{"id":469325,"date":"2026-09-19T19:42:28","date_gmt":"2026-09-19T19:42:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/469325\/"},"modified":"2026-09-19T19:42:28","modified_gmt":"2026-09-19T19:42:28","slug":"long-beach-sept-11-memorial-honors-residents-who-died-herald-community-newspapers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/469325\/","title":{"rendered":"Long Beach Sept. 11 memorial honors residents who died | Herald Community Newspapers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bettina Browne. Firefighter Michael Scott Carlo. Firefighter John Elgis. Firefighter Thomas Farrell. Captain Terence Hatton. Stephen Hoffman. Firefighter Billy Hughes. Joe Kellen. Firefighter Michael Kiefer. Neil Levin. Charles P. Lucania. Noell Maerz. Firefighter Kenneth Joseph Marino. Captain John McCarthy. Chief Brian O\u2019Flaherty. Firefighter Michael Ornauer. Firefighter William Quick. Firefighter Gregory Stajk. Detective Richard Wentz.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The names of Long Beach residents who died on Sept. 11, 2001, or from 9\/11-related illnesses in the years since, were read aloud by City Councilman George Ennis<\/a> and several members of the crowd at last Friday\u2019s memorial service at the Virginia Avenue Garden of Remembrance. The annual ceremony was first organized in 2002 by longtime resident and former Nassau County Legislator Denise Ford.<\/p>\n

Nearly 100 people crowded the corner of Virginia Avenue and West Beech Street, with the Police Department shutting down a section of Virginia Avenue and partially barricading West Beech Street to ensure their safety. With City Council members in attendance as well, Ennis led the event for the first time, with Ford unable to attend due to a commitment in New York City.<\/p>\n

Rabbi Benny Berlin<\/a>, of Bach Jewish Center of Long Beach, and the Rev. Dillon Vita, representing Beach Catholic began and ended the ceremony with prayers. The Connolly Sisters, a Long Island-based trio who perform across the country, sang the national anthem and \u201cGod Bless America.\u201d<\/p>\n

After remarks by Ennis and Town of Hempstead Receiver of Taxes Jeanine Driscoll, City Council Vice President Chris Fiumara offered a personal story. Fiumara worked as a foreign exchange trader at a building directly beside the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001 and evacuated before the Twin Towers collapsed.<\/p>\n

Fiumara said he worried that the message of 9\/11 \u2014 \u201cNever forget\u201d \u2014 may be getting lost in today\u2019s society and in schools. \u201cWe are committed to drafting a resolution that we started working on already,\u201d Fiumara said of the council. \u201cI\u2019m honored to announce in front of all of you in Long Beach today that we are going to be the first municipality in the state of New York to make 9\/11 a holiday.\u201d Sept. 11 is currently designated by the federal government as Patriot Day, and as a National Day of Service and Remembrance, but is not formally observed as a holiday at the federal or state level.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re talking about the details now,\u201d City Manager Daniel Creighton<\/a> said. \u201cThe council is very adamant that they want this done. Now it\u2019s the nuances of it. The union contracts. We have to have conversations with all of them to make it happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

If the declaration is made official, it would apply only to city employees, and not to the Long Beach School District. \u201cThey would have to do it on their own,\u201d Creighton explained. \u201cWe can only control our workforce.\u201d<\/p>\n

The initiative, he added, is important, but not necessarily urgent, requiring only adequate time to properly plan a municipal day off. \u201cThe way I look at it, we have between now and a year from now to get it done,\u201d Creighton said. \u201cWe want to do it right.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fiumara said that the council maintains good rapport with the city\u2019s various unions, and that he was optimistic about an effective agreement. \u201cIt\u2019s just a lot of negotiating with the unions and some other things, but I think everybody will cooperate,\u201d he said. \u201cI think it\u2019s obtainable. We\u2019re certainly going to try hard. I think we can figure that out.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bettina Browne. Firefighter Michael Scott Carlo. Firefighter John Elgis. Firefighter Thomas Farrell. Captain Terence Hatton. Stephen Hoffman. Firefighter…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":469326,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[181496,131,184723,133,132,184724,184725,184726],"class_list":["post-469325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-9-11-remembrance","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-9-11-memorial","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news","tag-long-beach-residents","tag-sept-11-memorial","tag-virginia-avenue-garden"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=469325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469325\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/469326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}