Reflections on the 25th Anniversary of 9/11
- Details
- Written by: Joanne Wallenstein
- Hits: 231
Though it’s been 25 years since the September 11 attacks, many of us can remember where we were as it was yesterday. It’s surprising how vividly people can recount what happened to them on that fateful day.
Here are a few reflections from Scarsdalians:
Jeannie Rosenthal – President Scarsdale Rotary
I was in midtown on 9/11/2001. While on a Metro North train from Scarsdale, we learned that a plane had hit the WTC and the subway was closed. Everyone groaned at the inconvenience. As I headed on foot across town toward my office I saw the gaping hole through the second tower and floated towards it, transfixed. I rushed into a camera shop so I might buy a camera to get a photo. While inside, a crash outside shook the ground and when I ran out, the second tower was gone. Through streets of people covered in dust and blood, I ran east to the East River where I intended to jump and swim to the Bronx, a logical move if Manhattan was under siege, as it seemed to be. A boatman ushered me aboard a ferry which took me to somewhere in New Jersey. Aboard, I met a girl my age who invited me back to her house. We ate Greek food on her porch overlooking the Hudson River and watched the tower rubble smoking all afternoon until my dad picked me up. I had a proper emotional breakdown after that. I quit my job and moved far from New York.
I am back among my people now and understand how those planes tore holes through so many families and lives. Families, bodies, health, well-being, mangled that day and in all the time since, scars physical and emotional aching Every. Single. Day.
I want those who have experienced the massive losses of 9/11 personally to feel some comfort of community.
Andrea Seiden, Greenacres Avenue
After the fall of the Twin Towers, Grand Central Terminal became a makeshift memorial to the missing victims of 9/11. Gone were the hurried commuters hopscotching across the giant marble slabs, weaving around one another with cups of coffee in one hand and folded newspapers in the other. Seemingly out of respect for the missing, no one sprinted for the downtown subway or rushed to grab a toasted bagel at Zaro's. The frenetic rhythm of the city had been replaced by a profound stillness. An eerie quiet settled over Manhattan.
People moved softly, speaking in hushed voices, each trying to process the unimaginable.
For weeks after the unspeakable tragedy, every morning as I stepped off my train and walked through the great hall, shafts of sunlight streamed through the towering windows, giving the terminal the hazy quality of a steam bath. As my eyes adjusted to the morning light, I felt a haunting energy emanating from the makeshift exhibition of missing-person flyers that families and friends had begun hanging on every available surface.
Each one asked the same heartbreaking question:
Have you seen...?
What began as a handful of posters quickly grew into a dizzying gallery of ordinary people who had never made it home on that impossibly bright September morning.
As I emerged from Grand Central and looked downtown, I could still see enormous plumes of smoke rising from the place where the Twin Towers had once stood. The skyline looked wounded, as if part of the city itself had been erased. The air carried the unmistakable smell of smoke and ash. A fine gray dust drifted through the streets, settling on windowsills, parked cars, and the shoulders of pedestrians. Sometimes I could taste it.
I couldn't help but wonder what the ash contained. I imagined it held the remnants of ordinary lives—countless documents people had painstakingly prepared, family photographs tucked into desk drawers, handwritten notes, children's drawings, appointment calendars, letters never mailed, favorite books, framed diplomas, and the thousands of everyday objects that had quietly filled offices only days before. Those fragments had been swept into the sky and scattered across the city. Even the air seemed to carry the weight of unimaginable loss.
My walk from the train to my office forced me to pass the same faces every day. Over time, I began to feel as though I knew them. After all, they looked like the very people I had passed on sidewalks, trains, and elevators every morning before the attacks. Inevitably, I began inventing stories about the lives behind those photographs.
There was a young woman sitting on her dorm room bed, smiling up at the camera in a Fordham University T-shirt. She radiated hope and promise. I imagined she had just started her first job in Tower One, excited for the future that now would never come.
Near the side entrance to the terminal was the smooth face of a man in his thirties, dressed in a crisp suit and tie. His confident smile seemed to embody optimism and ambition, as though he had come to New York to build a life filled with possibility.
Then there was a woman about my age, walking arm in arm with two close friends. I imagined the photograph had been taken during a weekend hike in the Berkshires. She wore a red bandana and carried a small daypack slung over one shoulder. I found myself wondering what she had packed that morning for the hike—and then wondering whether she had carried that same backpack with her to work on that fateful Tuesday.
