New Yorkers Mark 9/11 Anniversary in Their Own Ways

They honor the day with family, friends and work.

When Jill Callan rolled up the metal gate Sunday morning at Petuniam, her children's clothing shop in Sunnyside, Queens, she had no doubt she'd made the right decision. 

On this day, the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, "I wouldn't consider not opening," she said, "to kind of proceed with life."

Ten years earlier, Callan was among the thousands of outer-borough New Yorkers who left their Midtown offices and walked across bridges to get home. Callan took the 59th Street Bridge.

"There was like one lane of traffic going out of the city, and then the rest was all foot traffic," she said. "You could see all of the smoke from the towers going across the water. It was pretty sad."

Underneath that same bridge Sunday, the Riverside Team in Astoria gathered for their weekly softball game. One player lost his stepmother in the towers. Others lost friends and colleagues.

Riverside's pitcher said he didn't lose anyone close to him but felt the loss all the same.

And yet his choice to play on this day, the anniversary of the attacks, was clear.

"All the people that we lost, my heart is heavy for them, but we have to keep going on," he said. "Hey, we're doing it for them as well."

On the Upper East Side along York Avenue, business owners wrapped trees in red, white and blue.

Ginny Manning, who owns the pet supply store Calling All Pets, calmed her cat Cappy, who she said "remembers the sadness" of 10 years ago." Cappy is 17.

"We lost a lot of friends and customers," Manning said. "We remember."

On the Promenade in Brooklyn Heights, Samantha Joseloff wanted to make sure her son Julian, soon to be 4, could appreciate in his young life how special the day was.

She and her husband walked with him from their Cobble Hill home. Little Julian wore a navy blue sweatshirt with an American flag decal. He gasped at the police helicopters buzzing over Lower Manhattan. His mom explained to him that the skyline had changed.

"We just wanted to come back to sort of honor the day," she said.

On East 67th Street i Manhattan, neighbors paused and shared a moment with police and firefighters. The 19th Precinct station house and the Engine 39 firehouse sit side by side.

The two squads conducted quiet, nearly simultaneous ceremonies at 8:46 a.m. Police Inspector Matt Whelan read the names of 23 NYPD members killed in the attacks. At the firehouse, there was a moment of silence, and another at 9:03 a.m.

Robert Lipps, on the block with his twin 9-month-old daughters and his dog Dexter, thanked members of both houses for their service.

Then he chatted with some of the first responders, joking that one of his daughters was wearing a Jets green onesie.

"Life goes on," he said. "In New York, we don't forget. We always remember. But life goes on."

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