to shape generations of students through an award built not around grades, but around the qualities their families believed defined them: service, character and commitment. The Seaford 9/11 Memorial Committee’s Patriot Award is presented annually to graduating Seaford High seniors, carrying a $2,000 scholarship and a distinction that recipients say stays with them long after graduation. Roughly five or six students are selected each year through an anonymous, weeks-long process. For 2021 recipient Giana Cesario, the money helped pay for college, books and other educational expenses. But she said she did not even know there was a scholarship attached when she applied. “It was really about the honor,” Cesario said. When her name was announced at graduation, she recalled, “I actually started crying on stage.” Cesario, 24, recently earned her master’s degree in literacy and cognition after completing a five-year childhood, special and general education program at St. Joseph’s University. Her commitment to service has continued: After participating in Best Buddies at Seaford High School, including serving as president, she co-founded a Best Buddies chapter at St. Joseph’s. She has also remained involved with the

Courtesy Ryan Kind

Seaford High School seniors recognized as the 2026 Patriot Award recipients stand with Seaford 9/11 Memorial Committee chairperson Tom Condon following the annual Patriot Award Dinner. From left are Valerie Martin, Matthew Kind, Paiten Haskell, Brian Falk, Michelle Evangelista, Emily Brown and Condon. Patriot Award, returning to mentor new recipients as they prepare speeches for the committee’s annual dinner. That continued involvement is precisely what committee chairman Tom Condon hoped the award would inspire when he helped establish it after Sept. 11, 2001. Condon, who worked in the Seaford school district for 48 years as an educator, guidance counselor and coach, knew all five alumni who were killed: Tom and Tim Haskell, John Perry, Robert Sliwak, and Michael Wittenstein. Shortly after the attacks, he began working with their families to determine how Seaford should preserve their memory. The families wanted an award, Condon recalled, but made one point clear. “We want to do like an award or a scholar-

ship, but we don’t want it to be based on grades,” Condon recalled them saying. “All five guys weren’t all great students, but they’re all great guys.” By January 2002, the families had accepted Condon’s proposed selection model. There would be no consideration of grades, and the award would instead center on three principles: “service, character, and commitment.” Michael Wittenstein’s father, Arnold, supplied its name: the Patriot Award. That philosophy remains embedded in an unusually intensive selection process. Applicants are assigned numbers so reviewers initially do not know their identities. Their school and community involvement and responses to three short questions are scored before finalists advance. References are interviewed, and relatives of the five alumni personally interview

finalists before the committee deliberates and votes. The process takes about five weeks. Seaford High Principal Nicole Schlegel, herself a member of the Memorial Committee, said the award is woven into the district’s broader effort to teach students about Sept. 11 and the people behind the names on the memorial outside their school. “We look for three things in the students: service, their level of service, their level of character,” Schlegel said. “And commitment. Are they committed in the long term?” The connection begins well before senior year. Students learn about service in elementary school, encounter the history of Sept. 11 in middle school and are introduced to the Patriot Award again at ninth-grade orientation. Seniors also visit the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in Manhattan. For Schlegel, that continuity reflects a deliberate choice about how Seaford speaks about Sept. 11. Rather than simply saying “never forget,” she said, the community uses another phrase. “We say, ‘always remember,’” Schlegel said. “We’re always going to remember these people.” A quarter-century after the award began, its recipients have become part of that remembrance themselves — returning as mentors, volunteers and committee participants and passing its principles to another generation. “The Patriot Award itself,” Condon said, “is really powerful.”