I was struck by how young so many of them were. Their lives appeared to be just beginning.
Day after day, I passed those same faces. Gradually, they became more familiar to me than many of the people rushing past on the sidewalks. Their smiles, frozen forever in moments of celebration and ordinary happiness, began to feel more alive than the living.
The rest of us moved through the city like ghosts.
We went to work because we didn't know what else to do. We sat at our desks, stared blankly at computer screens, answered telephones, and attended meetings, but our minds were elsewhere. We were frightened, exhausted, and still in shock, unable to concentrate on anything beyond the collective tragedy we had experienced. Every conversation eventually circled back to September 11. Every glance toward lower Manhattan reminded us of what had been lost. Every siren made us stop and look.
The faces on those posters seemed to possess a vitality that the rest of us had misplaced. They smiled from birthday parties, weddings, graduations, vacations, and family gatherings, forever suspended in lives interrupted. We wandered through our days in a haze of grief and disbelief, carrying an unspoken question that none of us could answer: How could the world continue when so many lives had stopped?
Everywhere you went in New York City, there were posters asking if anyone had seen a missing husband, wife, son, daughter, brother, sister, or friend. Makeshift memorials sprang up on street corners, in parks, outside firehouses, and along neighborhood sidewalks. Flowers wilted beneath flickering candles. Teddy bears, rosaries, handwritten prayers, and American flags accumulated in quiet shrines across the city. Perhaps the saddest reconning was walking past a midtown fire station each day. Many fire stations lost the majority of their brothers while trying to rescue people crying for at the top of the towers. The grief was palpable.
Strangers stopped beside one another without speaking. They cried together. They embraced without introductions. For the first time in my life, I witnessed a city of millions sharing the same heartbreak. In those first weeks after September 11, grief belonged to everyone. We were one family doing what we could to help each other heal.
Pete Jones – Hitchcock Church
Beloved friends,
It's hard to believe it has been 25 years since that gorgeous September morning when the world was changed by hate. God wept with us.
Some of you were far too close and will never forget what you experienced that day or the people you lost. You are in my prayers today.
Others, like myself, were far away from New York or DC or a field in PA, but will still never forget the feeling that everything changed in the blink of an eye...that everything was suddenly vulnerable. Our daughter, Gracey, was 3 weeks old, and suddenly the world felt far too dangerous for her.
The weeks that followed that horrific day brought some of the most beautiful and some of the ugliest national moments of my lifetime: petty differences crumbled, hardened New Yorkers hugged in the streets, generosity became the norm, and our international partners stepped up in miraculous ways. That lasted for a while. Simultaneously, Muslim Americans were targeted for their faith or the color of their skin; friends and neighbors were sent off to war, and lessons of unity were too quickly forgotten. Sadly, today, we see far too many people using this day for division rather than remembrance and hope.
On this 25th anniversary, I hope we will all stop:
To pray for the families of those lost on September 11th, in the decades of war that followed, and due to the health risks of Ground Zero.
To give thanks for first responders who were heroes in those days and weeks, and for military personnel.
To find a way to spread love again as we did in the immediate aftermath, and to speak up for the marginalized.
To remember that love will always be stronger than hate, and that God loves people of all faiths.
Hate (usually better defined as fear) is a cancer upon the world, causing unspeakable pain and suffering, hunger and thirst, violence and division. Love is the cure. Know that you are loved this day, as are ALL of our neighbors around the world.
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it." -MLK
"Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law." -Romans 13:10
May today remind us that no calling is higher than to love.
With Hope, Pete
Send your memories to scarsdalecomments@gmail.com and we will add them to the article above.
Scarsdale Public Library Announces Its New 5-Year Strategic Plan
- Details
- Written by: Joanne Wallenstein
- Hits: 482
The Scarsdale Public Library recently completed a broad-based strategic planning process. This plan will help to guide library services, programs, and other priorities over the coming years.
“We are excited to share the results with the community! This 5-year plan is designed to be flexible, actionable, and responsive, helping the library measure progress, communicate impact, and continue building a library that reflects the needs, values, and aspirations of Scarsdale in the years ahead,” said Library Board President Diksha Mudbhary.
