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Village Beacon Record

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I honestly don’t remember a whole lot from elementary school, but I still remember September 11, 2001. 

I remember it was a beautiful, warm day. There was not one cloud in the sky and we were all so excited that we would be able to play outside for recess and gym class. 

At just 8 years old, I was in the fourth grade at East Street Elementary School in Hicksville — just a little over an hour away from one of my favorite places, Manhattan. 

My dad was a truck driver back then, and he was always in the city making deliveries. He’d take me and my brother out there every other weekend and show us his favorite spots. One of them was the World Trade Center. 

“Isn’t it amazing?” I remember him saying, “They look like Legos from far away.”

Back at school that Tuesday morning, I remember simply going about our day. Things eventually got weird, though. My principal came to speak to my teacher out at around 10 a.m. outside of the classroom, and I remember her face when she came back inside. She was white as a ghost. 

Throughout the day, my classmates started to get pulled out one by one. I remember being mad that I couldn’t go home, like everyone else. I remember being jealous but, looking back, they were being taken out because their fathers and uncles were first responders and their families were scared.

When our parents picked us up later in the afternoon, I remember everyone just feeling so sad. The sky wasn’t that pretty blue anymore — it felt like a dark cloud washed over us, which on reflection might have been smoke heading east. Everyone’s energy was low. The news was the only thing we watched for hours.

My dad made it home later that night and he was shell shocked. From his truck route in Queens, he said he saw the smoke. He was on the parkway, sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic, fleeing with the rest of the people trying to evacuate Manhattan. 

My family was lucky — we didn’t lose anyone that day, and being so young I don’t know if I was able to recognize what happened until much later in life. 

I knew it was a sad day. I knew that something bad happened. I knew that I had to wear red, white and blue on Sept. 12 and that a lot of people were missing and dead. 

But when I became a journalist, I started to talk to more and more people who were impacted on the anniversaries of the attacks. Every year since the age of 8, it began to become more real to me. 

After college, I met my best friend, Nicole, who’s aunt worked in the first tower. She died on impact when the plane crashed through her office. 

Hearing these stories opened my eyes more. I grew up with 9/11 and felt it firsthand. But growing up, I started to learn more about the actual people whose lives were lost that day. I heard their stories and they eventually became real persons to me — not just numbers in this crazy story. 

It’s amazing to think that 20 years have passed since the events which took place that horrible day. It’s amazing to see what has happened since then —wars, recessions, other bombings and a pandemic. And it’s amazing to believe that families, like my friend Nicole’s, have been without their loved ones for two decades.

No matter what age you were when the events happened — or even if you hadn’t been born yet — I think the anniversary of 9/11 should remind all of us to hug our families a little harder. Tell them you love them, and never forget the thousands of people who were impacted that day. 

Julianne Mosher is the editor of the Port Times Record, Village Beacon Record and Times of Middle Country. 

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Photographer Bolivar Arellano was on the scene when the World Trade Center’s south tower was imploding. Photo by Bolivar Arellano

My day on September 11, 2001, began like many others that Tuesday.

It was a beautiful morning as I drove to my job in Farmingdale, listening to the radio. I can’t remember what station was on, but I will never forget the DJs stopping the music, shocked that they just saw on TV a plane crash into one of the towers of the World Trade Center.

The radio hosts thought it had to have been an accident.

But then I entered my office and headed toward my cubicle, and coming down the other side of the aisle was a co-worker saying another plane had hit the other tower. It was at that point we feared that our country had just undergone a terrorist attack.

We all began to call our family members and friends who lived or worked in the city, and we couldn’t get through. That day, our office was closed early. Like many, I was numb as I made the trek home, but I was fortunate I didn’t lose any loved ones. However, forever etched on my mind will be seeing the tragedy played out on the news and seeing people roaming Lower Manhattan hoping someone had seen their missing loved ones.

I have read countless stories about the people killed that day and watched documentaries of the day’s events and aftermath, but I have been affected most by the passing of two of my former classmates from the Hauppauge High School Class of 1986. John Tipping, a firefighter, was one of the first responders on the scene, and Joseph Perroncino was working for Cantor Fitzgerald as vice president of operations.

