ATLANTIC CITY — High winds kept an American flag several stories high dancing on cables attached to two firetrucks Friday, as hundreds gathered at Jackson Avenue and the beach to hear the stories of heroes of the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and other national crises.
The annual Saracini-O’Neill Sept. 11 Memorial Ceremony honors Atlantic City natives Victor Saracini, captain of United Airlines Flight 175, which hijackers flew into the South Tower of the World Trade Center, and Trade Center Security Director John P. O’Neill, who had retired after a long career as an FBI terrorist hunter.
Both died 19 years ago on Sept. 11, two of almost 3,000 killed in the the worst act of terrorism on U.S. soil.
This year the event also honored 24-year-old Welles Remy Crowther, of Nyack, New York, who died along with them. Crowther was an equities trader and volunteer firefighter who helped two groups of people to safety down a stairway of the South Tower, then went back up a third time to save more. His body was found months later with those of New York City firefighters in the command center.
Crowther is called “the man with the red bandanna” because that is how the people he saved described him — wearing the bandanna across his mouth and nose as he calmed them and led them down from the 78th floor.
That description helped his family find closure, said keynote speaker Jim Mogan, of Brigantine. They’d had no news of Crowther, who worked on the 80th floor of the South Tower, since the attack. But they knew Crowther had carried a red bandanna in imitation of his father every day since childhood.
“Weeks later while reading a (New York Times) newspaper story about survivors of 9/11, both Ling Young and Judy Wien mentioned that a man with a red bandanna over his nose and mouth helped them and others survive,” Mogan said.
When Crowther’s mother read the piece, she said, “’Now I found you,’” Mogan said.
The two women later confirmed their rescuer was Crowther.
Mogan heard Crowther’s story from family members.
Mogan’s son Tom is a vice president at Boston College, Crowther’s alma mater where he was a Division I lacrosse player. The school celebrates Crowther’s heroism with Red Bandanna events each year.
And his nephew Jim McGinty is a physician who is a good friend of ESPN reporter Tom Rinaldi, of Tenafly, Bergen County, who has created a documentary and written a book about Crowther.
“I have been a supporter every year,” Mogan said of the Saracini-O’Neill event. He had talked to event founder Bob Pantalena about Crowther. This year, Pantalena and event co-director Pam Papparone asked Mogan to give the keynote speech about Crowther.
This year’s memorial included a sand sculpture by John Gowdy, of Atlantic City, who depicted Crowther leading victims down the stairs in the South Tower.
Later in the day, Crowther’s high school friend Allyson Pavelchak, of Landover Hills, Maryland, arrived to see the sand sculpture with her wife, Yvette Montanez. Pavelchak saw information about it on Facebook and drove four hours to see it.
“He was a special kid,” Pavelchak said. “He helped a lot of people. He was very athletic, and we all supported each other in athletics.”
Crowther played ice hockey, soccer and lacrosse, she said. She played softball.
“He did a lot of volunteer work and strived to be a firefighter,” she said of Crowther as she posted photos of the sculpture to her high school’s Facebook page. “Unfortunately, as he was helping people that day, he just didn’t make it back out.”
Nearby, Michael Van Steyn, of Ventnor and Hudson Valley, New York, was telling his son James, 8, about the terror attacks and the heroism of people that day. Van Steyn was working on the 79th floor of the North Tower until the day before the attacks, he said. On Sept. 10 he had moved to new offices two blocks away.
Everyone he knew from that floor perished, he said, choking up with emotion.
