Babylon Town to unveil memorial honoring 9/11 victims who died later of illnesses

Babylon Town this week will unveil a new post-9/11 memorial honoring residents who succumbed to diseases related to work at the site of the terrorist attack.

Town officials said the memorial, located between Overlook and Cedar beaches and draped with a blue tarp, will be uncovered Friday at the town’s Sept. 11 anniversary commemoration.

Thomas Wischerth will be among those remembered.

“My dad was a humble person who would never want that kind of recognition,” said Rhyan Wischerth, whose father was a federal investigator who died of 9/11-related colon cancer in 2017 at age 62. “Just the fact that the town is acknowledging that these guys ultimately sacrificed their lives means a lot.”

The memorial is a large rectangular stone with 14 names engraved on it that are flanked by marble replicas of the Twin Towers that have “Never Forget” and “Sept. 11, 2001” on them.

Inscribed on the monument: “In solemn remembrance of all Town of Babylon residents who succumbed to illness as a result of their courageous rescue efforts at the World Trade Center. Their sacrifices will never be forgotten.”

In recent years, some municipalities and fire departments have begun incorporating the names of those who suffered from post-9/11 illnesses on their existing Sept. 11 memorials. The Babylon Town dedication is believed to be one of the first on Long Island exclusively for residents who have died after the attacks.

“They were every much a part of that day as the people who passed away actually on that day,” said Babylon Town Councilman Terence McSweeney. “It’s important for the families to know their loved ones will be recognized.”

Near the town's 9/11 memorial

The monument is located just beyond the town’s 9/11 memorial, which features metal plaques on stone walls honoring the 48 town residents who died in the attacks.

The effort, which was spearheaded by the Town of Babylon Fire Chiefs Association, cost about $100,000, McSweeney said, and was paid for through the town’s capital improvements budget.

A place on the memorial is open to anyone who was a town resident at some point, was at or near Ground Zero and died as a result of being exposed to toxins there.

“It doesn’t matter if you were a first responder, if you were installing cable wire, if you were a plumber,” McSweeney said. “You were there getting New York, getting the United States back together after the greatest terror attack on this country since Pearl Harbor.”

Veronica Strack’s husband, Harry W. Strack, of North Babylon, was an electrician who spent weeks after 9/11 down in the manholes near Ground Zero working on fiberoptic cables to retore computer service to financial institutions. He was forced to retire when he developed prostate cancer, and he died in 2019 at age 61.

“We had all these plans for when he retired,” Veronica said of her husband, who was an avid fisherman. “We were going to travel and start living again after years of saving.”

She said she wanted his name on the memorial because “he deserves it” after all his hard work.

“It’ll be nice for our kids to go down there and show their friends who their dad was,” she said. “It’s an honor.”

Space for more names

The stone monument was purposely left with space to add more names. With the number who have died in the years after the attack already surpassing the nearly 3,000 killed on Sept. 11, 2001, it is estimated that thousands more who were at or near Ground Zero may die of related illnesses in the coming years.

Those who are eligible to be on the monument must have had illnesses related to Ground Zero exposure as established by the World Trade Center Health Program, which was created by the federal James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act of 2010.

According to the program’s website, more than 130,000 people have enrolled for healthcare related to 9/11 exposure.

Because of the uncertainty with how many people will be added to the memorial, planning it was a challenge, McSweeney said.

"There’s no way of knowing how many names are ultimately going to be on it,” he said. “So how much room do we leave? . . . We’re holding our breath and hoping that we never have to add another name.”

There was also the matter of getting the memorial stone to the site. Because of its weight and the sandy ground there, eight-foot mats had to be put down for the trucks to slowly drive over so they wouldn’t sink and get stuck, McSweeney said.

“It slowed down the process more and it wasn’t as cut and dry,” Anthony Spadolini, owner of Wellwood Memorials in North Lindenhurst, which made the monument, said of the sand.

Wellwood, which also did the town’s 9/11 memorial, continues to receive requests related to 9/11, he said.

“We’re still doing these projects; it’s very sad,” he said. “You wonder when it’s going to end.”

John A. Tiska Jr. was an FDNY firefighter who had just come back from his night shift when he turned on the news and saw the attack. He was initially told not to go down there, said his sister Nancy de Gruchy, 73.

“He went back two days later to the pile and never left,” spending months there, his sister said. “They went in there doing the right thing and the right thing wasn’t being done back to them. They did not protect these guys.”

Tiska, of Lindenhurst, was a jokester who loved Bruce Springsteen and golf and would take his niece Jenna Jackson boogie-boarding at Jones Beach, and to Broadway shows. He developed lung cancer in 2012, then esophageal and brain cancer, and died in 2023 at age 65.

“We’re trying to keep him alive in our hearts,” Jackson, 39, said of the memorial. “It’s another place to visit and stop in and say hello.”

Rhyan Wischerth said his father, of West Babylon, was a baseball devotee who would take his sons out for a game of catch in the yard after work. 

Thomas Wischerth was a humble, stoic man who spent months combing through evidence at Ground Zero and then Fresh Kills, his son said.

“It’s nice that my dad gets acknowledged but it also brings back losing him,” Rhyan said of the memorial unveiling, noting that post-9/11 deaths are only recently being recognized. “It just goes to show the aftereffects and impact that single event had.”