New Yorkers commemorated this Sunday, on a gray morning, the 21st anniversary of the terrorist attacks against the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, in which nearly three thousand people lost their lives, with the same solemnity and pain as relatives, and the Vice President Kamala Harris in attendance.
Harris was joined by her husband Douglas Craig Emhoff, Mayor Eric Adams, former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, under whose administration the rebuilding took place, New York Governor Kathy Kochul and other officials at the site where the towers were located, but as is customary, no politician spoke on the spot.
A few steps from there, the square where a fountain was built where the names of the victims were engraved, which is filled with flowers every year, was closed to visitors during the ceremony.
Like every year, each commemoration shows that the wounds are still open for those who lost their loved ones, who come to the event carrying photos of their relatives.
“21 years have passed, but it is not 21 years for us. It seems like yesterday”, “your legacy lives on in your children and grandchildren”, “you were the best brother”, “this is not easy, it is continuous pain”, were some of the messages, and tears, in reading the names by mothers, fathers, brothers, widows or children who were born after the attacks of September 11, 2001 and did not know their father, grandfather, uncles or cousins.
Previously, there were minutes of silence at the time of that unforgettable morning in which three planes that were hijacked on September 11 hit the Twin Towers, which collapsed and were reduced to rubble, and the Pentagon, and a fourth fell on an esplanade in Pennsylvania, changing the history of this country.
As part of the acts, the twin rays, which symbolize the towers, and also located in what was known as ground zero, illuminate the horizon from early this morning.
Twenty-one years after the terrorist attacks, there are still remains of more than a thousand victims of the attacks that have not been identified and many of those who worked in the removal of debris and cleaning of buildings are sick or have died of cancer.
As part of the commemorative events, several buildings, including City Hall, the Empire State Building, One World Trade Center and the Penn Station subway station will be illuminated in blue tonight.
Mayor Adams ordered all flags on city buildings to fly at half-staff, stating that twenty-one years later, “the profound pain of the 9/11 attacks is still with us all.”
“That night, more than two decades ago, I went to ground zero and saw that the ground was still burning and that the first responders were covered in dust. I looked at a site of total destruction, and it was like New York had taken its breath away,” he recalled.
However, he added, although no one forgets the attacks, “the most remarkable moment, for me, was on September 12, when we woke up.”
Adams assured that that September 12, “was a symbol of the invincibility and resilience of the city of New York and of this country.” EFE
