Thursday, October 22, 2026
On a solemn day, the Freeport community came together to celebrate the lives of the loved ones and neighbors the village lost in and after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. There were several emotional tributes as hundreds of residents gathered at the South Bayview Avenue memorial lighthouse on the 25th anniversary of the day that changed the community, and the nation.
The Freeport Fire Department, the Police Department and the Freeport High School Navy Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps also took part in the ceremony at sunset last Friday.
Eight Freeport residents died on 9/11, according to the Freeport Memorial Library, and 22 more have succumbed to illnesses in the years since resulting from the toxic air that lingered in Lower Manhattan for weeks afterward.
To ensure that the names and lives of the victims are remembered all year round, there are a number of plaques and signs around the village. At the lighthouse, 30 names are transcribed on plaques: Laura Marchese, David Weiss, Timothy Higgins, Andre Fletcher, Michael Kiefer, Robert Fazio, David Garcia, Richard Muldowney Jr., Victor J. Saracini, Mary Weiman, Hector Tirado, William Krukowski, Patrick W. Francine, Joseph Malone, Eric Olsen, Keith R. Young, Nicholas Rossomand, Jill Maurer-Campbell, Kenneth Watson, Brian McAleese, Shevonne Mentis, John H. Wensley, Michael Noeth, John Florio, Ronald P. Stortz, Suzanne Gerarty, Ronnie Gies, Thomas Kelly, Timothy Haskell and Thomas Haskell.
“We gathered outside of one of the firehouses, Hose Three in Freeport … and we gathered just in shock and horror,” resident Christine Ettlinger told the Herald prior to the ceremony. Her cousin, Ellen Saracini’s husband, Victor, was one of the pilots of United Flight 175, which was hijacked and crashed into the south tower of the World Trade Center. Ettlinger recalled mourning the loss of other friends and neighbors in the days and weeks that followed the attacks, and the pain that has never gone away, even after 25 years.
“We gathered every night for a long time, and every night we gathered and we lit candles,” she said. “We did this every day, not just on Sept. 11 — every day at sundown. Members of our community, people in the neighborhood, we went there [South Bayview Avenue] and we lit candles every night for nine years.”
At the lighthouse memorial, residents often leave lit candles next to the names of their loved ones.
The second memorial, brought to the lighthouse for the ceremony, was a shed that holds pictures and mementos of the Freeport victims. The structure was damaged years ago, but the Fire Department, with help from Chamber of Commerce President Benjamin Jackson, restored it, and made the shed and its contents available for the 25th anniversary observance.
Ettlinger, a New York City schoolteacher in Bellerose, Queens, emphasized the importance of children’s participation in remembrance ceremonies. “As time has gone on, students became less attached to [Sept. 11], less knowledgeable about it,” she said. “This memorial shows that our community will never forget, that we continue to remember and honor our heroes, our family and what happened that day, and so that we make sure that the young people — the children of the community, the future — will remember what this day was.”
In his closing remarks and prayer, the Rev. Eric Mallette, of Freeport’s Greater Second Baptist Church, urged residents to continue to be strong despite the pain each Sept. 11 brings.
“We must not turn against each other, because we are still healing,” Mallette said. “Americans are still dying because of the effects of 9/11. So after 25 years, our spirit of patriotism still stands, shall never fade nor die, is borne within every American, and we will forever hold to that truth.”
