NYPD adds 42 names to memorial wall, most of them 9/11 responders

New York City unveiled 42 names on the NYPD Memorial Wall in Battery Park City, honoring officers who died in the line of duty, 41 of whom served in the 9/11 rescue and recovery effort.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch on Oct. 13 unveiled 42 new names on the NYPD Memorial Wall in Lower Manhattan’s Battery Park City, honoring members of the department who died in the line of duty.

Forty-one of the 42 served in the rescue and recovery effort after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and many later fell ill. The wall also now bears the name of Detective First Grade Didarul Islam, who was killed last year in a mass shooting described at the ceremony as the most horrific the city had seen in 25 years.

“We will speak their names”

“No ceremony can lift the weight that you carry,” Mamdani told the families. “We will speak their names, and we will stand beside you as they stood beside this city.” The mayor singled out Sgt. Albert Morabito, who served four decades in the 19th Precinct and Highway Patrol and whose son and daughter now wear the uniform, and Det. Richard Teemsma, a former Marine who served in the Bomb Squad and whose son is an NYPD sergeant.

NYPD officers on duty during a 9/11 commemoration in Manhattan (file photo)

“Each name represents a life that meant far more than we could ever capture in an inscription,” Tisch said, paying tribute to former Chief of Department Joe Esposito, whom she described as a mentor and a steady leader after 9/11. “Their names will remain here, and our obligation to you will remain just as firmly.”

A ceremony every autumn since 1997

The memorial, in Battery Park City near the World Trade Center site, has held a ceremony each autumn since 1997, Battery Park City Authority President Raju Mann said. This year’s ceremony comes as the city marks the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.