Small park, big mission: the 9-11 Memorial Park on Sound Avenue, a place for remembering

A dozen years after the dedication of the 9-11 Memorial Park on Sound Avenue, the 4-acre greenspace on the corner of Park Road/Lt. Thomas R. Kelly Memorial Drive remains a pristine sanctuary, a place for quiet reflection and solitude, just steps from a very busy thoroughfare.

The park, built by the Town of Riverhead on land acquired by Suffolk County, had been slated for development with a 40,000-square-foot shopping center. A group of local residents, led by Mike Foley and Bob Kelly, lobbied town and county officials for preservation of the site as a park to honor the heroes who gave their lives on Sept. 11, 2001 — two of whom were lifelong summer residents of the tiny, close-knit community along the Long Island Sound called Reeves Park. 

Reeves Park was developed as a community of summer bungalows on the Sound, at a time when ordinary working people could buy a small plot of land near the beach where their families could frolic and run free every summer, escaping the streets and the heat of the five boroughs or western Long Island. 

One of those families was the Kelly family. New York City firefighter Emmet Kelly and his wife Sue spent summers at their Reeves Park bungalow overlooking the Sound with their children, Jim, Bob, Tommy and Jean Marie. Bobby and Tommy followed in their father’s footsteps, joining FDNY. Their eldest son, Jim, became a New York City Police detective. As years went by, the beach house became a hub of family activity that included their children’s spouses and kids, who spent summer weekends and vacations there. 

In retirement, Emmet and Sue moved to their beloved Reeves Park home full-time. Tommy bought his own home in Reeves Park and became a full-time resident. Emmet Kelly, the son of Irish immigrants, and his wife Sue were enjoying the golden years of a life well-lived, surrounded by a loving family, including a growing brood of grandchildren.  

Until Sept. 11, 2001.

The fateful events of that Tuesday morning changed their lives forever. Their youngest son, a member of FDNY Ladder Co. 105 in Brooklyn, rushed into the burning South Tower, 2 World Trade Center, which had been struck by United Airlines Flight 175 at 9:03 a.m. in a valiant effort to save the lives of untold numbers of civilians trapped within. It was the second of the fabled Twin Towers to be hit by hijacked commercial jetliners that morning, a sight witnessed on live TV by millions of shocked Americans. Tommy and his entire company perished when the South Tower collapsed at 9:59 a.m. Their remains have never been recovered.

Read more: Parents of fallen 9-11 firefighter: Justice is done. (May 2, 2011)

The Kelly family’s story is but one of hundreds — families of the 343 FDNY firefighters killed in the line of duty that day. And it is one of thousands of stories of families and friends left to grieve the senseless loss of innocent lives on that day of terror. 

Twenty-four years later, Sept. 11, 2001 has receded into history, as survivors and eyewitnesses grow old and pass away, and a new generation, which has no real memory of those events, has grown to adulthood.

Memorial parks like the one on Sound Avenue in Riverhead dot the American landscape. They are sacred plots where memories of that day, and the people we lost, live on. 

Riverhead’s park, meticulously maintained by the town, features a granite monument embedded with a piece of steel from the World Trade Center, a brick pathway, benches, a flag pole and two “survivor trees” from the World Trade Center site.

Each year on Sept. 11, Reeves Park residents walk from Marine Street to the 9-11 Memorial Park for a remembrance service. Members of the Riverhead Fire Department turn out in force to honor their fallen brethren. They are joined at the park by Riverhead Police, town, county and state officials, and other community members. Members of the Kelly family and members of the family of Jonathan Ielpi, a Reeves Park summer resident and a NYC firefighter who was killed at age 29 in the collapse of the South Tower. 

Emmet and Sue Kelly, both elderly and frail, lived to see the first ceremony take place on Sept. 11, 2013 in the just-completed park. Emmet died a month later and Sue died the following month.

Each year, Jonathan Ielpi’s sister, Anne Marie Holleran and Thomas Kelly’s brother, Bob offer words of reflection and share memories of their brothers, whose lives were cut short at far too young an age. Yesterday, Bob wondered aloud what his brother would be like today, at age 62. Anne Marie spoke about how she thinks of her brother every single day. Their pain is still raw despite the passage of time. And so it will be for the rest of their days.

The rest of us can only hope this annual ritual and the presence of this sanctuary gives them and their families some measure of comfort, knowing that the memories of their brothers are still honored and cherished by the community they loved.

Read more: A community reflects on what it means to remember

The park will remain long after the rest of us are gone. It is a place we hope will forever ensure that the heroes of that day — those who died on Sept. 11, 200 and those who have died since from illnesses due to exposure to toxic air and materials while laboring at Ground Zero, searching first for survivors and then for victims’ remains — will never be forgotten.

The park reminds us not to forget the victims who boarded those hijacked jetliners that morning, or those at work within the Twin Towers, including Calverton resident Derrick Washington, 33, and those at work in the Pentagon complex. 

It also reminds us not to forget who we are as a people: Americans who believe that that the freedom we enjoy is precious and that when we come together, with hard work and dedication, we can accomplish anything — from building tall towers to saving a historic road from suburban sprawl, and creating instead a sanctuary in memory of the heroes of a generation.

RiverheadLOCAL photos by Denise Civiletti