‘You still live in my heart’; families mark 9/11 attacks with stories, calls for justice

Federal, state and local officials joined thousands of family members in lower Manhattan Friday to honor the victims of 9/11 and celebrate those who responded, 25 years after the terrorist attack that shocked the world and changed how Americans view the vulnerability of their nation, and even each other. 

The event marks the day hijackers commandeered two commercial airlines and flew them into the twin towers on a bright Tuesday morning in 2001. The attack killed nearly 3,000 people from 27 states and more than 90 counties. More than 700 hailed from New Jersey. 

Another 165 people, including several Garden State residents, lost their lives the same day in a similar attack on the Pentagon and when a third hijacked plane crashed in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. 

“We come every year because this is where they are. Their souls are here,” said Freyda Markow, of Brooklyn, who lost her cousin, New York City Firefighter George Cain, on Sept. 11, 2001. 

Markow carried Cain’s picture and wore a sash decorated with at least a dozen mass cards honoring other responders who have died since that day of cancers and other related health issues. “They lost their lives here. Maybe they didn’t die here, but they lost their lives,” she said. 

“Our responders deserve better,” Markow said. “We were promised more.”

In addition to the scores of family members, friends and first responders, Friday’s ceremony included Vice President JD Vance, former presidents Joe Biden, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton and their spouses, including former Secretary of State and Senator Hillary Clinton, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, current and former governors of New York and New Jersey, and dozens of local and state officials representing the region. President Donald Trump was set to attend a ceremony at the Pentagon Friday. 

A statement from the White House noted an entire generation has no “living memory” of 9/11. “The passage of time must never dim what will forever burn bright in the conscience of our Nation. Amid the ashes of Ground Zero, we made a solemn vow to Never Forget — a vow that must be renewed in every American heart, taught in every classroom, and honored in every community across our land,” it read. 

New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill arrived around 8 a.m. On Thursday, she had issued an executive order calling for U.S. and New Jersey flags to be flown at half-staff today to mark the anniversary. In a statement, she praised those who responded to the attack.

“As a young Naval Officer that day, I witnessed our country confront unimaginable tragedy, but I also saw the extraordinary courage of the first responders and service members who answered the call. We made a promise to never forget those we lost, and New Jersey will always keep that promise,” Sherrill said in the statement. 

The event began under a cloudy sky, with a drum corps and a choral performance of the Star Spangled Banner by the Brooklyn Youth Chorus. Attendees gathered around a podium near the North Tower and strolled throughout the park, many hoisting placards with pictures of their loved ones lost that day. Other families wore matching T-shirts with the names and faces of those who died. 

Germano Riviera, a survivor of the attack, carried an American flag with the names of all the victims. He said he has attended all but two ceremonies at Ground Zero over the past two and a half decades; during the other years, he went to events in Florida, where he now lives. 

“Something I can never forget is the stench,” Riviera said, adding that he spent some seven months volunteering to help recover remains at Ground Zero. The boots he wore during this time are now part of the collection at the memorial museum, he said. 

The crowd grew throughout the morning, as the clouds drew back, revealing sun and a blue sky behind the skyscrapers that have risen since that day. FBI, police and other armed security personnel ringed the site and were stationed throughout the city, at subway stations, bridges and other potential targets, another legacy of the attacks.

The ceremony included what has become an annual tradition of reading the names of those killed in the 9/11 attacks, as well as the victims of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, which killed six people and injured more than one thousand. Music by cellist Yo-Yo Ma and others accompanied the reading.

‘One betrayal after another’

The names are recited by loved ones, with pauses for seven, one-minute silences to mark the time each tower was struck, when each fell, and when the planes crashed in D.C. and then Pennsylvania. The seventh minute of silence honors those who have died in the 25 years since. 

Many of the readers were children and young adults who were not born when 9/11 occurred. “Even though I didn’t know you or Grandma Ruth, you still live in my heart and I love you,” said one of the readers, who honored his grandfather. 

While most people then living in the metropolitan area, and many others around the country, can tell you where they were when the towers were hit, some 100 million Americans have been born since 9/11, according to the National September 11 Memorial and Museum, which was founded to honor those who were killed and hosts the annual ceremony. 

The memorial created a digital toolkit with information about other events and ceremonies dedicated to keeping their memory alive.

“We never got to meet you, we’ll always remember you,” said another child whose grandfather died in the attacks before he was born. “You blessed us with the Knicks and this year we got our first championship,” the boy said. 

The readings feature snippets of personal memories, prayers, updates on family news, promises to honor their loved one’s legacy and, occasionally, a political message. Terry Sholty Strada, national chair of the 9/11 Families United, drew cheers during her reading when she called for justice, something many family members say has eluded them more than two decades later. 

“It’s been one betrayal after another,” said Strada, whose husband Thomas, was a partner at financial firm Cantor Fitzgerald and worked on the 104th floor of the North Tower. She decried leaders who “chose to protect the Saudis instead of standing with Americans,” and urged the Trump administration to take action. 

“You can’t protect yourself going forward if you don’t know the real truth,” Strada, a Florida resident who lived in Chatham, New Jersey, at the time of the attack, told reporters later. Strada said readers were told not to share any political messaging from the podium, but she decided to speak up anyway. 

The lack of answers angers Strada, she said, especially as the nation celebrates its 250th anniversary this year. “For a tenth of our country’s existence the victims’ families have been fighting for justice. Think about that,” she said. 

While the FBI has closed its investigation, investigators in the U.S. and abroad say they have amassed evidence that could connect the Saudi Arabian government to the hijacking of the planes that day. The alleged “mastermind” of the attack, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was born in Kuwait and has been held in Guantanamo Bay since 2006, and several co-conspirators are set to face trial in June 2028. 

Today the World Trade Center site is a memorial park where white oak trees surround the museum and the two square, black granite-clad pools where the twin towers once stood. 

Names of the victims are etched on the bronze panels at the edge of the pools, where water smoothly cascades into what were once the buildings’ foundations. The letters form mini-vases where visitors leave bright flowers. On Friday, the panels were also bedecked with small American flags. 

The names include dozens of victims from Monmouth, Middlesex and Bergen counties, but also Patricia Cody from Brigantine, in Atlantic County, Deepa Pakkala of Stewartsville, in Warren County, and a handful of residents from Burlington, Gloucester and Sussex counties. New Jerseyans from 17 of 21 counties lost their lives on 9/11.