Thursday, October 1, 2026
Twenty-five years after the Sept. 11 attacks, community members continue to gather each year on that day at Seaford High School to remember the five alumni whose lives were cut short.
To honor the area's five victims — Thomas and Timothy Haskell, John Perry, Robert Sliwak and Michael Wittenstein — this year's ceremony will be held from 5 to 6 p.m., at the high school's 9/11 Memorial.
For the victims' families, however, remembrance has never been confined to a single day.
Dawn Haskell Carbone said honoring her brothers means remembering who they were before they became names on a memorial.
Carbone grew up on Neptune Avenue in Seaford with her four brothers, Tommy, Timmy, Kenny and Kevin. She was the second oldest and said she was “almost like their second mother.”
She recalled that Tommy was driven and serious, a devoted football fan whose life revolved around family and the fire department. Timmy, who was closest to her in age, was the opposite of his brother: adventurous, funny and always looking for his next thrill.
“He was wild, crazy and fun,” Carbone said of Timmy. “He would jump off a cliff, and it didn't matter what bone he broke. He just had a ball doing it.”
Both brothers eventually became New York City firefighters, following a family tradition that began with their father.
On Sept. 11, Timmy Haskell was not scheduled to be at his firehouse, because he had already left after temporarily working at another station when he saw the towers burning.
“He turned and went back,” Carbone said.
Tommy Haskell was working that morning as an acting battalion chief.
“They really did make a sacrifice,” Carbone said. “They knew it was going to be bad, and they still went in.”
Their courageous decision is part of the story her brother Ken Haskell has spent the past quarter-century helping to tell.
Ken Haskell, a firefighter who had previously served with the NYPD, was off duty when the attacks began. Drawing on his experience responding to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, he quickly realized the first plane strike was no accident. He rushed to his firehouse, where he and other off-duty firefighters commandeered a bus from a nearby depot and drove toward Manhattan, picking up firefighters along the way.
He ultimately learned that both of his brothers had died in the towers. Timmy Haskell was in the North Tower, where he stopped to help an injured man before answering a call for help on an upper floor. His body was found four days later.
Tommy Haskell was in the South Tower, where he and other firefighters were helping evacuate people when the building collapsed. He left behind his high school sweetheart, Barbara, and their three daughters. Today, he has two granddaughters he never got the chance to meet.
Ken Haskell has since devoted much of his life to honoring them and the other three Seaford graduates. He later served as a Homeland Security adviser to then-U.S. Rep. Peter King, helping provide insight into first-responder preparedness and legislation.
King's relationship with the Haskell family began just days after the attacks, when he met Ken at Timmy's wake. King later brought Ken onto his congressional staff.
“Some people can take a tragedy like that and make it something to feel sorry for the rest of your life,” King said. “They turn it into something very positive.”
That positive legacy took shape through the Seaford 9/11 Memorial Committee, which was founded in the aftermath of the attacks. The Seaford High School memorial was dedicated in November 2002. The committee's mission has grown to include annual ceremonies, student service initiatives, Patriot Awards and educational trips to the National September 11 Memorial and Museum.
Tom Condon, the committee's president and co-founder, said the original goal was to create more than a monument.
“It would be a living legacy for the five alumni,” Condon said.
That legacy centers on “Service, Character and Commitment,” the qualities used to select the annual Patriot Award recipients. Since 2002, the committee has awarded 128 Patriot Awards totaling more than $275,000, according to its 2026 program.
Condon said the program allows students to learn about the five alumni through the way they lived, rather than only through the circumstances of their deaths.
“They carry through,” Condon said of former recipients, “as role models of the theme that we carry through.”
The memorial has also become a nationally recognized part of Seaford's remembrance efforts. The committee's 2026 program states that the memorial and related programs have been recognized by the National 9/11 Registry as among the most outstanding of more than 1,200 programs.
Nassau County Legislator Kayla Knight is helping to preserve that legacy, securing grant funding to renovate and enhance the memorial. The project is personal for Knight, whose uncle, Michael Marti, worked at Cantor Fitzgerald in the World Trade Center and died on Sept. 11.
“I believe it is our responsibility to preserve the memory of the victims, survivors and first responders who made tremendous sacrifices,” Knight said.
This year, the ceremony will be held at an earlier time to accommodate the first night of the Jewish High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah, which begins at sundown, and as a result, the traditional candle lighting will not take place.
For King, the continuing turnout is proof that Seaford has kept its promise.
“That they're not forgotten,” he said about what he hopes the annual community gathering signifies. “That their family members are not forgotten, and that Seaford will always keep them in our memory.”
Carbone said that when she attends the ceremony, she thinks about the two brothers she lost, the lives they would have led and the family members they never got to meet.
“I think about them and where they would be today, and all the things that they've missed,” she said.
After 25 years, she said, “I just want other people to think of them, too.”
