Solemn 9/11 Memorial Ceremony Held at Patriots Park

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September 10, 2023

By Rick Pezzullo—

The Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow fire departments held a solemn memorial ceremony at Patriots Park Sunday morning to mark the 22^nd anniversary of the terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

Elected officials from Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow were in attendance, as were Congressman Mike Lawler and State Assemblywoman MaryJane Shimsky.

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“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 in his fifth day as a freshman at Suffern High School when news of the hijacked planes taking down the Twin Towers in Manhattan came over the loud speaker.

“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 First Assistant Fire Chief Billy Ryan helped sort through the rubble at Ground Zero almost daily for nine months.

“That day was a blur,” Ryan said. “It was just a very long, brutal period of time. Pass those stories on and learn from it. 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 great trees fall in forests, small things recoil into silence, their senses eroded beyond fear. When great souls die, the air around us becomes light, rare, sterile. We breathe, briefly. Our eyes, briefly, see with a hurtful 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. Spaces fill with a kind of soothing electric vibration. Our senses, restored, never to be the same, whisper to us. They existed. They existed. We can be. Be and be better. For they existed.”

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