I was extremely shy in school, so I wasn’t a friend to either of them. Joseph was simply a familiar face in the halls of Hauppauge’s middle and high schools. As for John, he and I attended school together from fourth to 12th grade. He was one of the children of Forest Brook Elementary School, and he always had a boyish face and a twinkle in his eyes.

Despite the fact we never became friends, something is haunting about losing someone you went to school with for years. It’s hard to explain those feelings, but I can tell you I feel a great sense of unfairness. John and Joseph should have been at our 20th and 30th reunions talking about things such as their careers, significant others, children and other memorable events. When I think of Joseph and John is when I get the saddest and angriest.

After 9/11, I realized how much my life resembled a quilt, adorned with patches left behind by everyone I have ever met and interacted with at some level. My quilt has many holes, and my former classmates are among the tears in the fabric.

Americans have learned many lessons since that day. I have always hoped we could keep them forever. It shouldn’t have taken such tragedies to make us realize how fortunate we are to be Americans and to make us look around at everything we have and at everyone in our lives and realize how lucky we are, but that’s what happened that day. On the 20th anniversary of that tragic day, my hope is that we will forge ahead stronger, smarter and with more gratitude in our hearts and guarantee that those who passed away on September 11 didn’t die in vain.

Rita J. Egan is the editor of The Village Times Herald, The Times of Smithtown and The Times of Huntington, Northport & East Northport.

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The 9/11 memorial in Hauppauge. File photo by Rita J. Egan

“One of the worst days in American history saw some of the bravest acts in Americans’ history. We’ll always honor the heroes of 9/11. And here at this hallowed place, we pledge that we will never forget their sacrifice.” — Former President George W. Bush

These were the patriotic thoughts of this president who reflected on the heroic services that were demonstrated by Americans during and after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. 

While it has been 20 years since our nation was attacked by the sting of terrorism, Americans have not forgotten this tragic moment. On the North Shore — about 80 miles from Manhattan at its easterly point — there are many memorials that honor the local residents who were killed, the dedication of the rescue workers and the War on Terror veterans who defended this nation at home and abroad for the last two decades.

There has been a tremendous amount of support from the local municipalities, state and local governments, along with school districts to never forget 9/11. People do not have to look far to notice the different types of memorials, landmarks and resting places that represent those harrowing moments and the sacrifices that were made to help others and defend this country. 

Calverton National Cemetery

Driving northwest on Route 25A, it is possible to quickly see the reminders of sacrifice within the Calverton National Cemetery. This sacred ground is one of the largest military burial grounds in America and driving through its roads, there are flags that have been placed for veterans of all conflicts — especially the most recent during the War on Terror. 

One of the most visited sites there is that of Patchogue resident Lt. Michael P. Murphy who was killed in 2005 in Afghanistan, where under intense enemy fire he tried to call in support to rescue his outnumbered four-man SEAL team. 

As the 20th anniversary of 9/11 approaches, local residents can also see his name gracing the front of Patchogue-Medford High School, the post office in Patchogue, the Navy SEAL Museum that is near completion in West Sayville, and a memorial created for him on the east side of Lake Ronkonkoma, where he was a lifeguard.

Shoreham-Wading River—Rocky Point—Sound Beach—Mount Sinai

West of Calverton, at the main entrance of Shoreham-Wading River High School, you will notice a baseball field located between the road and the Kerry P. Hein Army Reserve Center. 

One of this field’s former players, Kevin Williams, was killed on 9/11, where he was a bond salesman for Sandler O’Neill, in the South Tower of the World Trade Center. This 24-year-old young man was a talented athlete who was recognized with MVP honors on the baseball, golf and basketball teams for the high school. 

A foundation has been created in the name of Williams, an avid New York Yankees fan, that has helped provide financial support to baseball and softball players unable to afford attending sports camps. 

Not far from Shoreham, driving westward, motorists will notice the strength, size and beauty of the Rocky Point Fire Department 9/11 memorial. This structure is located on Route 25A, on the west side of the firehouse.

Immediately, people will notice the impressive steel piece that is standing tall in the middle of a fountain, surrounded by a walkway with bricks that have special written messages. In the background, there are names of the people killed during these attacks and plaques that have been created to recognize the services of the rescue workers and all of those people lost.  

