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Light Drizzle Hundreds honor fallen heroes in Point Lookout
Town unveils plans for permanent 9/11 monument
Hundreds of residents and visitors gathered in Point Lookout last Sunday to remember the lives lost on September 11, 2001 and celebrate their legacy.
“We gather every year on the sands of Point Lookout beach, the same place that hundreds of neighbors assembled in the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks looking to the west in horror and disbelief,” Hempstead Town Supervisor Anthony Santino said in a statement.
The early morning ceremony, which is Long Island’s largest 9/11 memorial service, commenced at 7:30 a.m., as Santino and members of Long Island’s clergy reflected on that tragic day. Musical performances by the Kellenberg Gregorian Consortium and various soloists complemented the program.
Other speakers included Kerri Kiefer-Viverito, whose brother Michael Kiefer, of Franklin Square — a New York City firefighter and Long Beach lifeguard — was killed after rushing into the south tower in an attempt to evacuate victims. Kiefer’s body was never found.
The backdrop for the event featured a 15-foot-tall reverse shadow box of the iconic towers set against a 35-foot-long remembrance mural of the skyline of the “world’s capital.” A reflecting pool and sand monument sat at the foot of the towers and skyline. Attendees wrote inspirational notes and names of victims on the mural, casted carnations in a tribute fountain and placed memorial flags at the base of the monument.
Officials announced that next year, a permanent 9/11 memorial would be constructed in Point Lookout in an effort to preserve the legacy of the lives lost. It will include an archway memorial wall with the names of 9/11 victims and a steel beam from the World Trade Center surrounded by a garden.
A memorial table at the entrance of the beach will display a quote from Walt Whitman’s “On the Beach at Night.”
“They are immortal, all those stars both silvery and golden shall shine out again, the great stars and the little ones shall shine out again,” the poem reads. “They endure, the vast immortal suns and the long-enduring pensive moons shall again shine.”
