Communities dedicate park to honor residents who died on Sept. 11, 2001
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On Friday, Sept. 11, members of the Monroe and Woodbury communities gathered to dedicate the park along Larkin Drive in memory of the people from these two communities who died on Sept. 11, 2001. Photo provided by the Town of Monroe
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Editor’s note: On Friday, Sept. 11, members of the Monroe and Woodbury communities gathered to dedicate the park along Larkin Drive in memory of the people from these two communities who died on Sept. 11, 2001. The following are the remarks prepared by Monroe Supervisor Sandy Leonard for the ceremony.
We gathered on Sept. 11, 2009, at 10 a.m. to dedicate the park along Larkin Drive at the border of our two communities in memory of the people from Monroe and Woodbury who rendered the ultimate sacrifice on Sept. 11, 2001. We want to support their families and the memory of their loved ones in a quiet respectful manner and assure them of how much we care and that they and their loved ones will always be remembered in our hearts and minds. Monroe: Michael Asher, Matthew Barnes, Thomas Dowd, Kenneth Marino, Edward Mazzella and Lyne Irene Morris and from Woodbury: Michael Montesi.
Welcome. Welcome everyone. Thank you for coming today to witness the dedication of this park.
I would like to let you know that on the flag pole is a small plaque that has been at the Alex Smith Pavilion since 9/11. We brought it here for today and will return it there after the plaque arrives for this park which will be placed in the middle of the stone wall behind the stone benches.
I would like to take a moment to thank people who were part of making this possible. There is a short history of how the park came to be on the back of the program and it further explains how everyone helped us.
The Monroe-Woodbury Community Foundation - Ray Heuchiling, Tom Sullivan and Tom Kennedy - for encouraging us to find a location close to the border of both communities.
The Original 9/11 Committee who were responsible for the distribution of funds: Joe Mancuso, Ann Marie Morris, Ken Cashman, Veronica Welch, Scott Ferguson, Ray Haffenecker and Tom Sullivan.
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The town’s own superintendent of highways, Roy Montanye, for his help with implementation of the park and Planning Board Chairman Charlie Finnerty for guiding the planning process and encouraging the saving of this green space and the wall you see built here with old stones originally taken from the stone walls on this farm.
RD Management, owners of the business park, for actually building this park for us. Bob Torgerson, a landscape architect ,who designed the park, and my own husband, Ed Leonard, who helped with the large memorial stones.
I would especially like to thank Monsignor Reynolds for his presence here today. He is one of the few clergy members in the area that was here in 2001. Father Travers from Woodbury was unable to attend due to a funeral today but he sends his prayers.
Thank you to all the municipal officials who have joined us from the Towns of Monroe and Woodbury along with the Villages of Monroe, Harriman, Kiryas Joel and Woodbury.
9/11 Memorial Park History
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This small park has been a long time in the making and has a unique history to it that I would like all of you to know about. One day I got a phone call from Ray Heuchling, the head of the M-W Community Foundation. These are the folks who raised the money to install lights on the M-W Football Field.
Ray asked me if I could think of a location that was on the border of the Monroe-Woodbury communities where we might locate a remembrance of this nature. Ironically, I was driving down Larkin Drive and passing this very sight as we spoke. It was truly a bit eerie. At the same time our Planning Board Chairman Charlie Finnerty was working with RD Management to save this bit of green space and who built this park.
I went home that evening and spoke to my husband about the idea, explaining to him the above scenario. I wondered if he could think of any other location. He couldn’t think of a better place, thought this was a good one and proffered another idea.
He was working on the Taconic Parkway along with a landscape architect, Bob Torgerson, a landscape architect who happened to also work for RandD Management, the builders of this Business Park. They had been bemoaning the fact that some of the stonework they were taking down would be lost to history.
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They had some of the old hand-cut stones that came out of the bridges they were replacing. Again, ironically they had the same number of old stones that you see here today as there were people to be remembered.
At that point I called Roy Montanye, our Superintendent of Highways and asked him if he would be kind enough to go pick up the stones so we could use them here. He did and kept them safe at the highway garage until we could place them here as benches.
The coincidence involved in how this small park came to be is more than typical of how things often happen in our town, which despite what everyone says is still a small one. The world is a small place and often the idea of being connected by six degrees of separation happens and we are still surprised by it.
Many thanks to all those mentioned above who made this day possible.
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