Heading west into Rocky Point’s downtown business district, VFW Post 6249 has a 9/11 tribute with steel from lower Manhattan. Less than a half mile away, on Broadway and Route 25A, the Joseph P. Dwyer statue proudly stands high overlooking the activity of the busy corner.  

This veteran’s square remembers the service of PFC Dwyer, who enlisted into the Army directly after this nation was attacked and fought in Iraq. He struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder and this statue supports all veterans who have dealt with these hard psychological and physical conditions. 

A short distance away, the Sound Beach Fire Department also created a special structure on its grounds through a neighborhood feeling of remembrance toward all of those people lost.

Heading west toward Mount Sinai, it is easy to observe a wonderful sense of pride through the Heritage Park by its display of American flags. On the Fourth of July, Veterans Day and Memorial Day, residents see these national and state colors, and this always presents a great deal of patriotism for the people utilizing this park.

Coram—Port Jefferson—St. James 

More south on County Road 83 and North Ocean Avenue, visitors of all ages enjoy the Diamond in the Pines Park in Coram. There, people have the opportunity to visit the 9/11 Memorial Learning Site. This site honors all of the citizens lost from the townships of Brookhaven and Riverhead, the rescue workers and War on Terror veterans.  

For 10 years, the site has helped reflect on this assault on America through the major bronze plaques with historical information, black granite pictures, benches, and statues of a bronze eagle and a rescue dog that helped search for survivors of the attack at the World Trade Center.

Leaving this park and going north into the village of Port Jefferson, people enjoy the beauty of its harbor, its stores, and they see traffic enter via ferry from Connecticut. Through the activity of this bustling area, there is a large bronze eagle that is placed on a high granite platform.  

Perched high, citizens from two different states brought together by the ferry are able to walk by this memorial that helps recognize the lost people of Long Island and the New England state. Driving near the water through Setauket, Stony Brook and into St. James, there is a major 7-ton memorial that highlights a “bowtie section” of steel from the World Trade Center.  

Due to the type of steel on display, there are few memorials that capture the spirit of the St. James Fire Department 9/11 site.

Nesconset—Hauppauge—Smithtown

Traveling south down Lake Avenue toward Gibbs Pond Road and Lake Ronkonkoma, the 9/11 Responders Remembered Memorial Park in Nesconset is located at 316 Smithtown Blvd. This is a vastly different place of remembrance, as it is continually updated with the names of fallen rescue workers who have died since the attacks 20 years ago. 

Taking Townline Road west into Hauppauge toward Veterans Highway and Route 347, you will end up at the Suffolk County government buildings. 

Directly across from Blydenburgh Park in Smithtown, is a major 9/11 memorial created by the county. This memorial has 179 pieces of glass etched with the 178 names of the Suffolk County residents killed on September 11, with one extra panel to honor the volunteers who built the memorial.

As commuters head west to reach the Northern State Parkway, they drive by a major structure that was created to recognize all of those citizens from Huntington to Montauk killed on 9/11 by terrorism. It is just one of many such monuments created by our local townships, fire departments, parks and schools.  

Even after 20 years, our society has not forgotten about the beautiful day that turned out to be one of the most tragic moments in our history.  

Rich Acritelli is a social studies teacher at Rocky Point High School and an adjunct professor of American history at Suffolk County Community College.

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Cars try to navigate through flooding on Reynolds Street in Huntington Station. Photo from Town of Huntington

When the remnants of Hurricane Ida made her way last Wednesday to the North Shore of Long Island, residents weren’t prepared for what was coming. 

Two weeks ago, meteorologists got everyone ready for Henri. Gas stations were empty, the supermarket lines went out the door and stores in villages on the water boarded up their windows. 

But nothing happened. It was ultimately a light rain. 

So, when Ida made her way up the coast, we all thought nothing of it. Boy, we were wrong. 

There was flooding all across the North Shore, and people didn’t think to prepare the same way they were going to be for the previous storm.

Port Jefferson village was a muddy mess. Northport was practically under water. Stony Brook University had students sleeping inside the Student Activities Center because dorms became pools. 

According to the United Nations’ latest climate report published recently in The Washington Post, warming from fossil fuels is most likely behind the increase in the number of high intensity hurricanes over the last 40 years. 

