Displaying items by tag: sept 11

SARATOGA SPRINGS – Patrick Kauth stood atop the lawn at High Rock Park Wednesday morning, trying to encapsulate the thoughts and emotions of the past 18 years into a few poignant words. 

“It’s a changed world,” said Kauth, whose childhood years were spent in the classrooms of St. Clement’s and Saratoga Springs High. He grew up in a hockey family, one of four siblings. His dad, Don Kauth, was killed in the 9/11 attacks at the World Trade Center.      

“A loss is a loss and you can’t change time,” said Kauth, who teaches history at the Albany Academy.

It was early in September 2001, when Don Kauth drove his son to Merrimack College in Massachusetts, where Patrick was entering his freshman year.

“He bought me own of those huge Dell desktop computers,” he remembered. “Afterwards we ate dinner and exchanged pleasantries and insults, the way that best friends do, because he was my best friend,” he said. “Then he was off to New York the next morning.” Don Kauth worked as a bank analyst for Keefe, Bruyette & Wood at the World Trade Center.

It was a week or so later when Patrick Kauth joined his new college roommates watching the events of 9/11 take form on the TV.

“I remember thinking that this couldn’t be real. At first, I joined along with them, just sat there, and then after about sixty seconds it clicked: wait a minute. He works there. So, I phoned home. And I heard it in my mom’s voice. She hadn’t heard from him. The communication was very difficult that day, but still, he would have found a way. So, I knew pretty immediately that he was gone. “

Kauth was the keynote speaker at the city’s 9/11 Remembrance Ceremony Wednesday morning at High Rock Park. It is a historic park that has been known to Native Americans for over 5,000 years. In the summer of 2012, it became home to the 25-foot-tall sculpture, titled "Tempered by Memory," which was created out of five twisted pieces of World Trade Center steel. Four of the pieces came from the North Tower - distinguished by the antenna on its roof - and one steel beam came from the South Tower.

The ceremony, held on the 18th anniversary of the attacks, began with a welcome from Raymond F. O’Conor, author and CEO of Saratoga National Bank, and the observance included members of the city police and fire departments and the U.S. Navy. Keri Alonzo sang The National Anthem, Rick and Sharon Bolton provided additional music. Chaplain Sid Gordon, Disabled American Veterans, delivered the Invocation and Benediction.

“The attacks caused the deaths of 2,996 people and the injuries of more than 6,000 others,” said city Mayor Meg Kelly, who recited a series of the numbers that reflected the tragic losses of that day at the World Trade Center, at the Pentagon, on each of the four planes, and the firefighters, paramedics, police officers and others who were killed responding to the attacks and trying to help others.    

“Number of people who lost a spouse or partner in the attacks: 1,609; Estimated number of children who lost a parent: 3,051; Estimated number of New Yorkers suffering from post-traumatic-stress disorder as a result of 9/11: immeasurable,” Mayor Kelly said. “It is with these numbers that we will always mark this horrific day.”   

Kauth says the collective stories of the tragic day’s events, as well as visits to The National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York have become as fundamental to him as the battlefields of Saratoga, and Gettysburg, and the museums and the monuments in Washington.

“In particular, it is overwhelmingly emotional listening to our first responders The Day Of - from their own radio correspondence, describing in detail their quickly deteriorating situation and the victims who could not make it out of the stairwell,” Kauth said. “It becomes apparent, pretty quickly, that these heroes knew that they were not making out. That they were going to save as many people before the inevitable collapse.

“I cannot help but think, in awe and with tears streaming down my face, about the bravery and resolve displayed by these firefighters and policemen who wanted nothing else but to just have a chance at saving people like my father,” Kauth said.

“Time does help. I have a family of my own that we’re growing now, and that helps immensely. I love my son more and more each day,” he said, gesturing a few yards away across the park to his wife Shauna, and their 22-month-old son, Oliver.

Asked what he will teach his own son about his father, Kauth said it will be about his dad’s caring for others.  “He was a unique guy. A really thoughtful guy who did a lot for the community and for anybody that needed something. So, what I’ll tell my son is that we have to continue to try and live his legacy,” Kauth said.  “But you’re never going to have that hole filled up completely.”

