Remembering 9/11 Victims From Princeton 20 Years Later

Princeton NJ

09 September, 2021

10:09 AM

Description

PRINCETON, NJ — Anyone older than 25 in Princeton likely remembers where they were on 9/11. Americans felt a collective trauma as first one and then another plane flew into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001. As the truth dawned on people watching from their TVs that America was under attack, another plane took aim at the Pentagon. A fourth was brought down in a field in Pennsylvania in a final act of heroism by passengers who realized their flight had been hijacked. Nearly 3,000 Americans, including nine from the Princeton area, were killed in the suicide attacks carried out by 19 militants associated with the Islamic extremist group al-Qaida. On the 20th anniversary of the attacks, our country remembers and mourns: David Scott Suarez, Princeton, World Trade CenterToyena Corliss Skinner, Princeton, World Trade Center Frank B. Reisman, Princeton, World Trade Center Andrew Marshall King, Princeton, World Trade CenterSteven Goldstein, Princeton, World Trade CenterCatherine E. Chirls, Princeton, World Trade CenterKevin Patrick York, Princeton, World Trade CenterJohn Joseph Ryan, Princeton Junction, World Trade CenterEdward Richard Pykon, Princeton Junction, World Trade Center All 9/11 victims will be remembered at memorial services planned across the nation on Sept. 11 to mark the 20th anniversary of the attacks. The Princeton 9/11 Memorial Committee will dedicate a permanent memorial at 12 p.m. Saturday in front of the Princeton First Aid and Rescue Squad (PFARS ) building at 2 Mt. Lucas Road. The memorial contains an eight-foot piece of steel from the World Trade Center. At the 9/11 memorial in Lower Manhattan, New York — an area known for years after the attacks as "Ground Zero" — the names of the fallen will be read aloud. "Throughout the ceremony, we will observe six moments of silence, acknowledging when each of the World Trade Center towers was struck and fell and the times corresponding to the attack on the Pentagon and the crash of Flight 93," the 9/11 Memorial & Museum wrote on its website. The annual "Tribute of Light," which are lights pointed to the sky in the shape of the Twin Towers, will go on that night. Most 9/11 victims were from either New York or New Jersey, where many who lived across the Hudson River from the World Trade Center recall the horror of watching the twin towers collapse from their homes in Hoboken and Jersey City. More than 2,700 people died at the World Trade Center alone on 9/11, including the passengers of American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175. Another 184 were killed when American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into The Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and 44 died on United Airlines Flight 93 near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.