Thirteen residents of Millburn, Short Hills and Livingston were among the 57 Essex County people killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. Friday, Sept. 11, marks 25 years since that morning.
Six lived in Millburn Township. Seven lived in Livingston. They were bond brokers and vice presidents, coaches and fathers.
Ian Schneider, 45, of Short Hills, had worked on the 104th floor of 1 World Trade Center for 23 years as a senior managing director at Cantor Fitzgerald. When the first plane struck, Schneider called his wife, Cheryl, at home in Short Hills.
"He was there during the '93 bombing and went to work the next day … When he called that morning, he said the building rocked like never before, but he was okay. Then he hung up," Cheryl Schneider told the Voices Center for Resilience.
Nearly 2,000 people attended a memorial service held in Schneider's honor. For four years before his death, he had coached Little League baseball and soccer, basketball and softball teams for the Millburn-Short Hills Recreation Department.
The other Millburn Township residents killed, according to Patch and Essex News Daily memorial records, were Mark L. Charette, 38, a senior vice president at Marsh & McLennan; Steven Barry Lillianthal, 38, a bond broker in the mortgage department at Cantor Fitzgerald; Patrick Sean Murphy, 36, a vice president at Marsh & McLennan; Frank J. Spinelli, 44, of Short Hills, who worked at Cantor Fitzgerald; and Paul Friedman, 45, who died aboard American Airlines Flight 11, the first plane hijacked and flown into the north tower.
Livingston lost seven residents, according to the township's official 9/11 memorial page: Luke A. Dudek, Jeffrey Brian Gardner, Donald Thomas Jones II, Ming-Hao Liu, Joseph P. McDonald, John M. Pocher and Kenneth Albert Zelman.
All 57 Essex County victims' names are permanently engraved on the Eagle Rock Reservation 9/11 Memorial in West Orange. Millburn Township maintains four local memorials: plaques at the Short Hills and Millburn train stations, the Taylor Park Memorial and the Crescent Park Memorial.
Three ceremonies are scheduled for Friday, Sept. 11:
- Essex County ceremony: 8 a.m. at the Eagle Rock Reservation 9/11 Memorial on Eagle Rock Avenue in West Orange. Chamber music will be performed at the site until 8 p.m. The West Essex Tribune reported the ceremony will be livestreamed on EssexCountyNJ.org.
- Millburn Township ceremony: 3 p.m. at the Taylor Park Memorial, entrance near Main Street.
- Livingston Ceremony of Remembrance: 4 p.m. at the 9/11 Living Memorial Garden on the Livingston Memorial Oval. Parking is available at St. Philomena's Church, 386 South Livingston Ave. The event will be held rain or shine.