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REMEMBERING EVERYONE AFFECTED ON THIS DAY

September 10, 2026 — REMEMBERING 911 - Herald Community Newspapers

Seaford students carry alumni’s legacy through Patriot Award

Nassau County honors the volunteer firefighters lost on 9/11 Towers. Opened in 2007, it memorializes the nearly 3,000 people killed in Manhattan, at the Pentagon in Arlington, Va. and aboard Flight 93 that crashed in Pennsylvania. But tucked elsewhere in Eisenhower Park is a lesser-known memorial honoring one of Long Island’s most closely connected communities: its volunteer fire service. For the 25th anniversary, Nassau County is revamping the site, creating a new stone structure dedicated to not only those who perished on 9/11, but also those who have died since due to 9/11-related illnesses.

By JORDAN VALLONE

jvallone@liherald.com

The Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center irrevocably changed life for New Yorkers. Parents, siblings, friends and neighbors were lost, leaving families shattered and communities around the world forever affected. Each year, the promise to “never forget” carries reTim Baker/Herald newed weight — especially Ralph Esposito, chairman of the for those who witnessed Nassau County Firefighters Memorial the tragedy and continue Endowment Association, was emoto hold its memory close. In Nassau County, me- tional as he joined officials to break down on the new site. He reflected morials have been erected on the unity and sense of connecin nearly every commution among Long Island’s volunteer nity, whether outside a fire firefighters. department headquarters, a school, or a municipal building. They are a solemn site, often featuring melted beams A new tribute to those who from the towers, an impressive plaque that answered the call bear the names of those who perished. The aging 9/11 firefighters memorial in In Eisenhower Park, Nassau County’s Eisenhower Park in East Meadow is being largest publicly run space, there’s dedicated replaced with a new tribute honoring Nassau memorial space near the lake of Merrick County volunteer firefighters. Avenue that includes a replica of the Twin For the firefighters and officials who

LET’S NOT FORGET

gathered at the site earlier this year for the His body was never recovered; only his sidegroundbreaking, the project was about far arm and shield were found. more than replacing weathered stone. “We talk every day about the 3,000 peo“It’s more than just words,” Nassau Coun- ple who were murdered on that day,” Blakety Chief Fire Marshal Michael Uttaro said of man said, “but we don’t talk enough about the the promise to remember. “It is a promise, number of people that were saved that day.” and it is a promise that Ralph Esposito, chairneeds to be kept today and man of the Nassau County for generations to come.” Firefighters Memorial 9/11 The existing memorial, Endowment Associaalong Park Boulevard near tion, grew emotional as It is a promise, Field 6/6A, bears the names he recalled his own time and it is a promise of 19 Nassau fire service at Ground Zero and the that needs to be members who died on firefighters who died there Sept. 11 and 30 more who — and those who continkept today and for later succumbed to illness. ued to suffer years later. generations After years of exposure to “The memorial will be to come. the elements, officials said, for more than stone and — Michael Uttaro, Nassau the memorial has aged and steel,” Esposito said. “It will County chief fire marshal needs replacement. be a permanent promise The new memorial will that the sacrifices of the feature large gray stones bearing the names Nassau County volunteer firefighters will of the fallen and commemorative words never be forgotten.” honoring those who “answered the call” and That sense of brotherhood — and of loss “placed themselves in harm’s way and made that has continued for nearly a quarter-centuthe ultimate sacrifice to help a stranger.” ry — remains at the heart of the memorial. For many involved in the project, those The memorial is not yet completed. Earnames are personal. lier this year, county officials said the memoCounty Executive Bruce Blakeman’s rial is expected to be completed in September. nephew, Thomas Jurgens, a Meadowmere Park firefighter and military veteran, died while rendering first aid to a badly burned woman in the lobby of 2 World Trade Center. •••

We Will Never Forget

9/11

Today we honor the lives that were lost, the heroes who ran toward danger, and the countless people who came together in compassion and strength.

ONE NATION. ONE FAMILY. ALWAYS UNITED.