The full plan is now available on the library’s website: www.scarsdalelibrary.org/five-year-strategic-plan
“This would not have been possible without input from all who contributed their time, thoughts, and suggestions to ensure that the Scarsdale Public Library remains relevant and responsive to community needs. Thank you to everyone who participated,” said Library Director Beth Bermel.
The independent Library Strategies Consulting Group (LSCG) created a survey, and listened to focus groups, stakeholders, community leaders, residents, Library Trustees and staff, gathering feedback to better understand what the community needs from its library today and what it may need in the future. All responses were directed to and reviewed by LSCG.
About the Library
The mission of the Scarsdale Public Library is to create welcoming spaces for all, innovate in response to community needs, cultivate the joy of learning, and connect people to enriching knowledge and experiences.
Residents Encouraged to Run for School Board Nominating Committee
- Details
- Written by: Joanne Wallenstein
- Hits: 786
The Scarsdale School Board Nominating Committee (SBNC) is inviting residents to become part of a long-standing community tradition that helps shape the future of our schools. Being a part of SBNC is one of the most effective ways Scarsdale residents can impact the quality of our schools with a limited time commitment. Strong community involvement in the school board nominating process helps to ensure we get the highest quality of candidates for the Board of Education.
Formed in 1965, the SBNC is a non-partisan committee that identifies and endorses candidates for the Scarsdale Board of Education. Thirty members, drawn equally from the five elementary school neighborhoods, work together each year to recruit, interview, and recommend highly qualified candidates for the community to vote on in May.
Why join the SBNC?
Members play an active role in selecting Board of Education candidates, build connections across the community, and participate in a thoughtful process that has guided Scarsdale schools for decades. In 2024, Scarsdale residents voted to allow non-citizens to join the SBNC, ensuring that more voices can be part of this important process.
SBNC Membership details
All residents who are qualified voters, defined as a person at least 18 years of age, and a resident of Scarsdale for at least 30 days prior to the petition deadline of October 23, 2026, and interested in maintaining the excellence of Scarsdale schools are strongly
urged to consider running for an SBNC position.
Members serve three years on the SBNC, followed by two years on the Administrative Committee.
Open seats this year:
1 from Edgewood and Fox Meadow, 2 from Quaker Ridge and 3 in Greenacres.
How to run:
Interested residents should complete two forms by October 23, 2026 at 5pm: email the SBNC biographical form to sbncelection@gmail.com and mail/drop off the candidate petition form to the address at the top of the petition.
Election Day:
Wednesday, December 2, 2026 (snow dates: December 7 or 9). Voting will take place at Scarsdale Middle School from 7:00–11:00 AM and 3:00–9:00 PM.
For more information, visit scarsdalesbnc.org or email sbncelection@gmail.com.
We look forward to your participation and questions.
June (Xun) Deng and Jenny Simon Tabak
Election Co-Chairs, SBNC
Opinion: Scarsdale’s Proposed Student Expression Guidelines Should Be Withdrawn
- Details
- Written by: Mayra Kirkendall Rodriguez
- Hits: 2920
(This is the opinion of Mayra Kirkendall Rodriguez)
The Scarsdale District revised these proposed guidelines once already, under public pressure and public comment. It changed almost nothing that matters. It is unclear what these proposed guidelines are trying to solve. Unfortunately, the guidelines will threaten students’ free-speech rights and achieve no educational objectives.
Scarsdale prides itself on academic excellence, civic engagement, and producing students who think critically about the world. It is very unfortunate that the Scarsdale School District is advancing guidelines that would do the opposite—chilling student expression, empowering administrators and teachers with unchecked discretion, and exposing the District to exactly the kind of legal controversy the policy claims to prevent.
The proposed “Guidelines for Student Expression at School-Sponsored Activities” were first floated in response to community pressure following a period of heightened tension. That origin story was itself a warning sign. Policies written under duress, to placate unhappy parents and to project the appearance of action, rarely bring good results. They tend to be simultaneously overreaching and insufficiently protective.
The District has since circulated a formal revision, “Revision 1,” dated June 26, 2026.” Residents submitted detailed comments on the original draft, identifying specific constitutional defects and offering specific fixes. Revision 1 is the District’s answer to that public process—and with one minor exception, it changes nothing of substance. The vague standards, the absence of an appeals process, the missing religious-expression protections: all of it survived, untouched, into the version now before the Board. A district that revises a policy and leaves every core legal defect in place has not shown that it is listening. It has shown that the outcome was decided before the comment period opened.
