Where they were and the good place that emerged

Andrea Casey, The Common Ground at Rotary Park “We had a Sayville Rotary meeting that Thursday and were all talking about what we could do. (Casey was assistant treasurer then.) All I said was, ‘I think our community needs a place to come together, cry together, and heal together.’ Out of something bad, we wanted to help create something good. That was the impetus. Pam Raymond and many of the Rotarians said, ‘What about Rotary Park? We can build a community garden.’ Hal Limouze [past president and district governor] commented he thought it was a community project and that we should invite our community organizations to participate. Hal had been trying to get the service organizations together for years. He said if I could get them onboard, he would arrange the inclusion on the deed and with Rotary’s headquarters. The service groups all pitched in. We put together a group, had a fundraiser at Land’s End and formed a board. I was president; Zee Morrison, Carolyn Leyboldt were on the board and it kept growing. The bottom line was, everyone was feeling the same sense of community and loss. It’s since become hallowed ground.

Carolyn Leyboldt, Rotary member hosting visiting exchange student and her cousin “Natalie and her cousin Virginne Dennis, from Belgium, were visiting. Natalie was my exchange student in 1999 and was back for a visit with Virginne that September before attending university. Natalie loved the city, so they were at the Twin Towers on Sept. 10. They wanted to return the next day, but wound up sleeping in. Fred [husband] and I went for bagels that morning, where SoBol is now, and saw the first plane crash on TV in the store. We went back home and I woke Natalie up and told her to call her father, a surgeon in Antwerp, that she was safe. I didn’t even go into that a plane had hit the Twin Towers. Then all four of us sat and watched in tears. The girls were supposed to return Sept. 14, but their airline folded after that and they went back two weeks later.”

Michael Dawidziak, political consultant “People forget it was primary day in New York, the first Tuesday after Labor Day. The election districts opened up for voting at 6 a.m. Nassau had its primary with Tom Suozzi and Tom DiNapoli for county exec, and you had a whole lot of people who already voted on their way to work. The primary was ultimately suspended and put off for two weeks. People had already placed their television ads for candidates to start the day after the primary for the general election, and my immediate reaction was to call the television stations and pull the ads. No one wants to see political ads in the midst of all that misery. Every political consultant was doing the same thing.”

Pam Greene, Islip Town councilwoman “It was town board meeting day, and I was getting ready for work. I got a call from my assistant to put on the TV that a plane hit the Twin Towers. I did, and watched it with my late husband [reporter] Wayne Nestor. He said, ‘We’re under attack and we’re at war.’ He’d been in the Army in 1969 and was a member of the Special Forces. When I got to work, staff were watching the attacks unfold in the supervisor’s office in back of the town board room. The second tower was hit at 10:28 a.m. and the board meeting started at 10:30 a.m.; residents who came didn’t know it had fallen. We started the meeting by honoring police officers for outstanding service. I remember thinking, This is the most appropriate thing we can do—to continue government and not allow it to shut down.”