Riverdale 9/11 Memorial Garden ceremony honors victims with new World Trade Center artifact

It’s very important for our community to have this memorial garden, it gives solace to people.”

Jeffrey Dinowitz, assemblyman

At the fourth annual 9/11 memorial ceremony, around 200 residents gathered at the Riverdale 9/11 Memorial Garden to honor the victims and first responders of the September 11 attacks.

This year’s ceremony, co-chaired by Laura Spalter and Mike Courtney, featured a notable addition: a piece of steel beam from the World Trade Center site, donated by the New York Fire Department. 

According to Courtney, the garden began years ago as a makeshift memorial put together by a neighbor, but after she moved away, it soon became overgrown and neglected. Tom Healey, who runs the memorial garden at Inwood’s Church of the Good Shepherd, encouraged Courtney and the community to enhance the site. Together, and with the help of others, they transformed it into what is now a vibrant and peaceful place of reflection. 

“Every year, it gets a little bit bigger,” Courtney said.

Residents often express to Courtney how much the memorial garden means to them.

“It’s an honor to do this. I do it for the guys on the wall there,” he said, referring to two men memorialized who lived in a nearby apartment building.  

Around five times a year, a small group of volunteers from the neighboring Riverdale Country School helps with caretaking and planting bulbs and seeds. Courtney, who tends to the garden daily, weeding and watering, noted it contains about 1,000 daffodil and tulip bulbs. 

“If you come in the spring there’s thousands of bulbs,” Spalter added, “it’s really a very impressive spring garden.”

The garden’s flagpole and flag, which flew over the 9/11 Memorial at the World Trade Center, are a contribution from Damian McShane of the Riverdale Main Street Alliance. 

At Courtney’s request, the New York Fire Department Commissioner’s office granted permission for the steel beam from Ground Zero to be displayed. While a permanent plaque is forthcoming, for now, a temporary plate reads: “This steel beam was recovered from ground zero and donated to the Riverdale community by the New York City Fire Department. It is dedicated to honor and remember all those who lost their lives on September 11, 2001. We will never forget.”

The ceremony involved contributions from various sectors of the community. Father Sean Connolly, the new pastor of St Margaret of Cortona - St Gabriel school offered an opening prayer and blessing. Students from St. Margaret - St Gabriel presented a special flag donated by the Inwood 9/11 group, featuring names of the 2,977 victims. Later, a memorial poem was read, and the Schiller Institute NYC chorus sang the national anthem as well as a hymn. 

Assemblymember Jeffrey Dinowitz was among the attendees. He said that 23 years later, like many others, he still gets emotional when he thinks about what happened. He recalled that the attacks coincided with Primary Day, and he had been at P.S. 24 speaking to voters at the time, when the election was stopped. He also remembered a woman who had taken the day off from her job at the World Trade Center to campaign, thanking him afterward, as though the campaign had saved her life. 

“The ceremony was more beautiful than ever,” Dinowitz said, “I think it’s very important for our community to have this [memorial garden] — it gives solace to people.”