The Core Problem: Vagueness by Design
Read the proposed guidelines carefully. Students may not engage in speech or wear attire that could “reasonably be expected to create disruption, division, or controversy within the school community.” That single phrase is doing an enormous amount of work—and none of it is constitutionally defensible.
The U.S. Supreme Court established the governing standard more than half a century ago in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District. Students do not shed their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse gate. A school may restrict student expression only when it causes—or is forecast to cause—a substantial and material disruption to school operations. Not discomfort. Not controversy. Not the hurt feelings of a parent who called the principal. Disruption.
The Scarsdale guidelines do not meet that standard. The word “controversial” has no legal meaning. “Division” describes virtually every substantive idea ever expressed in a democracy. Under this framework, a student wearing a Black Lives Matter or IDF t-shirt, a pro-life pin, a MAGA hat, or a keffiyeh could all theoretically be silenced—because someone, somewhere, in our community might find each of those symbols divisive. That is not a Scarsdale education. That is enforced silence.
One Standard for Six Different Kinds of Speech
Revision 1 adds something new: a formal definition of “school-sponsored activities” that lumps together school-reviewed publications like the yearbook and newspaper, scripted theatrical productions, athletic contests, graduation and assembly speeches, dances and proms, and graded classroom assignments—and applies the same single standard to all of them.
That is not a technical detail. Courts have never treated these as one category, because they aren’t one category. A school has broad editorial authority over a yearbook it publishes and a play it stages—that is curricular speech the District produces. A grade on a classroom assignment is an academic evaluation, governed by pedagogical judgment, not by whether the content is “divisive.” But what a student wears to prom, or says in the stands at a football game, is private student expression at a school-sponsored event—governed by Tinker, not by the District’s editorial discretion. Collapsing all six into a single standard is not a simplification; it is a legal error, and Revision 1 now states that error in black and white, in an official definitions section, where it can be quoted back to the District in litigation.
A Hunting License for Selective Enforcement
Perhaps the most dangerous provision is this: adults supervising school-sponsored activities “have the authority to set and communicate reasonable expectations for student expression that may not be explicitly outlined in the dress code or other printed guidelines.” In plain English, any coach, aide, or administrator can invent a speech rule on the spot, at any event, for any reason, with no written standard to answer to.
Revision 1’s only response to this was to add a single sentence requiring that such expectations “should be communicated in advance to students.” That is a paperwork fix, not a legal one. It tells a student when an arbitrary rule will be sprung on them; it does nothing to prevent one adult from banning an Israeli flag while another waves through a Palestinian one, or vice versa. There is still no neutral, written standard governing what any supervisor may decide counts as impermissible expression. Research on school discipline consistently demonstrates that vague, discretionary rules are applied unequally across racial and ethnic lines. “Neutral” enforcement of a subjective standard—announced in advance or not—is not neutral at all.
The guidelines still provide no appeals process. A student removed from graduation, perhaps the most significant ceremony of their young life—still has no written right to a hearing, no designated person to appeal to, no timeline for review. Stripping a student of participation in a public, educationally significant event without due process is not just unfair. It may be unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment.
Prior Restraint: The Most Disfavored Form of Censorship
The guidelines’ reference to “unauthorized speech” deserves scrutiny. That word—unauthorized—implies that students must obtain permission before expressing a viewpoint. This is prior restraint, which the Supreme Court has repeatedly described as the most presumptively unconstitutional form of censorship in American law. This language survived Revision 1 unchanged, in the very sentence that is now also grammatically garbled—which should have triggered alarms during legal review the first time, and should trigger louder ones now.
The American Civil Liberties Union and New York Civil Liberties Union actively monitor school district speech policies across New York. Language in these proposed guidelines will attract their attention. Scarsdale Village is already facing a NYCLU lawsuit. Adding another is not a theoretical risk.
What the Guidelines Still Omit
The proposal would prohibit speech that “denigrates others” based on religion—which is appropriate. Yet it still provides no affirmative protection for sincere religious expression. Under the Free Exercise Clause and the Equal Access Act, public schools cannot treat religious student expression less favorably than comparable secular expression. If a student’s Star of David, kippah, hijab, or cross is deemed “controversial” in the current climate—and given Scarsdale’s recent tensions, that is entirely plausible—the guidelines as written would permit administrators to restrict it. That would be unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination based on religion, and it would contradict every value these guidelines claim to uphold. Revision 1 had a chance to add this protection. It did not.