WE REMEMBER THOSE WE LOST

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September 10, 2026 — REMEMBERING 911 - Herald Community Newspapers

closed. When he arrived at the precinct, officers — including some who had been on vacaFor Michael McNelis, tion — were reporting for duty. Sept. 11, 2001, began with an “They didn’t know what to answering machine message. do with us because it was all so McNelis, 54, was home unusual,” he said. in Malverne preparing for his McNelis was eventually overnight shift with the New assigned to the rear of a convoy York City Police Department transporting equipment into when he was told to report to Manhattan. As the convoy work. A member of the NYPD approached Lower Manhattan, since 1997, he was assigned to the scale of the destruction Courtesy Michael McNelis the 110th Precinct in Corona, Michael McNelis, a retired became increasingly clear. NYPD detective, reflects on Queens. “You have airplanes that go responding to Manhattan McNelis, who grew up over your head,” he said. “But after the Sept. 11 attacks in Oceanside, had desired to you ever hear a fighter plane and the lifelong commitment become a police officer since that goes over your head? ... It to service that followed. childhood. was so loud.” “I wanted to be a police officer since I was a Dust and debris made it difficult to follow child,” he said. “I wanted to be a detective, it was the convoy, and McNelis became separated as simple as that.” from the group near City Hall. Another officer A 1991 graduate of Kellenberg Memowarned him not to continue toward the World rial High School, McNelis earned a bachelor’s Trade Center site. degree in criminal justice from John Jay College “I remember he said to me, ‘You do not and later received a master’s degree in security want to go that way. You may not come back management in 2018. out,’” McNelis said. “That’s when the danger On the morning of the attacks, McNelis became too real.” quickly dressed and drove toward Queens, In the days that followed, McNelis returned to navigating roads and parkways that had been Lower Manhattan for 12-hour shifts. He described By ABIGAIL GRIECO

agrieco@liherald.com

streets covered in ash, debris, broken pipes, flooding, burned vehicles, and shattered glass. “It was like a volcano exploded,” he said. “Once you smell it, it just never goes away.” During one assignment, McNelis and other officers moved toward the World Trade Center site to see whether they could assist workers on the pile. Suddenly, a warning sent hundreds of people running as officials feared another structure could collapse. “The next minute, my sergeant was grabbing me by the neck,” McNelis said. “We’re running behind a building, but we never knew which one was safe and which was going to fall.” That uncertainty continued in the weeks following as officers guarded buildings, transportation routes and other locations while authorities assessed the possibility of additional attacks. Still, McNelis said the experience did not make him reconsider his career. “I didn’t really get turned off from the job,” he said. “I knew I had work to do. So, I just went back to work.” McNelis became a detective in 2003 and later worked in the Organized Crime Bureau and Special Victims Unit. In 2016, he joined an NYPD squad assigned to the Manhattan district attorney’s office, where he investigated computer crimes, online fraud, cryptocurrency cases, and child exploitation.

His career also reflected the changes in policing after 9/11. “Training became more about counterterrorism than anything,” McNelis said. “There were so many new procedures. We got masks that we were required to carry in case we came across something hazardous. We never had to do that before.” He also saw increased coordination among police, fire and other agencies. “They tried to put all that together so that everything would work seamlessly,” he said. More than two decades later, McNelis continues to deal with the effects of his time at the World Trade Center site. He has been diagnosed with several health conditions attributed to his exposure and receives care through the World Trade Center Health Program. McNelis retired from the NYPD in December 2022 and now works in protective security services. For McNelis, answering the call on Sept. 11 was not the end of his service. “There’s always something to be done,” he said. “I had to do what I had to do.” McNelis’ career is a reminder that for many first responders, answering the call did not end when the smoke cleared — it became a lifelong commitment to serving and protecting others.