Long Island has seen quite a few of those storms, including Sandy, Irene and Isaias. According to the Post, five more tropical systems are currently sweeping over the Atlantic so the hurricane season has only just begun. Will they be just as bad?

What will happen if we keep making poor choices when it comes to the environment? If burning fossil fuels is one of the biggest influencers in climate change, then what can we do to alleviate that stress? We need to collectively do better to eliminate waste and save energy. Consider an eco-friendly vehicle, energy-saving lightbulbs and using more sustainable household products.

But it isn’t just the increases in sustainable living that are important. 

Long Islanders need to ask their elected officials for help. For communities across the North Shore, we need to invest in ways to prevent damage to homes and businesses that sit by the water.

We need to ask PSEG Long Island to consider and create ways to move power lines underground, so when high winds attack we won’t lose power for days.

These are tall orders, but while the rest of us work toward doing better on a smaller level, we hope that Ida showed us all that we need to treat Mother Earth the way she should be treated — if we don’t, the flooding on Main Street will be the new normal.

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By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

The pain in my abdomen climbed from a relatively mild one, which pediatrician’s offices usually represent with a slightly puzzled but still pleasant stick figure face, all the way to a 10, with a crying stick figure in extreme duress, in under five minutes.

Doubled over, I shuffled to my wife’s working station in our house and sat, uncomfortably, in a chair next to her.

She started to talk and then looked carefully at my face.

“What’s wrong?” she asked as I twisted in my seat.

“I have serious pain in my abdomen and back,” I said.

We knew what that likely meant. We’d been through this before, although last time was much more terrifying because we had no idea what was going on. Also, six years ago, the mysterious symptoms, including searing back pain, uncontrollable nausea and vomiting and extreme discomfort, appeared and disappeared. I might have had some reaction to bad food, we thought, or I might have inadvertently consumed my food kryptonite, dairy.

“It’s probably kidney stones,” my wife said, as she stood on my back to try to relieve some of the developing pain.

I twisted on the floor, hoping I wouldn’t have to go to an emergency room that was likely overwhelmed with the latest Delta variant wave of COVID-19.

I did the I’m-okay-and-can-tough-it-out-at-home-but-wait-maybe-I’m-not dance for about 10 minutes before I gave in and shuffled towards the car.

As soon as I got in the garage, I made a quick u-turn and headed to the closest bathroom, where I knelt next to the toilet and vomited.

“It’s another kidney stone,” I sighed in between heaves.

With a bucket in the backseat on the way to the hospital, I contorted my body into different positions, hoping to find one that would offer some relief. The last kidney stone episode taught me that wasn’t likely, as I did everything but stand on my head in the basement all those years ago to ease the unrelenting pain.

Fortunately, the emergency room only had two people waiting on a Friday morning. My wife spoke through a plexiglass shield with the receptionist, sharing my details while I disappeared beneath the counter into a crouched position.

The receptionist directed my wife outside until I had a room. I waited on the floor, with the same bucket at my side, for a nurse to call me.

During the 20 minute wait, the pain eased up just enough to allow me to breathe more normally and to sit on the floor. A chair was still not an option. The two other people in the waiting room were too engrossed in their phones to notice me.

Once I was in an examining room, I called my wife, whose sympathetic eyes and encouraging words eased some of my discomfort. She answered questions from the nurse as I stood on the floor and leaned the top of my body over the hospital bed as if I were praying.

The nurse promised to return with morphine. In the few minutes he was gone, I felt closer to a four on the pain scale.

I considered not taking the narcotic. The roller coaster ride along the pain pathway makes managing kidney stones, and so many other types of discomfort, difficult. Each moment of comfort is like a sliver of sunlight between heavy rain clouds.

The doctor confirmed our kidney stone diagnosis. He thought I’d pass the stone that night or the next day. I didn’t have any such luck, as I fought through symptoms for 10 days.

Finally, the obstruction exited. I was so elated that I jumped up and down in the garage with my baffled son, who was returning from an errand.

As others who have had kidney stones can attest, the experience is extraordinarily uncomfortable and painful. I feel fortunate for all the support from my wife, children, brothers, mother and friends. I can only imagine what people hundreds of years ago must have thought when these stones made their painful journey.

