Thomas Riches, whose brother Jimmy died in the September 11 attacks, with his son Tommy. Riches read the names in 2013 and his son will participate this year. Photo / Natalie Keyssar, The New York Times
A generational shift has been taking place at the annual September 11 remembrance ceremony in New York City.
Ten-year-old Danielle Riches read off some of the names of the dead at the September 11 remembrance ceremony last year, strangers who were killed before she was born.
The final name she recited was of the man whose life and loss are always present in her family, her uncle, Jimmy Riches, a New York City firefighter who died trying to save others.
“Uncle Jimmy, we talk about you all the time and how you sounded so amazing,” she said. “I wish I could have met you.”
On Thursday, for the 24th time, survivors and victims of the terrorist attacks will gather at New York’s 9/11 Memorial and Museum for the annual rite of remembrance, an hours-long recitation of nearly 3000 names at the site known as ground zero.
There will be bagpipes, the national anthem and moments of silence. Relatives of the dead will take turns in the recitation.
Those reading the names will also include children. About one-third of last year’s readers belong to this new generation in the September 11 families, one with no memory of the attacks but increasingly shouldering the responsibility to never forget.
Some are the children of children who lost their parents on September 11. Last year, Kylie Corrigan, 10, recited the name of her grandfather, James J. Corrigan, 60, a retired New York fire captain who was director of fire safety at the twin towers.
“We love you so much and we miss you so much,” she said, adding that she and her sisters “wish we got to meet you”.
Two of Kylie’s sisters, Keira and Megan, now 21 and 19, served as readers in earlier years. Their father and his brother became firefighters after the attacks.
To take part, family members enter their names into a lottery managed by the 9/11 Memorial and Museum, the site with the plaza where the ceremony takes place near the 30-foot waterfalls that sit in the footprints of the former north and south towers.
Students today see the events of September 11 as part of history. Theirs is a post-Cold War generation for whom terrorism may be a more familiar threat than nuclear annihilation. Their defining event has been the coronavirus pandemic.
Many of these young people began going to the ceremonies in lower Manhattan as babies.
The Richeses, a family of Brooklyn firefighters, exemplify this transition. Three generations have stood before mourners to recite the names, starting with Jimmy Riches’ father, Deputy Chief James Riches, now retired.
He and his three younger sons went down into the pit of the World Trade Center on March 25, 2002, to carry out Jimmy’s remains. As the family understands it, he was found beside a woman he was rescuing and would not leave.
“It’s been 12 years,” Thomas Riches, a firefighter and the youngest brother, said after he read names in 2013. “We miss you like it was yesterday. We’ll never forget you. And the proof of that is your nieces and nephew who talk about you each day like you’re in the room with them.”
He was 17 when his oldest brother died.
The list of names he read that day stretched from Joseph Reina jnr, operations manager at Cantor Fitzgerald, to CeCelia Richard, who was killed at the Pentagon.
Since then, four of Jimmy’s nieces and nephews, all born after September 11, have taken part in the reading. A fifth was chosen in the lottery this year, Thomas Riches’ 10-year-old son, Tommy.
“They all want to do it, believe it or not,” said their grandmother, Rita Riches. “He is mentioned in the house all the time. So they feel a connection to him, you know. They know all about him.”
The children have heard that their uncle was the prankster of the family, sometimes a class clown, who put others first and died bravely, saving other people, Thomas Riches said.
They know that Uncle Jimmy was a New York City police officer before he was a firefighter. They know he also tended bar at a restaurant in the Brooklyn neighbourhood of Bay Ridge because that’s where they all go to lunch after the ceremony to hear stories about him. They know he died a hero, at age 29, the day before he would have turned 30.
“Tomorrow would have been your 52nd birthday,” his niece Tess, now 14, said at her reading in 2023. “Even though I never got to meet you, I will never forget you.”
Readers chosen by lottery are notified in late summer. Organisers provide each one an advance copy of the list he or she will be reading. They also get a recording to help with pronunciation. It’s homework of sorts during summer vacation.
Then, on September 11, three generations of the Riches family converge on the site from Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island.
Riches were there when the site was still a wreckage. They were there when the new World Trade Center was under construction and when the memorial and pools opened on September 11, 2011.
Francie, now 17, was the first of the family’s new generation to read, in 2021. She just started college.
Jimmy Riches, now 12 and named for his uncle, read the next year. He said he practised the names every night after he was chosen.
Then came Tess in 2023, followed by Danielle, last year. “It was a little scary because there was a lot of people, and I was nervous that I was going to cry,” Danielle said.
This year it’s Tommy’s turn.
“We go down to the waterfalls every year,” he said in an interview with his father nearby. “To keep him in our hearts and to never let him go. To never forget him.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Written by: Carol Rosenberg
Photographs by: Dave Sanders and Natalie Keyssar
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