At 3:11 p.m. the ringing started.
For about an hour and a half, the bells at the Belmont belltower kept ringing. And ringing. And ringing until each of the 2,977 lives lost on September 11th were recognized.
It was all part of a service of remembrance was held around the belltower to remember the ten-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on New York City, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania on Sunday.
Shortly after the bells started, people, one by one or two by two, started entering the prayer chapel at the base of the belltower to pray and reflect on their emotions from the events ten years ago.
For Robin Bucci, a junior from the New York area, the feelings from that day still haven’t changed.
“A lot of people from my hometown died,” she said, a native of the New York area. “[I’m] sad and a little bit angry.”
Unchanged feelings were a common point for many students, faculty, and others who came to the event.
“I am… feeling a little numb, and sad,” said Becca Fox, a senior from Annapolis, Md. “I’m a little more aware now of happened, since I was in the sixth grade then. [The emotions] are a little stronger now, I think.”
Even now, sophomore Eric Clark is trying to grasp the complexities of the attacks.
“It still almost looks like chaos down there,” he said. “You can’t even imagine how tall it was. Something that you live with everyday is gone. It’s gone. It’s completely different.”
During and after service, people could take slips with a name of someone who died during the attacks.
“I’m going to continue to pray about for this family,” said Taelor Barnette, who took the name of an attendant on Flight 11, the first plane that crashed into the World Trade Center. “I took it and I was thinking about this person and how his job was. He went in like it was a normal day.”
Clark took the name of Mark Colaio, who worked on the 104th floor of the World Trade Center, according to Newsday.
“Today, he’d be 44,” he said.
In addition to the service of remembrance, a memorial wreath was placed around the memorial on Belmont Boulevard.