Twenty-five years have passed since hijacked planes crashed into New York City’s World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania. A quarter of a century later, many in Needham are still processing the 9/11 attacks.
“I will always know that it was a Tuesday, because I was sitting in my first year legal writing class, watching terror unfold on the television with my classmates,” state senator Becca Rausch said at Needham’s Sept. 11 remembrance ceremony. “We watched Flight 11 hit the North Tower at 8:46. We watched Flight 175 hit the South Tower at 9:03 … We all just sat there in silent shock and fear.”
Rausch, whose mother had a meeting scheduled at the World Trade Center that morning, and whose uncle was in a meeting at the Pentagon, remembers that the phone lines weren’t working.
“It was hours before I found out that my mom was safe — turned out her meeting had been cancelled late the day before. My uncle was okay, too; his meeting was in a different wing of the Pentagon,” said Rausch. “We were among the lucky ones.”
On Friday morning, just under 100 Needham residents gathered around the memorial at 88 Chestnut Street, home to Needham’s first responders, to remember the attacks. The memorial itself — built in the shape of the Pentagon, with a section of steel beam pulled from the ruins of the World Trade Center and a piece of limestone from the crash site in Shanksville, Pennsylvania — was scattered with small tributes: miniature fire trucks, stones and coins.
“Hard to believe 25 years have passed,” said state representative Josh Tarsky. “But here we are.”
Fire Chief Thomas Conroy opened the ceremony at 10 a.m. with the ringing of the bell, a tradition signalling the death of a firefighter on duty. After a minute of silence and the raising of the flag, firefighter chaplain Phil McGaw prayed for continued healing, protection and a restoration of peace.
“9/11 is now a generation ago, officially, and yet it’s with us every day,” said Select Board chair Heidi Frail. “From TSA security at the airport, to the political exercise of war and how we manage that — and every day, for families who 25 years later still have a hole in their family. The routine of all of our lives was turned upside down, life was divided into before and after … Today’s young adults, an entire generation, have no first-hand memory of this event. But today, here, we remember.”
“We remember the shock and fear of that day, but also the courage and heroism, the care and community,” Rausch noted.
Needham Fire Inspector Jay Steeves was one of 12 Needham firefighters deployed to Ground Zero in Sept. 2001. Before leaving home, he wrote a letter to each of his three children — just in case.
“Every day you go in, you know something could happen,” Steeves said. “And when you’re doing it, you’re not thinking about it, you’re reacting to it. I think that’s what we were doing that day: reacting. More as Americans than we were as firefighters, just going to see if we could help in any way, shape or form.”
Assistant Fire Chief Donald Anastasi was deployed to NYC alongside Steeves. “We stayed for a good 30 hours or so, and I think we quickly realized there wasn’t a lot we could do,” he said.
“The communications, everything was down. New York was trying to regroup, and they had all these people coming in.”
Steeves remembers the “total devastation” in New York City, saying, “It was like a war zone, I mean everything was just rubble everywhere.” He pocketed a piece of rubble at the request of his son, who later shared the rubble with a Needham family who had lost their father that day.
Benches around the memorial list the names of the four Needham residents who died in the 9/11 attacks. Susan Blair, 35, was a graduate of Needham High School who worked on the 92nd floor of the World Trade Center. Lisa Fenn Gordenstein, 41, lived in Needham with her husband and two daughters and was a passenger on Flight 11. Thomas McGuinness Jr., born in Needham, was the co-pilot of Flight 11. David Retik, 33, was also a passenger on Flight 11. At the time of his death, Retik lived in Needham with his wife and two children, with a third child on the way.
“That thousands of people got killed like that is just kind of difficult to absorb,” said Anastasi. “[I’m] still kind of absorbing it, I feel.”
Friday’s remembrance ceremony ended with the playing of Taps and a second round of bells that, Conroy said, signifies the disaster has passed and first responders can return home.
“Let us move forward with purpose,” he said to those gathered. “Carrying the legacy of the fallen in how we lead, how we serve and how we care for one another.”
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