Lili Mahlab, a Wayne County resident, told of her experience watching the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center during the ceremony for the 25th anniversary of 9/11 in Hawley.
The morning was sunny like it was a quarter of a century ago.
The Hawley community held the nearly half-hour ceremony on Sept. 11 near the memorial in Bingham Park, coordinated by Ann Monaghan, borough council president. American Legion Post 311 posted the colors. Two Wallenpaupack Area High School Protective Services students laid a wreath at the memorial. The school band played several patriotic songs. Prayers were said by the Rev. Mark Juengel and the Rev. Bryan Wright, and scriptures were read by John Nichols of Post 311.
American Legion Wilson-Kelch Post 311 posted the colors at Hawley’s ceremony for the 25th anniversary of 9/11 in Bingham Park on Sept. 11, 2026.
Mahlab said it started as a typical workday in her office at 39th Street and 6th Avenue in Manhattan. “At 8:50 a.m. the graphic designer dashed into my office,” she recalled. The designer had heard a bulletin on the radio that a “small plane” had hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center.
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She and her co-workers checked their computers for news of what seemed like a tragic accident. “About 10 minutes later, another bulletin flashed across our screen. This time the South Tower had been hit. But this wasn’t a small plane. It was a commercial airliner. It was clear this was intentional,” she said.
Lili Mahlab of Wayne County shares her personal experience of working in Manhattan on 9/11 at Hawley’s 9/11 anniversary ceremony on Sept. 11, 2026.
“In that quiet, terrifying second, the world shifted on its axis,” Mahlab. “What had seemed like a freak accident was an act of terrorism.”
She and her co-workers congregated on the roof. “We stood there together, some of us hugging each other, as we watched the towers burn and ultimately collapse. Several among us were quietly sobbing… while others were frantically trying to reach friends, colleagues and relatives who were at or near the World Trade Center,” she recalled.
A heavy, intense smell of smoke filled the air.
At Hawley’s ceremony for the 25th anniversary of 9/11 in Bingham Park on Sept.11, 2026, two Wallenpaupack Area High School students, Caelin Kooistra and Autumn Schafer, stand by the wreath they just placed at the 9/11 memorial.
The phone lines were dead. Mahlab said she kept trying without success to call her children’s school, her husband, her elderly mother, and sister. “Everything came to a dead standstill. Public transportation in New York City ground to a halt. The bridges were shut down. No one could enter or exit the city unless you walked,” she said. Her 2.5-mile walk home, cutting through Central Park, took her past people “covered in soot, ash and debris from the falling building.” TV sets blared news of people jumping from the struck towers, which she described as “horror.”
That night she and her neighbors gathered on the roof 33 floors above ground, watching smoke continue to billow out from the World Trade Center while fighter planes patrolled the sky. Mahlab said the next day missing person signs started appearing everywhere, at subway stations and bus stops, and construction site walls.
The firehouse just a block from her apartment lost nine men that day. A makeshift memorial of cards, candles and flowers nearly covered the sidewalk, she said.
Wallenpaupack Area High School’s marching band performs patriotic numbers at the ceremony for the 25th anniversary of 9/11 in Bingham Park on Sept. 11, 2026.
“We all remember the shock, the disbelief, the heavy weight of realizing our world would never be the same,” Mahlab told the crowd under the tent. She urged people to never forget the people who perished, those who have suffered since, and the extraordinary courage of first responders and everyday citizens who ran toward danger to help.
In the weeks that followed 9/11, she recalled how remarkable it was as Americans united and neighbors and strangers alike helped one another. “We put aside our differences and remembered what bound us together as human beings and Americans. This is why we gather here every September 11th.” Mahlab said. “May we carry that same spirit of community today, tomorrow, and in all the years to come.”
Peter Becker has worked at the Tri-County Independent or its predecessor publications since 1994. Reach him at pbecker@tricountyindependent.com.
This article originally appeared on Tri-County Independent: At Hawley ceremony, local woman recalls experiencing 9/11 in Manhattan