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Pixabay photo

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

The way my parents remembered Pearl Harbor is the way I remember the assault on the twin towers the sunny, beautiful September day that changed our lives. In both instances, our nation was attacked. For my parents, the attackers were readily identifiable: a hostile country declaring war. For those of us who watched the planes crash into the iconic New York buildings, the culprits were evildoers. Who were they? Why were they intent on killing the passengers on the planes and the workers in the offices, all civilians?

At first, in our total unpreparedness, we thought it was an accident. The pilot had a stroke. The plane suffered a mechanical failure. The brain struggles to supply an acceptable explanation for the unacceptable. When the second plane hit, we knew it was an intentionally horrific act. How could this be happening? Where were our defenses?

I was on my way to HSBC Bank when the first plane hit. I had been told by the bank manager to come early because I was taking out a loan to buy the other newspaper in town, The Three Village Herald, and the closing was in the attorney’s office later that day. I got there a couple of minutes after they opened, and I was the only customer. The tellers were in the private staff room, watching the television and following the sounds, I wandered in just in time to see the second plane hit the South Tower. The two women in the room screamed as the manager yelled profanities. I had never before heard him so much as raise his voice.

We were riveted to the television screen, smoke and fire pouring from the buildings, and then the phone rang. The manager left the room to answer it, and when he returned, he informed me that I couldn’t leave. He had gotten the order to lock the doors of the bank to prevent a run, and he had immediately complied. I spent the next five hours in their company. The four of us stared at the television and saw the plane hit the building over and over as the networks continually replayed the footage. The sight will be forever imprinted on my brain.

A tormenting visual over all these 20 years is one that I actually did not see. In my 20s, I worked for Time-Life on the 32nd floor of their building on 50th Street and 6th Avenue, opposite Radio City Music Hall. I had been delighted by the view from the office windows, the cars like toys and the people like ants in the streets below. I know how life unfolded right after getting to work in the morning in such a location. Women went to the bathroom to put on mascara and fix their hair, little preparations for the day they didn’t have time to do before rushing to the subway. Men lined up at the coffee trolley, affectionately called “the roach coach,” in the hall for that cup of java and maybe a Danish to bring back to their desks to help power them through the morning. These are the ordinary activities in the first hour of work.

That’s what ordinary people were doing in the skyscrapers on Tuesday, September 11, when they died.

The killers took away those people from their wives and husbands and children and mothers and fathers when they flew the planes into the towers. Those workers are forevermore missing, as are the twin fingers pointing to the sky in the Manhattan silhouette each time I cross the bridge into town. And life goes on, as it always does, no matter what happens.

We attended a New York Press Association conference in Vermont two days later, and people flocked to us when we stopped for gas and they saw our New York plates, to express their sorrow and their support. People flew American flags everywhere. For at least six months, everyone held the doors open for those behind them. Shared tragedy evokes kindness. 

We were all one that day.

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Tropical Storm Ida’s heavy rains may create a breeding ground for the mosquitoes that carry West Nile Virus, health officials warn.

“Following the recent heavy rainfall, we are concerned that standing water and summer temperatures will allow mosquitoes to proliferate,” Gregson Pigott, Suffolk County health commissioner, said in a statement. “While there is no cause for alarm, we ask residents to cooperate with us in our efforts to reduce exposure to West Nile virus and other mosquito-borne diseases.”

As of last week, 92 mosquito samples and four birds had tested positive for West Nile virus. From Aug. 25 to Aug. 26, 21 samples tested positive for the virus.

At least one mosquito from samples collected in Cold Spring Harbor, Huntington Station, Northport, Stony Brook, Port Jefferson Station and Rocky Point tested positive for the virus, according to the Suffolk County Health Department.

Most people infected with West Nile Virus, which was first detected in Suffolk County in 1999, have mild or no symptoms. Some, however, can develop high fever, headaches, neck stiffness, disorientation, coma, tremors, convulsions, muscle weakness, vision loss, numbness and paralysis, according to the health department.

Over the last 20 years, the number of mosquito samples testing positive for West Nile ranged from a low of eight in 2004 to a high of 295 in 2010, a year that also saw 25 human cases with three deaths.

