9/11 ceremonies on Long Island remember the dead and those suffering today

Long Islanders paid tribute Sunday to the 3,000 lost on 9/11 but also remembered those who had answered the call to help, only to suffer and die later from poisons unleashed in the terror attacks.

They also pondered how to teach those born after Sept. 11, 2001, about an unfathomable tragedy that devastated families across the Island and throughout the region.

Militants from al-Qaida flew two planes into the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan, killing 2,753 people, including 497 Long Islanders. Another 224 died in crashes of hijacked planes at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

Iron worker Kenny Brown, 49, spent two weeks at Ground Zero after the attacks. Before a ceremony on Sunday morning in Point Lookout, he noticed that there was plenty of blank space on a memorial wall.

“There’s still room for a lot more names,” he said. “And that's what I think about today. I think about the people that are still dying, not only the suffering back in the day, but the people who are still suffering today. It doesn't just go away.”

Brown, of Massapequa, said he is part of the World Trade Center Health Program, which provides free care and testing for those exposed to toxins on and after 9/11.

Tens of thousands of people who initially survived 9/11 either have died of diseases linked to Ground Zero or are battling them now.

'Our names could be on this wall one day'

At the 9/11 Responders Remembered Park in Nesconset, which is dedicated to responders who died of 9/11-related illnesses, 382 will be formally added to a memorial wall during a ceremony on Saturday. That will bring the total to more than 2,500, said John Feal, head of the nonprofit that runs the park.

Ed Braun, a retired FDNY sergeant who was at Ground Zero, stood with former colleagues in front of the wall Sunday afternoon.

“It’s a thought we have that our names could be on this wall one day," Braun said.

Carrell Johnson, another retired fire patrolman, said he suffers from neuropathy, a nervous system disorder, which his doctor suspects is related to his time at Ground Zero. The thought of developing illness is always on the minds of 9/11 first responders, he said.

The children of FDNY firefighter Matthew Scalise and his wife Christine Scalise were each born more than a decade after 9/11. The couple drove from their Farmingville home to Eisenhower Park in East Meadow to show their 8-year-old daughter and 6-year-old son the 9/11 memorial wall there.

When his kids have asked him questions about 9/11, Matthew Scalise, 41, has found it hard to convey the gravity of the tragedy. And to do it in an age-appropriate way.

"I tried to tell them a lot of people passed away that day. But what do you mean a lot of people? 'A lot' to an 8-year-old means like 7," Scalise said. "So I wanted to show them the names."

Standing in light rain, the Scalises pointed out the names etched on the wall and explained that their grandfather, Christine’s father, Gary Gersitz, was one of the first responders who rushed to the site after the first plane hit. The kids had asked why grandpa, who now lives in Florida, is sad on Sept. 11.

Scalise said he tries to be sensitive when he speaks of the first responders who died that day.

"I don't want them to be scared of 9/11 because of my job and what I do," he said. "Hopefully they'll start to remember, and as they get older, they'll take it upon themselves to go pay respect."

A place that holds special meaning

In Point Lookout, hundreds gathered on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean for the annual ceremony. Donna Steckman was one of them. For her, the Point Lookout beach holds a special meaning. It's where her father, William V. Steckman, took his family for a walk or swim before he was killed on 9/11.

Donna Steckman, 55, of Massapequa, said she prefers the annual ceremony on the beach to the commemorations in lower Manhattan, which she views as too "overwhelming." 

"This is more peaceful because this is the beach we came to," she said, donning a black sweatshirt with a photo of her father.

Steckman, 56, of West Hempstead, was a transmitter engineer for NBC on the 104th floor of the north tower of the World Trade Center.

Many at Point Lookout held a long-stemmed white carnation and a miniature American flag as they listened to speakers.

One of the speakers was Phil Alvarez, a retired Suffolk County police detective whose brother, former NYPD Det. Luis Alvarez, of Oceanside, died of 9/11-related colorectal cancer in 2019.

"Not a year goes by since losing Lou that the hurt gets easier," Phil Alvarez said. " … Not a year goes by that I don't remember the courageous life that he led. I miss you, little brother. But as you used to say, I know you're still here, still breathing, still fighting within the lives and souls you inspired by your suffering."

Before he died, Luis Alvarez was a leading advocate in the fight for an extension of federal funding for 9/11 survivors. 

Other 9/11 ceremonies took place throughout the Island, from Hempstead to West Babylon. In Islip Town’s Veterans Memorial Park, 90 flags were placed around a piece of World Trade Center steel. Each represented a town resident killed on 9/11.

A bell rang out as each name was called.

"You think of what they’ve missed in all these 21 years," Elaine Schill Kurka, a retired registered nurse from Islip, said of the victims, which included the husband of a friend. "Their family, their friends, their life, celebration, children, grandchildren."

Barbara Gathard, who was living in Battery Park in lower Manhattan at the time of the attacks, witnessed the horror of those falling from the burning buildings and later survived 9/11-related breast cancer.

Gathard, 75, and now a Bay Shore resident, said she sobbed while the names of victims were read on television Sunday morning.

"I said, 'I really shouldn't be watching this,'" she said. "Then I said, 'No, you need to be watching this. You need to remember these people.'"

It doesn't get any easier

At Cemetery of the Holy Rood in Westbury, families and friends of people killed on 9/11 visited a monument that features the names of more than 400 victims. Near the monument are some of the graves of those lost.

Through a light drizzle, people paid homage by placing flowers or other cherished items around their loved ones’ tombstones.

Ralph Licciardi, 23, of Franklin Square, said members of his family laid gloves, wires and other tools on his father’s cemetery stone to commemorate his profession as an electrician. Licciardi’s father, also Ralph, was working in one of the towers when planes crashed into the buildings. Licciardi, who was only 2 when his father was killed, said he visits the site often.

“People always tell me he was very nice and that he was the funny one in the family,” Licciardi said.

Joan York, of Massapequa, joined by her family, visited the grave of her late husband, FDNY firefighter Raymond York. She described him as a man who loved his family, country and the Yankees.

“He was just an amazing man, and I was never surprised that he was there,” she said. “Like most firemen, it’s just what they do. It's in their blood.”

Their son, Rob Szendrey, of Massapequa, was 11 when his father died. He is now an FDNY firefighter stationed in Astoria, Queens. Szendrey, now 32, said joining “the fire department for me was a way to keep his memory alive and keep it close to me.”

Raymond York was a few months away from retiring when he was killed, his family said.

Paul Buckheit, 71, of Bellmore, wore a shirt bearing the names of friends he lost that day. Standing in front of the grave of his longtime friend, Bruce Gary, a firefighter who lost his life on Sept. 11, Buckheit described him as a loving and strong man.

“Me and Bruce Gary, we raised our children together, we ran the little league for 20-some-odd years together,” he said.

Buckheit said the loss doesn’t get easier.

“Till this day I can’t watch film of the towers,” Buckheit said. “It’s hard to think about.”