(HARTFORD, CT) – Governor Ned Lamont and Lt. Governor Susan Bysiewicz are inviting members of the public to attend the State of Connecticut’s 18th annual 9/11 Memorial Ceremony, honoring and celebrating the lives of those killed in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The ceremony will be held at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, September 5, 2019, at Sherwood Island State Park in Westport. Family members of those who were killed in the attacks will participate, and the names of the 161 victims with ties to Connecticut will be read aloud.
The State of Connecticut’s official memorial honoring the victims of the attacks is located on a peninsula at the state park, where on a clear day the Manhattan skyline can be viewed across the Long Island Sound. It features a memorial engraved with the names of the people with ties to Connecticut who lost their lives. In the months following the attacks, the state park was chosen as the site for the memorial because it is the location in its immediate aftermath where many people gathered to observe the devastation on Lower Manhattan across the Sound. The site was also used by the Connecticut National Guard in the days immediately following the attacks as a staging area for Connecticut’s relief efforts to New York City.
Every year since the attacks, the State of Connecticut has held its memorial ceremony on a day prior to the actual anniversary in order to accommodate family members and friends of the victims, many of whom live in the state and would like to attend both Connecticut’s ceremony as well as the annual service that is held at Ground Zero in New York City on September 11.