Every year, volunteers transform the lawn outside Stanford Town Hall into a field of 2,977 American flags, one for each person killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Volunteers from the town and the Stanford Fire Company gathered at Town Hall on Monday evening, Aug. 31, to prepare this year’s display, which will commemorate the 25th anniversary of the attacks.
The annual tribute was inspired by Ed Zick, a longtime Stanford Fire Company volunteer who saw a similar display in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, and brought the idea back to Stanford. The town formed a 9/11 committee in 2019, and volunteers have organized the display each year since.
Zick, who lost a close friend on Sept. 11, said he wanted to make the 25th anniversary particularly meaningful. This year, volunteers plan to place candle-like tea lights beneath each flag and light them at dusk on Sept. 11.
“A lot of people don’t realize that happened 25 years ago,” Zick said. “I lost a real close friend and it was tough. The only thing they did wrong that day is they went to work. Just like you and I.”
The tribute will also include a mural and ribbons bearing the names of those killed, which will be fastened along the Town Hall fence, said Evelyn Seipp, co-chair of the committee and president of the Stanford Fire Company.
Seipp said she remembers watching news coverage of the attacks with colleagues at IBM’s Fishkill office, where she and Zick worked at the time. More than two decades later, she said, Stanford’s display remains an emotional experience.
“If you sit down when they’re all up there, you can watch the swirls and the wind as it comes through here,” Seipp said. “It’s really indescribable, the feelings as you see it. You see nothing but flags. So it’s very emotional. You start looking at the names and it hits you. Same thing when we put in the flags, we’re realizing again, we’re doing this for the people that died that day.”
Students at Seymour Smith Intermediate Learning Center, Stissing Mountain Junior/Senior High School, and first graders at Cold Spring Early Learning Center inscribed the ribbons for the memorial.
Christopher Boyd, principal of Stissing Mountain Junior/Senior High School, said participating in the tribute gives students who were born years after the attacks a way to connect with their significance.
“We have students that are from 5 to 18 [years old], they didn’t have any emotions towards that, when it happened but I think that’s part of what we try to do as educators, is make sure that they have an opportunity to experience some aspect of it,” Boyd said. “We believe that repetition of doing something, that’s going to last with them a little bit. So when they hear 9/11, here is another thing that they can think about that can be meaningful.”
Stanford’s Sept. 11 memorial ceremony will begin at 7 p.m. Friday at Town Hall. The program will include remembrances of the attacks, the Pledge of Allegiance, and the national anthem. Flowers will be available for purchase for attendees who wish to place them beside the mural.