On the 25th anniversary of one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in modern history, communities across the United States and around the globe are pausing to reflect on the lives cut short on September 11, 2001. On that fateful Tuesday morning, four coordinated suicide attacks targeted key sites across New York City and Washington D.C., with two hijacked commercial planes crashing into the iconic Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan. This attack remains the deadliest act of terrorism ever carried out on United States soil, leaving a permanent mark on global collective memory.
Among the nearly 3,000 people who lost their lives that day were two Dominican natives: 40-year-old Fitzroy St. Rose and 62-year-old Virgin Lucy Francis, whose legacies are being remembered by their home nation this anniversary.
St. Rose, born in April 1961 in Canefield, Dominica, built a life rooted in service long before he moved to the Bronx, New York. A graduate of St. Mary’s Academy, he worked as a firefighter in his home country before migrating to the U.S., where he took up a role as a computer technician for General Telecom on the 96th floor of One World Trade Center. Close friends remember him as a kind-hearted man with a gentle smile and a steady, optimistic demeanor, noting he carried himself with particular pride when doing quiet acts of good for others. After the first plane collided with his tower, St. Rose managed to place several calls to his mother to let her know what was unfolding. When the towers collapsed, search teams combed through rubble and checked every hospital across New York in a frantic, desperate search for survivors, but no trace of St. Rose was ever found, and the grim reality of his death was soon confirmed.
For Virgin Lucy Francis, 9/11 cut short a life of steady work and quiet dedication. Born in Dominica in March 1939, Francis lived briefly in Barbados before permanently moving to the United States in 1986. She worked as a housekeeper at Windows on the World, the iconic restaurant and event space located on the 107th floor of the World Trade Center’s North Tower. Described by her family as a woman who took enormous pride in her work, Francis almost always arrived earlier than her scheduled shift. On the morning of the attack, she was set to start at 9:00 AM, but caught the A train from Fulton Street and reached the building well before the first plane struck. More than two decades later, her family still grapples with the shock of her loss, unable to fully accept that she is gone.
Today, the names of St. Rose, Francis, and all 2,983 victims of the 9/11 attacks are permanently inscribed into bronze parapets surrounding the two giant memorial pools that sit in the footprints where the Twin Towers once stood. Each year, on the anniversary of the attack, visitors run their fingers over the etched names, leaving flowers and mementos to honor the lives that were lost.