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Overcast Remembering Sept. 11 a decade later
Long Islanders joined the rest of New York and the nation in remembering the victims of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Last Sunday, they gathered by the hundreds throughout their hometowns, at Ground Zero and elsewhere to lay flowers and wreaths in memory of those who perished at the World Trade Center, at the Pentagon and in a field in Pennsylvania.
In Malverne, dozens gathered at the gazebo at Chester A. Reese Memorial Park for a candlelight vigil Sunday night. Malverne Mayor Patricia McDonald spoke, along with other village board trustees and Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, each delivering a message of hope. Those in attendance remembered the four Malvernites who died: Scott Bart, 28, Jacqueline Donovan, 34, James Haran, 41, and 50-year-old Diane Urban.
In West Hempstead, some 50 people gathered at the memorial garden at Hall’s Pond Park for a short memorial ceremony Sunday afternoon. They placed votive candles around the garden, in the center of which stands a plaque engraved with the names of the West Hempstead residents who died on Sept. 11: Bruce Boehm, Jason Cefalu, Kevin Colbert, Robert DeAngelis Jr., Jeffrey Dingle, John Fanning, Winston Grant, Ralph Licciardi, Robert Linnane, Mark Schwartz and William Steckman.
Early Sunday morning, the Town of Hempstead held its annual 9/11 Sunrise Memorial ceremony, which this year saw more than 2,000 attendees — Long Island’s largest Sept. 11 memorial program. Family members of Sept. 11 victims gave remarks during the ceremony and thousands took part in an interactive flag-laying ceremony and the casting of carnations into two reflecting pools.
The theme of the program, “bridging the decade from mourning to hope,” was underscored by a new emblematic memorial that included a 30-foot World Trade Center beam, a reflecting pool and a pedestrian bridge that traversed the two. The memorial also includes a chrome replica of the Twin Towers; in the sand at the foot of the replica, relatives and friends placed small American flags adorned with the names of lost loved ones.