Pigott urges residents to wear shoes and socks, long pants and long-sleeved shirts when mosquitoes are active. He also suggested using mosquito repellent, while reading and following directions carefully.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends repellents containing DEET, oil of lemon eucalyptus, picaridin and IR3535, which can be used on skin and clothing. For children, lower concentrations of DEET are preferable, according to the CDC.

Insect repellents with permethrin should only be used on clothing and not directly on the skin.

Effective screens on windows and doors can keep mosquitoes out of homes and living areas.

Emptying containers that hold water, such as vases, pet water bowls, flowerpot saucers, birdbaths, trash cans and rain barrels can reduce available water sources for mosquitoes to lay their eggs. Scrubbing containers like pet water bowls can remove insect eggs that might otherwise survive.

Adrian Popp, chair of Infection Control at Huntington Hospital, explained that most disease doctors are on the lookout for West Nile infections. He tests everybody with an unexplained fever or other symptoms.

In a typical year, Huntington Hospital sees a few cases of West Nile. So far, Popp said, the hospital hasn’t reported any such illnesses.

“It is hard to say if it will be more prevalent this year since we had only a few cases in New York State so far and it is already the end” of the summer season, Popp wrote in an email.

While Popp said anyone is vulnerable to West Nile Virus if he or she is bitten by a mosquito, most cases are asymptomatic. Fewer than one percent of those who contract West Nile Virus develop more severe symptoms.

For those people who have more severe symptoms, doctors don’t have many tools at their disposal.

“There is no etiologic therapy,” Popp explained in an email. “Therapy is supportive, symptomatic care.”

The county urged residents concerned about West Nile Virus to download a copy of an informational brochure called “Get the Buzz on Mosquito Protection” on www.suffolkcountyny.gov.

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Photo from Alice Martin

Alice Martin remembers it like it was yesterday. 

Her husband, a lieutenant in the FDNY’s Rescue 2, left his Miller Place home on Monday afternoon, Sept. 10, for his 24-hour shift in Brooklyn. He was supposed to come home Tuesday night, but he unfortunately never walked back through the door. 

“I left all the lights on in the house,” she said. “I left the front door unlocked because I figured maybe if he gets his way home somehow, he would just come in.” 

The mom of three boys, ages 13, 8 and 6, had just finished dropping them off at the bus stop when the first plane hit the tower on Sept. 11.

“As the day unfolded, and I was watching the news, I realized he could be there because even though he didn’t work in Manhattan, he was in a rescue company,” she said.

But Peter was always fine, Alice thought. “Then by six o’clock, when obviously he never called and then he didn’t come home, it became very real.”

Looking back two decades later, she doesn’t know how she did it. 

“It was beyond horrible,” she said. “But especially as a mom, that’s really the key. I went into mommy gear right away. My kids needed me more than they’ve ever needed me, and I really  needed to keep my head screwed on straight.”

Photo from Alice Martin

Peter C. Martin began his career as an FDNY firefighter in 1979. A native of Valley Stream, he graduated from St. John’s University where he met his future wife. 

“He was good at it and he loved it,” she said. “I think most of them do … It really is a calling.”

A full-time dad, who also worked at the Suffolk County Fire Academy as a teacher, she said her husband was just “a really good guy. A wonderful dad, and a wonderful husband.”

The two were married for 17 years when he passed away.

“It’s strange … I’ve been without him longer than I’ve been with him,” she said. “I never remarried, and my heart still belongs to him.”

According to Alice, Peter was just 43 years old on 9/11 and was among seven that were killed that day in his firehouse.

“I started calling the firehouse in Brooklyn and nobody was answering. My kids started asking questions,” she recalled. “And as the hours were going on, I felt useless because I wanted to do something. So, I actually started calling hospitals that I knew they were taking the wounded to.”

She eventually got a call that her husband was missing and unaccounted for. 

“That’s when neighbors started coming over, people started reaching out to me, which was comforting in some ways and frightening at the same time,” she said. 

Alice said the outpouring amount of love and support she and her boys got from the local community during that time was “wonderful.”

“I can say nothing bad,” she said. “There was just such a generous spirit from the people of Sound Beach, Miller Place and Rocky Point … That whole area, the letters I got from strangers.”

Peter was the only 9/11 victim from Miller Place. 

