Outside Engine 42 in River North, city leaders and first responders stood shoulder to shoulder as two fire trucks stretched their ladders across Illinois Street, suspending a massive American flag. Beneath it, a series of five rings of a bell echoed, a fire service tradition to honor the fallen.
“This is about remembering the bravery of first responders on 9/11, 24 years later,” said 34th Ward Alderman Bill Conway, a current Navy reservist. “It’s my honor as both a military veteran and a city council member to stand with the fire department as we remember that bravery.”
Chicago’s moment of silence came at 7:46 a.m., the exact time the first plane struck the North Tower. Firefighters stood at attention, hands clasped, as the bells tolled for the 343 FDNY members who never returned home.
Conway says the attacks shaped the course of his own life. “In 2017, I was sent to Qatar and then forward to Afghanistan as part of the Global War on Terror,” he recalled. “And of course, that war began with 9/11.”
The alderman added that the courage of firefighters that day remains a defining lesson: “What those firefighters did was nothing short of herculean. They rushed in while others ran out, and that bravery deserves to be remembered.”
Mayor Brandon Johnson, Fire Commissioner Annette Nance-Holt, and other city officials joined the tribute, which has become an annual reminder of how a single morning changed the country.
“9/11 was the biggest attack on our country since Pearl Harbor,” Conway said. “It changed the course of our history, and remembering that bravery is something we should do for all time.”