Solemn 9/11 Memorial Ceremony Held at Patriots Park
September 10, 2023
By Rick Pezzullo—
Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow Fire Departments held an solemn commemoration ceremony at Patriots Park, Sunday morning. The 22nd anniversary of the tragic fires in Sleepy Hollow was marked by this event.nd On September 11, 2001, the World Trade Center was the site of terrorist attacks.
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Attendees included elected officials from Tarrytown, Sleepy Hollow and Congressman Mike Lawler as well as State Assemblywoman MaryJane Shimsky.
“There are not many days that we remember exactly what we were doing at the exact place and the exact time,” said Sleepy Hollow Mayor Martin Rutyna, who was a senior in college 22 years ago. “That memory is fading. Let us remember our enduring promise to never forget.”
Lawler was on his fifth day of being a freshman in Suffern when he heard the news that the Twin Towers had been brought down by hijacked aircraft in Manhattan.
“2,977 lives were extinguished in a moment,” Lawler said. “As a community it is important that we do remember.”
“We need to remember that at a moment’s notice anything can happen,” Shimsky said. “That day there were so many heroes, many of whom have their lives. I’m sure everyone knows someone who isn’t here today.”
Sleepy hollow’s Assistant fire chief Billy Ryan, who is also the first assistant to the Sleepy hollow Fire Chief, helped dig through rubble almost every day at Ground Zero for nine months.
“That day was a blur,” Ryan said. “It was just a very long, brutal period of time. Share your stories and learn. Do your job the best way you can with dignity.”
Tarrytown Mayor Karen Brown referred to a poem written by Maya Angelou called “When Great Trees Fall,” which says, in part, “When trees fall in the forest, all small things shiver and go into silence. They have lost their senses. When great souls pass away, the air becomes rare, light and sterile. We breathe briefly. Our eyes briefly see the world with a painful clarity. Our memory, suddenly sharpened, examines, gnaws on kind words unsaid, promised walks never taken…And when great souls die, after a period peace blooms, slowly and always irregularly. The spaces fill with an electric vibration that is soothing. Our senses whispered to us, restoring them, and never going to be the same again. They existed. They existed. We can be. Be better. For they existed.”
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