SARATOGA SPRINGS – The contradictions of the day and the desire to bring meaning to something 17 years later still incomprehensible, were on open display for anyone who sought to look for them: blue-sky morning versus gray cloud rain; trauma rebutted by survival, and the sudden extinguishing of life counteracted by blessings in the opportunity of being alive. 

“9/11 was, is, and always will be a reminder that tomorrow is not promised,” keynote speaker Shawn Patrick told a crowd assembled at High Rock Park on Tuesday, Sept. 11 to mark the 17th anniversary of the 2001 attacks.  Patrick’s brother, James, worked for the Cantor Fitzgerald financial services firm and was killed at the World Trade Center that day. The Schenectady native was 30 years old. A few days earlier he celebrated his first wedding anniversary. A few weeks later came the birth of a child whom he would never know. 

This Tuesday’s morning rain presented a contrast to the blue-sky morning of that Tuesday’s September day. The annual remembrance event marked the third such Tuesday since 2001 - the others being in 2007 and 2011- a calendar connection that won’t happen again for another 11 years, in 2029.  

The ceremony took place at High Rock Park, home to a 25-foot-tall sculpture titled “Tempered By Memory,” commissioned by Saratoga Arts and created by artists Noah Savett and John Van Alstine from five twisted pieces of Trade Center steel. Four pieces came from the North Tower, one came from the South Tower. 

City Mayor Meg Kelly, her voice choked with emotion, collectively recalled the thousands killed that day and in the event aftermath: those who worked at their desks, those who responded to help, families separated, children killed, she lamented. The number of New Yorkers suffering post-traumatic stress, Kelly said: “immeasurable.” Similarly, city Fire Department Chaplain Rev. Thomas Chevalier paused to remember both - those killed while attempting to help strangers in need, as well as those who continue to battle physical ailments. “Those who still suffer the consequences of their generosity and care,” he said. 

A member of the Saratoga Springs Fire Department rang a silver bell 17 times, one for each year since the 2001 attack.  And Commander Christopher Tejeda, of the U.S. Naval Support Activity in Saratoga Springs, recited a timeline “to reflect and remember those who are not with us.”  Each was followed by a moment of silence.  

8:46 a.m. - American Airlines Flight 11 strikes the North Tower of the World Trade Center.

9:03 a.m. - United Airlines Flight 175 strikes the South Tower of the World Trade Center.

9:37 a.m. - American Airlines Flight 77 strikes the Pentagon Building in Washington, D.C.

9:59 a.m. – The South Tower falls.

10:07 a.m. - United Airlines Flight 93 crashes in a field in Pennsylvania.

10:28 a.m. – The North Tower falls.

Stepping outside the somber remembrances of the day, even the music displayed the conflicted emotions. Alongside renditions of and "America the Beautiful," and Steve Goodman's "City of New Orleans," Rick and Sharon Bolton performed both Irving Berlin's "God Bless America" and Woody Guthrie’s "This Land Is Your Land" – the latter song composed ironically as an angry response to the former.

SARATOGA SPRINGS – A crowd of more than 200 people, comprised of area residents, members of the city’s fire and police departments, local government representatives and the Saratoga Springs High School Choraliers gathered at High Rock Park on Sept. 11, 2017 for the city’s annual 9/11 Remembrance Ceremony.

City Mayor Joanne Yepsen offered the following comments: “It was 16 years ago today our country was devastated by shock and fear, even though we woke up to a perfectly normal morning,” said the mayor, recalling the blue-sky Tuesday that would take a violent turn.

“The attacks that claimed nearly 3,000 lives left scars on millions of others. We kept watching our televisions, watching the horror of that day, detail after detail. But then, we watched something else begin to happen. We saw ourselves, a diverse and wide-ranging nation of individuals with different ideas, values and backgrounds, and we became strong together. Unified and supportive of one another,” Yepsen said.

For many of us, the most powerful memory of that day in September is the way we worked together, in any way that we could.”