Rockville Centre recreation center to house 9/11 exhibit

Rockville Centre will be one of two locations on Long Island, and 30 across New York state, to host an exhibition honoring the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The “New York Remembers” exhibitions will display artifacts from the collections of the New York State Museum and the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, some of which have never been seen by the public. Among the displays will be damaged emergency vehicles, aluminum and glass from the World Trade Center towers and fragments of the airplanes that slammed into them.

The Rockville Centre exhibition will be at the Recreation Center, and will open beginning the week of Aug. 29 and run through the end of September. All of the exhibitions around the state will be open on Sunday, Sept. 11.

Sen. Majority Leader Dean Skelos said in a statement that he approved of mounting the exhibit in the village. “It is very appropriate that Rockville Centre has been chosen as one of the two places on Long Island that will showcase these nationally important historical artifacts, due to the exceptionally profound loss of life our village and the communities surrounding it suffered on September 11,” Skelos said. “This exhibit will provide another means for us all to learn more about the experiences of others on that tragic day, remember the thousands who died and demonstrate the strength and resolve of our community, state and country.”

Parks and Recreation Superintendent Anthony Brunetta said he was proud that the Recreation Center was chosen as an exhibit site. “We feel excited and very proud that we were selected,” Brunetta said. “We’re very familiar with a lot of people that we lost. It’s a close-knit family with close-knit ties to the event itself.”

Mayor Francis Murray echoed that sentiment in a written comment to the Herald. “We were hard hit by the terrorist attacks in 2001,” Murray wrote, “but the tragedy inspired us to help our stricken families through the Community Fund and to build our own 9/11 memorial, so it feels fitting and I am glad that we are part of this statewide commemoration.”

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