East Enders gathered together throughout the day on Friday to remember the people killed in the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, and to share hopes for a return to the spirit of unity among people who responded to help in the wake of the disaster.
Many ceremonies here are centered around monuments erected from twisted pieces of steel saved after the collapse of the World Trade Center that day. We attended commemorations in Southampton, Calverton and Peconic, though many more were held throughout the region.
Southampton
At the Southampton Fire Department, the memorial service was held adjacent to the firehouse’s monument to the 343 firefighters killed on Sept. 11. It began not long before the time the first airplane struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center, at 8:46 a.m., and continued through the events of that morning, marking the time the South Tower was hit, when an airplane was crashed into the Pentagon and when a fourth plane scuttled into a field in Shanksville, Penn., after passengers attempted to divert it from the terrorists’ target — believed to be the U.S. Capitol. It concluded just after 10:28 a.m., when the North Tower collapsed.
Riverhead
In Riverhead, residents gathered at the town’s Sept. 11 monument at the corner of Edwards and Riley avenues in Calverton at 10 a.m. Among the speakers was John Cuddy of Jamesport, who was working as a detective with the NYPD on Sept. 11 and recalled his work escorting firefighters to the recovery effort at Ground Zero.
“We toiled down there all day,” he said, “That night, I remember coming up the West Side Highway, and there were people screaming. We thought something happened, but they were cheering for us. I’ll never forget that.”
Town Clerk Jim Wooten presided over a ceremony that included patriotic songs sung by Madonna Registrato and remarks by Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine, County Legislator Greg Doroski, Town Supervisor Jerry Halpin and Councilman Ken Rothwell, who shared their faith in a spirit of volunteerism and the willingness of the American people to help in a crisis.
Peconic
At Jean Cochran Park in Peconic, underneath Roberto Julio Bessin’s bronze and wire sculpture of an osprey, “Morning Call,” atop a piece of steel from the World Trade Center, local scouts placed 2,977 flags — one for each person killed that day — along the field leading to the monument.
Organized by the Southold Town Fire Chiefs Council, firefighters from every department in Southold Town paid their respects at the monument, including a handful of firefighters organized by the Greenport Fire Department who took their annual walk from Greenport to the ceremony in their turnout gear.
The community gathered in a prayer offered by Cutchogue Fire Department Chaplain Tom Roslak and heard remarks from Southold Town Supervisor Al Krupski before several FDNY members carried a wreath to the monument. One of the retired FDNY members, Don Cotrone of East Marion, had ridden his bicycle 120 miles from the World Trade Center site in lower Manhattan with a bottle of water from the memorial pool there, which Mr. Roslak spread around the base of the steel as a libation for the people who perished there.
The steel, Mr. Cotrone said, was from the 33rd floor of the South Tower, and the water came from the spot in the pool directly below where that steel had been.
Now, he said, they were reunited.
— Beth Young & George Cork Maul
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