•••

In Memory of All The Precious Lives Lost and Appreciation of All the Wonderful People Who Helped During and After This Horrific Day. SANITARY DISTRICT NO. 1 TOWN OF HEMPSTEAD SO WE NEVER FORGET SEPTEMBER 11, 2001

IN HONOR OF THOSE WHO SAVED LIVES IN MEMORY OF THOSE WHO LOST THEIRS BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS IRVING J. KAMINETSKY CHAIRMAN

JOHN J. TENENBAUM SECRETARY

CHESTER F. CAFASSO

JOSEPH CANDELLA

IRVING J. KAMINETSKY Sanitary District No. 1 Commissioner Vice Chairman of the Board

JACK ROSE JR. PHILIP MISTERO SUPERINTENDENT SALVATORE EVOLA TREASURER

NATHANIEL M. SWERGOLD GENERAL COUNSEL DOMINIC MINERVA LABOR COUNSEL

James J. Vilardi Chairman

AD 2003 1359499

September 10, 2026 — REMEMBERING 911 - Herald Community Newspapers

Michael McNelis never stops answering the call to help

John Busching crawled in darkness, over rubble to save a life

police officers who had been buried. By the time Busching arrived, Officer Will Jimeno For former Rockville had been rescued, and crews Centre Fire Department Chief were working to reach Sgt. John John Busching, answering the McLoughlin, who remained call on Sept. 11 meant crawling trapped deep beneath the into the darkness of a collapsed debris. World Trade Center, through Busching was the first unstable rubble and burning medical provider to evaluate debris, to reach a man trapped McLoughlin. The officer was beneath the wreckage. conscious and buried from the Busching, then an NYPD waist down. Reaching him, Brian Kacharaba/Herald Emergency Service Unit officer Former Rockville Centre Fire however, was a dangerous Department Chief John and paramedic, arrived at undertaking. Busching recalls crawling Ground Zero around 7:30 or To get to the hole, rescuers through the rubble at Ground had to climb over fallen beams 8 p.m. after being redirected Zero to help rescue Port from Floyd Bennett Field in and debris while fires burned Authority Sgt. John Brooklyn. He had initially been around them. Busching eventuMcLoughlin, who survived assigned to a helicopter rappel ally had to crawl about 18 feet nearly 22 hours beneath the team, but the collapse of the through an opening so narrow wreckage. towers changed the mission. that he had to squeeze past a “It was complete devastation,” Busching re- pipe. He was carrying medical equipment and called. “It was just starting to get dark, so there wearing his gun belt. was no light. All the power had been knocked “If you’re claustrophobic, you’re in bad out. There was that gray concrete dust and shape,” he said. papers and everything and fires burning out of Inside, rescuers were forced to dig control.” McLoughlin out by hand because traditional His search-and-rescue team was sent tools could injure him. toward the location of two Port Authority “New York City has the most advanced By BRIAN KACHARABA

bkacharaba@liherald.com

rescue teams in the country, and we’re digging this dude out by hand,” Busching said. Busching and trauma surgeon Dr. John Chovanes developed a treatment plan to keep McLoughlin alive while rescuers worked. They administered fluids and medication while monitoring his condition. Amputation of both legs was discussed if his condition deteriorated or rescuers could not free him, but it never became necessary. After nearly 22 hours beneath the wreckage, McLoughlin was brought out alive. “It was like we won this one small battle,” Busching said. “And I think that’s what helped me through a lot of it, was at least I had this one good thing to remember.” The rescue of McLoughlin and Jimeno later became the basis for the 2006 film “World Trade Center,” starring Nicolas Cage as McLoughlin. Busching served as one of the NYPD consultants for the movie. He said filmmakers recreated the rescue site with remarkable accuracy, making the experience of returning to the scene unsettling. “They really built it, like, unbelievably accurate,” Busching said. “So going back in there was kind of scary.” The movie condensed events that unfolded over hours into minutes, he said, but captured the basic circumstances of the rescue.

