Family and friends of the 497 Long Islanders who were killed in the 9/11 terror attacks and the ever-growing list of first responders who have died in the years since gathered at Point Lookout Beach for a moving 2025 remembrance. 

The ceremony is held every year in Lido Beach, where people watched the horror in Lower Manhattan unfold in the distance in 2001.

Hundreds remember 9/11 victims from Long Island

The 24 years since the attacks did not make it any easier on more than 1,000 people who made the pilgrimage to Point Lookout with heavy hearts Thursday.

Many stood on the beach on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, stunned as they stared at the burning Twin Towers and collapsing New York City skyline across the water. 

Marcel Birnbaum remembered the last time she heard her 24-year-old son Joshua's voice. He had just graduated from Columbia University and was working his dream job at Cantor Fitzgerald, inside one of the towers. 

"He said, 'Mommy, the building is falling down all around me. I love you.' And I said find someone to be with you so you're not alone and they're not alone. He said, 'OK Mommy,' and then the phone went dead," Birnbaum said. 

FDNY member Kevin O'Connor recalled the surreal stillness of the destruction he saw at Ground Zero. 

"This is what Mars must be like. It was just surreal, everything burning around," he said. 

A promise to never be forgotten

The ceremony calls families back to the shoreline, drawn by the promise never to forget. 

"Make as much noise as we can so that the victims of September 11, 2001, will hear us in heaven and they'll know that we have not forgotten," Ret. FDNY Battalion Chief Steve Marsar said. 

After the service, families scattered flowers into the ocean and found names on the Remembrance Wall, which keeps growing. There were 304 new names of those who died from the toxic exposure added in 2025. 

Diane Geschwind's husband, Joseph, an NYPD member, was added to the wall this year. 

"He started dying that day," Geschwind said. "People are forgetting. You have to remember. You have to remember all those that died that day and died since." 

"It's so important that our children know what happened because they will recognize the sacrifice that was made, and these can be their icons, these can be their heroes," Hempstead Town Supervisor John Ferretti said. 

"They will be the memory of this going forward, even though they didn't live it," Karen Lazar, of Oceanside, said. 

Two years ago, hundreds braved torrential downpours to fulfill the same promise.