Thursday, October 1, 2026
Twenty-five years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Glen Cove residents gathered at Pratt Park to honor the lives lost and the first responders whose experiences that day remain with them a quarter-century later.
At the city’s annual remembrance ceremony, the community paid special tribute to four Glen Cove residents who were killed in the attacks: Edward J. Lehman, Matthew T. McDermott, John F. Puckett and Joseph J. Zuccala.
“Twenty-five years have passed, yet the memory of 9/11 remains etched deeply in our hearts and minds,” Mayor Pamela Panzenbecks said at the ceremony. “A day that, before its tragic events, was just a date.”
Panzenbeck reflected on the images that have remained with Americans for a quarter-century — smoke, fire and ash — as well as the thousands who left for work that morning and never returned to their families.
“We also honor and remember the bravery and extraordinary heroism shown by ordinary people living their everyday lives,” she said. “They were just like us.”
Glen Cove and graduated from Glen Cove High School before embarking on a career in law enforcement. Cruz was an NYPD officer on Sept. 11, 2001.
Cruz recounts his story
In a separate interview with the Herald, Cruz recalled reporting to the 100th Precinct in Queens at 4:30 that morning. It was primary day, and he was assigned to election duty at a housing development.
At 8:46 a.m., the first plane struck the World Trade Center.
“They told us it was an accident,” Cruz recalled.
Then, at 9:03 a.m., the second plane struck.
“That’s when they said, ‘We’re under attack,’” he said.
Cruz was ordered back to his precinct for reassignment. He remembered officers trying to comprehend an emergency unlike anything they had been prepared to confront.
“This is a mission we weren’t prepared for, but we had to keep the people of New York City safe,” Cruz said.
He was initially deployed as part of a response team as authorities faced the possibility of additional attacks. By the following morning, Cruz was sent to Ground Zero.
What he encountered there has remained with him for 25 years.
“It was like a movie,” Cruz said. “It looked like a bomb kind of hit Manhattan.”
The destruction was everywhere — shattered glass, crushed emergency vehicles and debris covering the surrounding area. At one point, Cruz said; officers were warned that a building might collapse.
“I thought three things,” Cruz recalled. “I’m 29 years old, never got married, never had any children. I’m going to die.”
But one of the experiences that affected Cruz most deeply did not involve running toward danger. It came while he was assigned to a barricade as relatives arrived carrying photographs of missing family members.
Parents, grandparents, siblings and children approached officers asking whether they had seen their loved ones.
“What do you say to somebody who’s crying to you?” Cruz said. “They’re looking for hope, and we couldn’t give them any.”
Instead, Cruz said, officers abandoned some of the physical distance ingrained in their law enforcement training.
“What we did was do what our hearts told us to do,” he said. “We hugged them, we kissed them and we cried with them.”
Those encounters remain vivid.
“To this day, I close my eyes, I can see every person I hugged, kissed and cried with,” Cruz said. “Twenty-five years later, it doesn’t just go away.”
Remembrance messages
That passage of time was also at the heart of Pastor John Burns’ message at Pratt Park. Twenty-five years means an increasing number of Americans have no personal memory of the attacks, he said, making the responsibility to preserve their history more important.
Burns said he chooses to focus not on the evil behind the attacks, but on the courage demonstrated in response.
“I’ll remember the firemen who ran up the stairways knowing they would never come down, and the passengers storming the cockpit of a jet,” Burns said. “Yes, these are the heroes of 9/11, and they are the ones I remember who lit the candles to serve and save others.”
Cruz has made preserving those memories part of his life. He continues speaking about Sept. 11 because some of his fellow officers never returned home and others died years later after being exposed to toxins at Ground Zero.
Among them was his former classmate, Sgt. Natalie Pacifico Brill, who Cruz said died four years ago after having worked at Ground Zero.
“Never forget, it’s not a catchphrase,” Cruz said. “It’s something we live with. It really is every single day.”
Panzenbeck also recognized first responders who survived the attacks but later died from illnesses associated with their exposure during the rescue and recovery efforts.
“Their courage and selflessness will never be forgotten,” she said.
For Cruz, remembering Sept. 11 also means remembering what happened in its aftermath: strangers arriving to offer first responders food, water, embraces and simple words of encouragement.
“We might have fell down, but they picked us up,” Cruz said. “They said, ‘You’re not going to fall down. We’re going to stand by you.’”
For him, that remains one of the enduring lessons of Sept. 11.
“We came together as one, as a country,” Cruz said.