The physical effects of that day have also stayed with Busching. He developed asthma soon after 9/11 and was later diagnosed with throat cancer about 11 years after the attacks. About 20 years after 9/11, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, which is currently being monitored through active surveillance. Despite those health challenges, Busching has remained active with the Rockville Centre Fire Department. Now 61, he no longer enters fires but continues to drive the truck and assist with exterior operations. His experience at Ground Zero also influenced how he led the department after becoming assistant chief in 2008 and chief from 2011 to 2013. Safety, accountability, and training became priorities. “I didn’t want to see anybody get hurt or killed while I was in charge,” he said. Twenty-five years after 9/11, Busching sees “answering the call” as something that extends beyond the events of that day. It is about taking what he learned at Ground Zero and continuing to serve the community where he grew up. “Whatever I can bring now to my local community from that experience, I think is a positive thing,” he said.

•••

IN LOVING

MEMORY

Remembering September 11

ANDREW IRA ROSENBLUM

1957 - 2001

We remember with profound sorrow the innocent lives lost on September 11, 2001, and honor the heroes who made the ultimate sacrifice. We will never forget their courage, their families, or the lasting impact of that day.

Your life was a blessing, your memory a treasure, you are loved beyond words and missed beyond measure. In our hearts forever.

We Remember. We Honor. We Will Never Forget.

Stephan Kenny

Lic. R. E. Salesperson O 516.669.3700 | M 516.297.6597 Stephan.Kenny@elliman.com

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Kathleen Brennan

Lic. R. E. Salesperson O 516.669.3700 | M 516.639.7855 kathleen.brennan@elliman.com

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LOVE ALWAYS, THE KORNBLUM FAMILY 1360929

With heartfelt gratitude, we honor the firefighters, police officers, EMS, healthcare professionals, volunteers, and all who answered the call to help—then and in the years that followed.

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September 10, 2026 — REMEMBERING 911 - Herald Community Newspapers

By KAYLA DECHTER

kdechter@liherald.com

For Steve Grogan, the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, began beneath clear blue skies at Lido Golf Club, where he and fellow Lynbrook firefighters could see the Manhattan skyline roughly 20 miles away. Twenty-five years later, Grogan, a 58-year member of the Lynbrook Fire Department, is still answering calls — even as health problems stemming from the week he spent at Ground Zero have changed how he can serve. Grogan, who was also a federal agent at the time, had taken the day off and was golfing with members of the department’s Tally-Ho Engine Company when the first plane struck the World Trade Center. “We saw the smoke and thought it was nothing more than a fire,” Grogan recalled. Then they watched the second plane hit. “We saw the second plane and the ball of flame that came off the other building,” he said. “Everyone realized this is not just a fire.” While Lynbrook firefighters responded to the city, Grogan remained on call for instructions from his federal office. The next morning, he reported to Ground Zero, where he spent a week assisting in the rescue operation and gathering evidence. “Our job was to find wallets or evidence and luggage from the planes and parts of the plane,” Grogan said. He searched the wreckage for identification, personal belongings and aircraft debris, photographing evidence before turning it over to FBI or NYPD evidence teams. He also helped

Courtesy Steve Grogan

Sections of the World Trade Center’s exterior remained standing amid the destruction at Ground Zero on Sept. 12, 2001. Lynbrook firefighter and federal agent Steve Grogan took the photograph while working at the site the day after the terrorist attacks.

recover victims’ remains, at times climbing into holes at the site to bring them out. The conditions left a lasting mark. “There was nothing to wear on your face when you got there,” Grogan said. “You stepped into smoke. It was gray and dusty wherever you stepped.” He began experiencing what became known among responders as the “World Trade Center cough.” “I still have it,” he said. Grogan is now treated through the World Trade Center Health Program for respiratory problems. His lung function eventually prevented him from passing the breathing test required to wear a self-contained breathing apparatus, meaning he

