This year’s remembrance ceremony at Ground Zero Friday included for the first time a pointed moment of silence for the thousands of people who have died from 9/11-related illnesses.
The hallowed annual event’s new seventh moment of silence came after the names of the 2,977 people killed at the site Sept. 11, 2001, as well as the six people killed in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, were read aloud.
Six emotional pauses were previously made at the event to mark the moments the North and South Towers and Pentagon were struck on 9/11, the times the Twin Towers fell that day and when Flt. 93 crashed near Shanksville, Pa.
More than 9,400 people are estimated to have died from 9/11-related illnesses so far — or more than triple the number of people killed on the day of the attacks.
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Scores more continue to suffer from cancers and respiratory infections, as well as injuries sustained during the tragedy.
One such victim recently lost his long battle to a 9/11-related illness — years after his FDNY son was lost Sept. 11, 2001, his heartbroken granddaughter revealed during the reading of the victims’ names.
Dad and retired NYPD Officer John Napolitano, Sr. died in 2024 “after courageously battling a post 9/11 illness,” his obituary said.
“But I find peace knowing that they’re finally together again,” the young woman said of her father and grandfather at the annual remembrance ceremony.
The woman’s father, FDNY Lt. John P. Napolitano Jr., is widely remembered for his bravery during the attacks and was last seen rushing into the North Tower with Rescue 2 before it collapsed.
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His NYPD dad spent the next several weeks searching the ruins of Ground Zero for his heroic son, who was just 33 years old when he perished.
Napolitano Jr. left behind two young daughters.
“What an honor it is to be one of your girls,” Napolitano’s daughter said at the ceremony.
“There’s not a day that goes by that we don’t think of you, tell stories about you and laugh with you. You will always live on in us.”
The seventh moment of silence will be a permanent addition to the annual ceremony, the 9/11 Memorial & Museum said earlier this year.
The new moment of silence was decades in the making and came at the behest of advocates, who fought for years for legislation that protects 9/11 survivors facing chronic illnesses.
The solemn addition also offers the opportunity for the next generation of Americans to understand the spirit and heroism of those who responded to the attacks and continued contributing to the neighborhood despite not knowing what effects the toxic air would bring years down the line.
