Organizers Cancel 9/11 Tribute
We all remember where we were on the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001. I was barely 16 years old and a junior in high school. The morning started like any other school day. I was sitting in my second-period French class wondering why my very stern French teacher was late to class.
She arrived in a slight panic and turned on the announcement TV to the news. Wow, we thought. That’s awesome!
Until we all saw what the news was showing.
Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda had hijacked an airplane and flew it into one of the twin towers. We watched as it smoked and shouted when the second plane hit. New York wasn’t far from us. Just a few hours away. Then the attack on the pentagon and in Somerset. (Practically my back yard!)
2,977 people lost their lives that day. Not just American lives. People from all around the world. Firefighters, police, first responders and others who rushed into those buildings to save as many lives as they could.
It was a time when we came together and united as a country. Nobody saw color. There was no division. We were united against the terrorism that rocked our country.
Since then we’ve held yearly tributes to those who were stolen from us and those who gave their lives to save others.
That is until this year.
Organizers announced on Thursday, August 13 that the iconic Lower Manhattan 9/11 memorial display that features twin beams of light to honor victims of the terror attacks will not shine this year over coronavirus concerns.
They won’t even turn on the lights. It takes too many people and they just can’t put people in harms way.
They are so terrified of a disease that they are spitting in the faces of those who did die by going into harm’s way.
There will be an official reading of the victims names though.
The Staten Island-based Tunnel to Towers Foundation, a nonprofit that honors fallen 9/11 firefighter Stephen Siller and other victims of the attacks, plans to host a 140-person, in-person reading near Ground Zero that day
“All 9/11 families are going to be down there and you can’t have somebody come up one person at a time [on stage] and make it safe?†Siller said of the 9/11 Memorial and Museum’s decision to switch to a pre-recorded reading and not allow families to go up on stage. “We didn’t get that, and that’s why we wanted to make sure that we gave that opportunity to families to read the names.â€
The official “tribute” this year will be a “Tribute in Lights”. Many iconic New York City buildings will light their spires and facades in blue to honor those killed on 9/11.
Those lights can turn on, but the 9/11 memorial lights cannot.
Put it into perspective. The illegal BLM mural that Mayor de Blasio participated in painting took 100 people not social distancing to paint. It’ll take a crew of just 40 to turn on all the lights for the 9/11 Tribute.
That’s what the mayor of New York thinks it’s important.