can no longer enter burning buildings. But he has not stopped responding. Grogan remains an active exterior firefighter, pulling hoses, helping ladder buildings and assisting wherever he can at emergency scenes. “I’m still at the scene doing what needs to be done on the outside,” he said. After his week at Ground Zero, Grogan joined the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force at John F. Kennedy International Airport, where he spent the next several months checking people traveling into and out of the airport. Despite everything he experienced, Grogan said Sept. 11 never changed his commitment to serving Lynbrook. That commitment began when he was a teenager, inspired by a neighbor who would rush out the door whenever the village fire horns sounded. “I’ve had the interest since being a teenager to be a fireman,” Grogan said. “It didn’t change what I wanted to do for the Village of Lynbrook as a fireman.” Grogan has also worked to pass that commitment to younger generations. In 1979, he helped establish Lynbrook’s Junior Fire Department, introducing young people ages 12 to 17 to firefighting and preparing those interested to eventually join the department. “We all knew kids wanted to be firemen, so why not introduce them to it, get them involved and teach them?” he said. Now, 58 years after joining the department at 19, Grogan continues answering the same fire calls — even if his role at the scene has changed. “I still do my job,” he said.

We Will

We Will Always Remember

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September 10, 2026 — REMEMBERING 911 - Herald Community Newspapers

Despite health issues Steve Grogan continues to serve

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September 10, 2026 — REMEMBERING 911 - Herald Community Newspapers

Twenty five years later, we remember. On September 11, 2001, ordinary men and women became heroes - running toward danger when everything in them could have told them to stop. Today, on this 25th anniversary we honor the first responders who gave everything, and we hold close the families and communities forever changed. Their courage remains our compass; their memory, our unity.

TRUSTEES JOHN L. TUFARELLI KEVIN WASZAK SHARON M. DALY

MAYOR EDWIN A. FARE

VILLAGE JUSTICE MELANIE A. JENKINS

DEPUTY MAYOR DERMOND E. THOMAS

VILLAGE CLERK JAMES J. HUNTER

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Expressing our gratitude to the selfless first responders who served, and standing in solidarity with everyone impacted by this tragedy.

WE WILL

NEVER Forget In remembrance of the lives lost, the heroes who ran toward danger, and the strength of a nation that came together.

WE REMEMBER. WE HONOR. WE STAND UNITED. Thank you to all who served and continue to serve. YOU ARE OUR HEROES.

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Twenty five years later, we remember.

25 years

On September 11, 2001, ordinary men and women became heroes - running toward danger when everything in them could have told them to stop. Today, on this 25th anniversary we honor the first responders who gave everything, and we hold close the families and communities forever

We honor the lives lost, the heroes who ran toward danger, and the unity that carried a nation forward.

changed. Their courage remains our compass;

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their memory, our unity.

Twenty-five years later,

we continue to remember the lives lost on September 11, 2001. We honor the mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, friends, colleagues, and first responders whose lives were taken far too soon. Their stories, their courage, and their memories will forever be a part of us.

For All Those Whose Lives Were Lost on 9.11.2001

WE REMEMBER. WE HONOR. WE WILL NEVER FORGET.

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September 10, 2026 — REMEMBERING 911 - Herald Community Newspapers

United in Rememberance September 11, 2001

On this 25th anniversary of September 11th,

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merrickchamber.org

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our local Chambers of Commerce join together with the community we serve to remember. We honor the lives lost that day, and we hold in our hearts the families who have carried that loss for a quarter century. We pay tribute to the first responders whose courage and sacrifice embodied the very best of humanity in our darkest hour. Our businesses and neighbors stood together then, and we stand together now, stronger for it. Today and always, we remember, we honor, and we stand as one community.

25 Years Later, We Remember. On the 25th anniversary of September 11th, we honor all of those we lost that day - our neighbors, our friends, our co-workers - and those who died later of 9/11 related diseases. We salute the courage and dedication of all 9/11 first responders - including the FDNY, NYPD, PAPD - and the many Long Island volunteers who also answered the call to help. We will never forget their sacrifices, and we continue to serve in their memory.

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September 10, 2026 — REMEMBERING 911 - Herald Community Newspapers