Ryan Levy stands atop the South Tower at the World Trade
Center in New York City on Sept. 10, 2001. Less than 24 hours
later, terrorists crashed United Airlines Flight 175 into floors 77
through 85 on the southern façade of the tower.
Burke said her family had also lost a first cousin in the attacks. For a
long time, her family held out hope that Katie Noack would be found
among the wreckage after the towers fell. Her remains were never
recovered.
“Sometimes it feels like yesterday and sometimes it feels like a lifetime
ago,” she said.
Today, Burke’s middle daughter is the same age as Katie Noack was
when she lost her life that day. A newlywed herself, Burke’s middle daughter
wore Noack’s veil in her wedding ceremony.
“She lives on in all of us and our kids and their memory,” she said.
When asked what she will be doing on the 20th anniversary of her
sister’s passing, Burke said she will attend the Field of Flags at Kennesaw
Mountain National Battlefield Park. The ceremony, sponsored by the
Kiwanis Club of Marietta, will feature a flag for each life lost on 9/11.
“I wish that people wouldn’t forget the day, the time and the way the
world changed,” Burke said.
ANOTHER DAY
Marnie Levy, a Cobb County resident of 15 years, said her brother, Ryan
Levy, and a friend were visiting New York City the weekend before the
attacks for Michael Jackson’s 30th Anniversary Celebration concert at
Madison Square Garden on Sept. 10, 2001.
Marnie Levy, who was working as a broadcast news reporter at a FOX
affiliate in Tampa at the time, said that morning her brother went to the
Lincoln Square studio to sit in the audience of the “Live! With Regis and
Kelly” show.
“They were turned away because they were already full,” she said.
“They had received tickets to the World Trade Center observation deck in
lieu of tickets to the show.”
Ryan Levy’s ticket stub
from the Top of the
World Trade Center
Observatories.
REMEMBERED, NOT FORGOTTEN
12 COBB LIFE | SEPTEMBER 2021