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 four 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. Every scout who comes has a post. Nobody attends this one.

• Flags and programs — 1 or 2 scouts. Stationed at the walkway onto the pier, handing them to families as they arrive. This is the earliest post of the evening and the one where arriving late actually costs something: the first families reach the pier well before the program starts, and somebody has to be standing there when they do.
• 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 in advance; they line up at the underpass area and are briefed on site.
• 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.
• Lining the walkway — everyone else. The remaining scouts stand along the walkway onto the pier as the neighborhood arrives. This is not what is left over for scouts without a job — it is the first thing every family coming to the vigil sees, and it is scouts only.

Everything else is the same as at any ceremony we support: arrive early, stay in uniform, and remember what the evening is for.

Parents: hand your scout over, then watch from the side. You are welcome to stay for the ceremony — it is the neighborhood's evening as much as ours. Bring your scout to the leaders first, and then keep back while they work. The organizers ask for this every year and they are direct about the reason: when parents stand close, scouts cannot carry out what they were assigned and cannot hold the bearing the evening asks for.

The Evening

Both times below come from the organizers — the 7:00 pm start is on the official flyer, and the 6:00 pm call is what they ask of the troops. The vigil is held rain or shine.

Friday evening
6:00 pm — Every scout on site in full Class A. This is the latest, not the target
On arrival — Flags-and-programs post opens; the color guard pair forms up at the underpass area
Before 7:00 pm — Candle assembly at the tent; everyone else takes position along the walkway
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

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.