{"id":469375,"date":"2026-09-19T20:56:32","date_gmt":"2026-09-19T20:56:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/469375\/"},"modified":"2026-09-19T20:56:32","modified_gmt":"2026-09-19T20:56:32","slug":"long-beach-fire-department-marks-25th-anniversary-of-sept-11-attacks-herald-community-newspapers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/469375\/","title":{"rendered":"Long Beach Fire Department marks 25th anniversary of Sept. 11 attacks | Herald Community Newspapers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Members of the Long Beach community gathered at the city\u2019s memorial on West Park Avenue at Lafayette Boulevard to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.<\/p>\n

The evening, led by the City of Long Beach and the Long Beach Fire Department<\/a>, included prayers led by Fire Department chaplain Anthony Cardone and the national anthem sung by local musician Tim Quinn. City officials, elected officials and Fire Department personnel addressed the community.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Zachary Grunther<\/a>, a Long Beach firefighter, said he was running on Long Beach Middle School\u2019s track, when physical education teacher Greggie Jones told his class a plane had hit the World Trade Center. The experience motivated him to join the department, which he did after graduating high school in 2008.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe watched all those heroes that day sacrifice their life, put their lives on the line,\u201d Grunther said. \u201cI wanted to be like them, to serve my community.\u201d<\/p>\n

City Manager Dan Creighton, who was employed by the U.S. Department of Transportation, said he spent more than a decade helping to rebuild the World Trade Center. He thanked first responders and called on the community to honor their memories in remembrance.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis day is very heartbreaking for me,\u201d Creighton said. \u201cBut I also remember the days following [the attacks], when our differences faded away and we became united and proud Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n

State Sen. Patricia Canzoneri-Fitzpatrick<\/a> and County Legislator Pat Mullaney attended the ceremony.<\/p>\n

Canzoneri-Fitzpatrick, an attorney, said her family was welcoming the birth of her daughter, Katherine Callahan, and that she otherwise would have been appearing in a Lower Manhattan courtroom. She often thinks of families whose loved ones did not come home.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been twenty-five years of missed holidays, birthdays, graduations,\u201d she said. \u201cMissed moments in their lives that those families have endured without their loved ones. That\u2019s something that will never be lost on me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Grunther closed the ceremony by calling for action.<\/p>\n

\u201cTwenty-five years later, we still feel the weight of that loss,\u201d Grunther said. \u201cBut we also carry lessons that we learned that day. Never take our freedom or each other for granted.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Members of the Long Beach community gathered at the city\u2019s memorial on West Park Avenue at Lafayette Boulevard…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":469376,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[184737,131,184723,14901,133,132,184739,184738],"class_list":["post-469375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-25th-anniversary-of-9-11","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-9-11-memorial","tag-long-beach-fire-department","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news","tag-long-beach-sept-11-ceremony","tag-zachary-grunther"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469375","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=469375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/469376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}