Karen Molina held her daughter’s hand as she remembered with tearful eyes arriving in Manhattan on the morning of September 11, 2001, to witness the horrors that unfolded that fateful day.
“I had come out of the subway and saw what looked like a movie scene,” says Molina, who was working on Wall Street at the time and had gotten off the subway shortly after the attacks. “It was pretty traumatic. The whole day was awful.”
With small American flag and white rose laid in her lap, Molina and her family were among hundreds who attended the 9/11 memorial service Wednesday morning at Point Lookout, hosted by the Town of Hempstead. It is one of the largest remembrance ceremonies on Long Island, which was home to nearly 500 of the about 3,000 people killed in the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil.
It was a beautiful beach morning, with bright sunshine, clear skies and calm waves. Folks gathered on the sand, giving hugs before Hempstead Town Supervisor Don Clavin took this stage.
“The grieving and being together on this morning, on this day to reflect is so significant,” said Clavin, as he emphasized the lives of loved ones that are still being lost each year from the attacks.
A Wall of Remembrance that stands at the foot of the beach is filled with plaques of innocent Americans that were killed in the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers, Pentagon and aboard Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania.
When the memorial was first unveiled, Clavin noted that the number of victims was only 2983, and the names added since reflect victims of health complications caused by World Trade Center toxins and debris.
Featured speaker of the service Dawn Kirchner shared one of these stories, as her husband Ronald, a firefighter, died in 2022 from dementia and World Trade Center-related complications. Ronald’s cognitive functioning took a steady decline after spending nearly 600 hours working with a task force at Ground Zero for months following the attacks. Kirchner remembered her husband with love by placing a wreath in his honor.
“Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things,” she said. “Love never ends.”
Other New Yorkers in attendance remembered friends lost in the attacks, such as Rochelle Bove, who held a flag marked with five handwritten names of her loved ones.
“I don’t want anyone to forget that they sacrificed,” said Bove, a resident of Douglaston, Queens. “They paid the ultimate price.”
The memorial service also included a presentation of the colors by the Rockville Centre Fire Department, musical selections from Captain Fred McFarland of the Levittown Fire Department, and remarks by several local religious leaders. Despite the heartache it brings, Molina finds comfort in coming every year to the service.
“When you come to these events you find other people that have experienced it,” she said.
Bove also emphasized the importance of the Long Island community joining together for this event each year.
“There’s nothing that divides us,” she said. “We all have to stick together.”
Clavin expressed his gratitude for the ability to come together as a region and country on this day of remembrance.
“People say it’s sad that we have to be here, but I think it’s important that we know we have to be here,” he said.
At the conclusion of the memorial service, attendees walked to the shore, dressed in NYPD and FDNY gear to cast their white roses into the ocean in memory of those lost on this day 23 years ago.