“I have to say it was a horrible, horrible situation, but it was also — now looking back — just unbelievable, the goodness of people to strangers they never met,” she said.

Along with learning that a community can come together, Alice said she’s learned two other things after that day’s events.

“I believe in the gift of time with finding a new normal and learning how to live,” she said. “I started taking one thing at a time, whether big or small, I just took everything one thing at a time.”

Twenty years later, with her now-grown sons and a grandson who bears Peter’s name, they still talk about him every single day. 

“Now the good thing is any stories that are told, it’s peaceful because we’re not crying, we’re just talking about him,” she said. “You just keep going, and I’m still going.”

Alice said that her husband would be “busting over the moon” knowing that he’s now a grandpa, and that the baby is Peter Charles Martin, the second. 

Photo from Alice Martin

“He’d be so happy to see that these three little boys have become three wonderful men, all doing wonderful things, all living their dreams,” she said. 

And the sons followed in their dad’s footsteps. All three have begun careers helping other people; as a registered nurse, paramedic and licensed Master of Social Work. 

“They’re definitely making a difference in the world,” she added. “He’d be so proud with everything.”

Peter loved snacks and Alice will be reminded of him when she bakes certain things. 

“I don’t believe in closure, but I do believe in the gift of time and the healing that can come with that,” she said. “The hardest part is you have to go through it.”

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Photographer Bolivar Arellano captured the destruction in Lower Manhattan after the 9/11 attacks. Photo by Bolivar Arellano

With our 4-month-old daughter in a stroller, we followed the same path so many others did in the days after 9/11. We ventured to the nearest fire station, on East 85th Street in Manhattan, where several members of the rescue squad had died racing to the burning World Trade Center towers.

Daniel Dunaief

We passed the familiar posters with the faces of people missing after that day, taped to almost every telephone pole, fence and door by relatives desperate for a miracle.

People had covered a car on the same block as the fire station with so many flowers that it was difficult to see the car’s original color.

Slowing our pace, we reached the station where larger-than-life pictures of the faces of firefighters served as a memorial.

Firefighters at the station greeted their guests with grace and dignity, talking about their fallen comrades, accepting the food neighbors had purchased or cooked, and taking other tokens of appreciation and expressions of shared grief. The car covered in flowers belonged to one of the rescue workers killed that day.

Some of the visitors lost the battle to control their runaway emotions, struggling to offer comfort through their tears. The firefighters comforted them, thanking them for coming and offering something to the effect of “I appreciate your visit” and “I know what you mean.”

When it was our turn to speak, we offered some version of our thanks, handing a gift to the people who would continue to risk their lives to protect people in the neighborhood.

The weeks that followed the attacks were a blur, with images of the then-heroic Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) demonstrating defiance and resilience on TV interspersed with hard-to-breathe moments when parts of the towers passed us on the roads as the city cleaned up the site.

Among the 2,606 people who died at the WTC — then or later from injuries — I thought about the ones I knew well.

A financial services reporter for several years, I regularly called analysts at the boutique investment bank Keefe, Bruyette & Woods. I frequently chatted with three of them in particular: Marni Pont O’Doherty, Tom Theurkauf Jr. and David Berry.

While he was often in a hurry, Tom never ended a conversation without his familiar, “Good to talk.” Two decades later, I can still hear his energetic and respectful signoff.

David shared quotes and insights without changing his pitch, tolerating ridiculous questions and challenging what I thought I knew.

A self-described “banking nerd,” Marni loved her job. I called her with all kinds of rumors about bank mergers and she never discounted any possibility. She would tell me why something might make sense. Often she would conclude by saying she wasn’t making the decisions and that bank executives had done stranger things.

They were three of the 67 people who lost their lives at KBW.

In the weeks after the attacks, an eerie graciousness fell over a city where verbal confrontation is a way of life. As we walked or drove through the city, we didn’t hear any car horns. A light would turn green and every car would wait for the people, who might be mourning a loss, to go.

Everyone, however, didn’t come together then, just as people across the political aisle today rarely come together.

Indeed, with attacks and hostility toward Middle Easterners rising in the weeks after the attack, numerous taxi and limo drivers attached bumper stickers to their cars, indicating that they were proud Americans or that they were, say, Sikh Americans.