No One Has Said What Problem This Solves
Ask yourself a basic question before supporting any policy this sweeping: what, specifically, is the Scarsdale School District responding to? The District has not published an incident count, a breakdown by category, or any data showing what happened, how often, or where. “Rising tension” is not a metric. Without a stated problem and evidence of its scope, there is no way for residents—or a court—to judge whether these guidelines are a proportionate response to anything, or whether they would even address whatever the actual problem is. A policy this broad, adopted without a documented basis, is not evidence-based governance. It is a guess dressed up as a solution, and it leaves the District unable to defend the guidelines’ scope if challenged, because it never established what the guidelines were supposed to fix.
The Chilling Effect Is Already Here
We do not need to wait for litigation to see the harm. Students in this district are already censoring themselves. They cannot predict what a teacher or principal will decide is “divisive.” They have watched adults in Scarsdale attempt to pressure colleges into rescinding admission offers over student expression. The proposed guidelines would formalize that atmosphere of fear, giving it official sanction and bureaucratic teeth.
A school where students are afraid to speak is not the excellent one Scarsdale residents move here for. It is a silent one.
What Should Be Done Instead
None of this means the District should ignore genuine harassment, threats, or disruption. Those behaviors are already prohibited—by the existing Scarsdale school code of conduct #5300, by state law, and by the constitutional standards that hold up in court.
We do not need these guidelines. And if most Scarsdale residents really want them, the District should narrow them drastically. Replace “divisive,” “controversial,” and “unauthorized” with the Tinker standard. Separate curricular speech (yearbooks, plays, graded work) from private student expression (prom, sporting events) and apply the correct standard to each, instead of one standard to all six. Add a meaningful appeals process. Commission an independent constitutional review by outside counsel with First Amendment expertise—not the same team that may have drafted this document. Track incidents of antisemitism, Islamophobia, racism, and other bias by category and report the data to the Board, so responses are evidence-based rather than reactive. And train any staff asked to enforce these rules so that enforcement is documented, consistent, and defensible.
None of these fixes were made between the original draft and Revision 1. There is no reason to assume they will be made before final adoption unless the Board says so, in writing, now.
Scarsdale students deserve a school that models the values it teaches—that ideas are tested through argument, not silenced by authority; that free expression is not a threat to our community but the foundation of it; and that the answer to speech someone dislikes is more speech, not enforced silence.
These guidelines, revised once and still broken in every way that matters, are the wrong answer to a problem the District has not defined. I urge the Scarsdale Board of Education to request the Scarsdale School District withdraw these guidelines.
Mayra Kirkendall-Rodríguez is a financial risk consultant and 15-year Scarsdale resident.
Construction Underway of Two New Culverts on Catherine Road
- Details
- Written by: Joanne Wallenstein
- Hits: 1033
Catherine Road culvert replacement: Photo Credit: Jonathan MarkA large stormwater improvement project is in the works!
The Village of Scarsdale’s utility contractor, Morano Brothers Corp., is in the process of replacing two box culverts on Catherine Road between Mamaroneck Road and Kelwynne Road.
A press release from the Village explains:
Catherine Road will be permanently closed between Quaker Center and Kelwynne Road for these critical stormwater improvements. The project, funded through a FEMA Hazard Mitigation Grant, is intended to improve stormwater capacity through the replacement of the existing culverts. This specific closure is for the southern culvert replacement, which is anticipated to continue through mid-August. Work is expected to take place from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM, Monday through Friday, weather permitting. Unless unforeseen circumstances arise, no weekend or nighttime work is expected. During construction, traffic will follow posted detours around Catherine Road.
Following the completion of the first culvert replacement, the second replacement will begin which will necessitate a closure of Catherine Road between Quaker Center and Mamaroneck Road. As this project progresses to the fall months, the Village will work closely with the Scarsdale School District to minimize impacts on drop-offs and pick-ups. Please contact the Village Engineer’s office should you have any questions or concerns by phone at 914-722-1106 or email at engineering@scarsdale.gov.
