A heartfelt tribute to 9/11 victims was held this morning on the Yonkers Waterfront.

The program began with a police procession, speeches, and a moment of silence at 8:46 a.m., when the first tower was struck by a hijacked airliner. A second moment of silence happened at 9:03 a.m., the time the second tower was hit.

This was followed by a reading of the names of the 26 victims from Yonkers, the eight first responders that died from illness related to working at Ground Zero and the military servicemen from the area who were killed during the War on Terror.

Yonkers Police Commissioner Christopher Sapienza remembers rushing downtown to lend a hand after the attack.

"My job at Ground Zero was to stand next to the pile and look for anything that looked like human remains, a body, hopefully a survivor. Among those remains was my friends and former leader from the Marine Corps, Sgt. Major Mike Kurdin. He was the best cop I knew and the best Marine I knew,” he said.

Hope Hollinsworth Coaxum lost her son Staff Sgt. Courtney A Hollinsworth while he was fighting in Iraq.

"For me, it’s a day for me to remember the heroism of my son and what he did, how he went to war and he fought for all of us,” she said.