9/11 Vigil at American Veterans Memorial Pier
When and Where
When:
September 11, 2026
Timeline:
6:00 pm — 8:00 pm
Location: American Veterans Memorial Pier — 69th Street Pier at Shore Road
Every September 11, Bay Ridge walks out to the end of the American Veterans Memorial Pier and stands facing the harbor. From that spot the lower Manhattan skyline is visible across the water — which is why the neighborhood chose it, and why the vigil has been held there year after year rather than in a hall. This year marks twenty-five years since the attacks, and the hosts have billed the evening accordingly — 9/11 Vigil: 25 Years of Remembrance, presented by NIA Community Services Network with State Senator Andrew Gounardes and City Council Member Kayla Santosuosso.
Troop 23 does not attend this vigil. We work it. Scouts hand out the flags and programs that arriving families carry, assemble and distribute the candles that are lit at dusk, and stand in the presentation of colors that opens the ceremony. It is one of the few evenings in the year when a scout in uniform is not a spectator at a community event but part of how the event runs.
Scouts report in full Class A. Families and younger siblings do not need to arrive at the same time — the scouts come early because they have jobs to do.
What Scouts Do
The organizers assign the same three roles to every participating troop, and they carry real responsibility — the ceremony does not start smoothly if the candle table is not ready or the color guard is short.
- Presentation of colors — 2 scouts. One troop leads the color guard each year and the rest send a pair to join it. These two must be named to the organizers about a week ahead; they line up at the underpass area and are briefed on site.
- Flags and programs — 1 scout. Stationed at the walkway onto the pier, handing them to families as they arrive. This is the earliest post of the evening.
- Candles — 4 to 5 scouts. Working at the tent to assemble candles and hand them out as the light goes. Adults handle the lighting itself.
Everything else is the same as at any ceremony we support: arrive early, stay in uniform, and remember what the evening is for. Parents watching should expect to stand off to the side while their scouts are working — the organizers ask for this every year, and it is not a slight.
The Evening
The 7:00 pm start is the one time confirmed on the official flyer. The scout call times below are carried forward from recent years and are still being confirmed with the organizers — anything that changes will be posted here.
Friday evening
6:00 pm — Scouts arrive in full Class A; flags-and-programs post opens
6:15 pm — Color guard scouts in position at the underpass area
Before 7:00 pm — Candle assembly at the tent
7:00 pm — Program begins: presentation of colors, Pledge of Allegiance, remarks, reading of names
Dusk — Candles distributed and lit
~8:00 pm — Program concludes
The flyer below is the hosts' own announcement — the thing to forward to a neighbor who asks what is happening on the pier that evening.
About the American Veterans Memorial Pier
The pier at the foot of Bay Ridge Avenue — most people here still call it the 69th Street Pier — was rebuilt as a memorial to American veterans and reopened to the public as a fishing and walking pier. It reaches out into the Narrows, with the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge to the south and the harbor opening north toward Manhattan.
That sightline is the reason the vigil is held here. On the evening of September 11, 2001, this stretch of the Brooklyn shore was where thousands of people stood and watched. Every year since, the neighborhood has come back to the same railing.
The pier is a short walk or a few minutes' drive from Our Lady of Angels, which is why this is one of the few troop events with no carpool to organize.
American Veterans Memorial Pier
The pier sits at the western end of Bay Ridge Avenue (69th Street), where Shore Road meets the water. The R train to Bay Ridge Avenue is about a ten-minute walk; the B1 and B9 buses run along the shore. Street parking near the promenade fills early on vigil night — walking is genuinely faster for most Bay Ridge families.
Scouts gather at the walkway onto the pier, not at the pier's end — that is where the organizers set up the flag and program table.
American Veterans Memorial Pier, Bay Ridge Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11209, USA
Address:Shore Road at Bay Ridge Avenue
Brooklyn, NY, 11209
Coordinates(i): 40.6394128°, -74.0379857°
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Troop 23 at the Vigil
This is a fixture of our year, not a one-off. Each of these pages carries that year's photographs and the roles scouts filled:
- 2025 — Troop 13 led the colors; our scouts covered flags, programs, and the candle tent.
- 2024
- 2023
- 2022
- 2021 — the twentieth anniversary.
Scouts joining Troop 23 this fall will find that a fair number of our public commitments look like this one: the Memorial Day parade, flag planting at Green-Wood, and the vigil. Together they are most of what the neighborhood actually sees us do.
Last updated on September 06, 2026