The flyers eventually came down or blew off poles and crosswalk signs, the trucks stopped hauling beams and other pieces of the towers, and drivers honked again.

In the 20 years since, I have tried to balance between appreciating the privilege of knowing Marni, Tom, David and others and the agony of realizing all that they, and their families, lost. They weren’t my best friends or my family, but they were — and continue to be — missed and remembered. And, thank you, Tom. It was “good to talk.”

Daniel Dunaief writes a weekly science feature called the Power of Three and a weekly column called None of the Above for TBR News Media.

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Stony Brook WTC Wellness Program clinic. Photo from Stony Brook Medicine

Dr. Benjamin Luft remembers the feeling of being prepared to treat 9/11 survivors and then no one arrived at the hospital.

Dr. Benjamin Luft is the director and principal investigator at Stony Brook WTC Wellness Program. Photo from Stony Brook Medicine

Stony Brook University was among local medical facilities that were prepared for the arrival of 9/11 victims when Luft was the chairman of the Department of Medicine. He said, like others, he had seen the towers falling on television, and from the 16th floor of SBU’s Health Sciences Tower, he could see the smoke from the World Trade Center.

“The idea was that there was going to be real mass casualties, and that this would overwhelm the system in New York,” he said.

Medical teams from various departments met in the conference room of the Department of Medicine, but he said “it became obvious as time went on, that there was no one coming to Stony Brook.”

“It was eerily ominous, because we began to understand that either people had escaped the buildings, or … that there were relatively few survivors from the attack itself,” the doctor added.

He said anyone seeking treatment stayed in the city, and the hospitals in Manhattan weren’t overrun as originally anticipated.

Luft, who is now the director and principal investigator at Stony Brook WTC Wellness Program, said after the tragic day he visited Ground Zero to see what was happening at the site. It was there he witnessed what first responders were being exposed to while working.

“It was obvious that there was going to be a lot of responders that were going to become ill as a result of that, because there was a tremendous amount of dusts and toxins in the air,” Luft said. “There was a lot of fire, burning, and there was a lot of fumes that came off of burning plastic and electronics.”

He added there were traumatizing events that people at the site experienced such as seeing bloody human parts and, for earlier responders, people jumping out of the towers.

He said shortly after September 11, local labor leaders met with him and told him how many of those first responders lived on Long Island and were getting sick. He learned that while many were insured, their insurance wasn’t covering their health issues due to them volunteering and not doing what the insurance companies considered on-the-clock work while helping to clean up and recover victims at Ground Zero.

The struggle of the Long Island first responders led to the development of the Stony Brook WTC Wellness program. In 2002, patients at first were just screened and monitored and then in 2005 doctors began treating them. Luft said in the early days of the program SBU Department of Medicine employees would volunteer to treat the patients. Over time the program began to receive financial resources to expand its services.

The Suffolk location of the Stony Brook WTC Wellness Program is located on Commack Road in Commack. Photo from Stony Brook Medicine

Luft said the program follows the cases of approximately 13,000 Long Islanders in both Nassau and Suffolk counties, with one clinic in Commack and the other in Mineola. At first, patients were displaying acute reactions to their exposure. Cases included asthma, upper respiratory disease, sinusitis and gastrointestinal disease, he said, due to the amounts of dust the patients had taken in during their time at Ground Zero.

Over the years, the doctor said patients began developing illnesses such as cancer, but doctors have also seen psychiatric problems such as PTSD and depression.

The responders “had seen people die,” he said. “They were in danger all the time.”

Doctors are also seeing cases of dementia in patients. Luft said one theory is that when a person is exposed to certain toxins it can increase their chances of having dementia. He gave the example where areas with higher pollution have much higher rates of Alzheimer’s.

With studies showing that patients with PTSD have cells that age more quickly, the WTC Wellness Program began monitoring patients.

“We saw something that stunned us, and quite frankly at first we were very skeptical,” Luft said. “We went through a variety of different studies and tests to confirm our results.”

Twenty years after September 11, the doctor said it’s possible that first responders will present with more health issues in the future, but no one can be certain with what illnesses.

The Stony Brook WTC Wellness Program’s Suffolk County office is located at 500 Commack Road, Commack.

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