VIDEO: 9-11 Ceremony @ Rye FD Locust Avenue HQ

The City of Rye held is annual September 11th Commemoration Ceremony on Wednesday at 5:30 pm outside Rye FD headquarters on Locust Avenue. The ceremony drew a light crowds. Remarks of local officials were powerful reminders of that day 23 years ago, its impact on Rye and the world, and a reminder of the common experience that bonds us together.

The ceremony included a blessing by Father William Mendoza of the Church of the Resurrection and remarks by public officials Mayor Josh Cohn, County Legislator Catherine Parker, State Assemblyman Steve Otis, County Executive George Latimer State and State Senator Shelley Mayer (all the officials are Rye residents except for Mayer).

Captain Clyde Pitts of Rye FD read the names of those from Rye lost. Robin Latimer, Rye resident Rye and wife of County Executive George Latimer, sang God Bless America.

Never forget:

Thomas Crotty
Benjamin Fisher
Yugi Goya
W. Ward Haynes
Takashi Kinoshita
Gary E. Koecheler
Teddy Maloney
Francis N. McGuinn
Robert McLaughlin, Jr.
Christopher D. Mello
George W. Morell
Kevin Nolan
Sean Gordon O’Neill
Thomas A. Palazzo
Michael J. Simon
Allen V. Upton

A video playlist of the remarks follows. Also available is a transcript of Mayor Josh Cohn’s remarks. Other transcriptions were not made available.

Video playlist (8 videos):

9/11/2024 – Remarks of Mayor Josh Cohn

There is such a seasonal constancy to this remembrance.  We so often have these astoundingly blue skies and full late summer sun. This the backdrop to that tragic day in 2001and to our now lengthening history of remembrances. Some things are very much the same. Others quite different.

In Rye, we feel a special need to remember publicly.  So many good Rye people got up and went to work that day only to perish in a maelstrom of hate.  Other Rye people were first responders or worked at Ground Zero in the aftermath and fell fatally ill. Together, we remember them all. This is a constant.  We will not forget the people. We will not forget the deed. We will not forget how our first responders sacrificed. At the same time, things are different.  The families no longer join us.  Their grief has become a private strand in their lives.  They manage it daily and we feel for them.  For many of us, the recollection of the day, in the third decade after, is becoming challenging – not in the sense of forgetting, but in not wishing to return to the pain.  To paraphrase a recently-interviewed first responder, “There are memories we want and those we don’t.  But we must remember them all.”

For some of us, more of us each year, there is no recollection. Our young are by their age gifted with no experience of that day. But those who lived it are obliged to share their memories with those who did not, both to honor those lost and to communicate the shock and loss of the event, and the realizations we shared afterwards.  It is vital that we as one people have a common understanding of the grief of 9/11, the dangers that it showed us and the strength it revealed in us.

What are some of the things we saw? Our own vulnerability to a surprise act of  hate; the intensity of hate fashioned into a holy war against us, our way of life and our values – a holy war that continues against us and our allies and that we still don’t fully understand; and the resilience of our national spirit and the unity we found in the face of that hate.

Again – some things are the same, others different.  Islamism continues to cause havoc in the Middle East and elsewhere. That the Al Qaeda brand of Islamism is of a different stripe than the Iranian Islamic Revolution that is firing up proxy groups around Israel matters little. The suicidal intensity of Islamist hate is a constant, but one we tend to forget.  That savage fundamentalism is now accompanied on the global stage by a Russia seeking to recoup what its leaders think is its rightful destiny (peace and the Ukrainian people be damned), and by a behemoth China willing to skate along the fringes of confrontation. So, once again challenge, once again antipathy to us, our way of life, and, yes, to our own dominance.

These challenges come as we appear divided.  We find ourselves riven by the fears that breed racism, antisemitism and xenophobia.  We are subject in a presidential election year to foreign meddling that seeks to exploit our underlying fears and divide us further.  What lesson can we find in the sadness of 9/11?  Out of 9/11 we united.  Out of our many, we became one.  I believe despite the challenges that face us today, we will endure, even through this contentious time, and again be united.  Today let’s remember our loss and how we came together, and, please, believe with me.