Almost exactly two months after 9/11 , on November 12 , 2001 , American Airlines Flight 587 crashed in Belle Harbor , killing 265 people : 260 aboard the aircraft and five on the ground . Many of the passengers on the plane were from the Dominican community in Washington Heights . A temporary memorial was developed at the actual site of the disaster , on Newport Avenue . But after consultation with the families in the Belle Harbor and Washington Heights communities , a public memorial was erected at the south end of Beach 116th Street , a major shopping district and transportation hub in the area . Ceremonies commemorating the disaster are held at the memorial every November 12 , including a reading of the names of all of those killed in the crash . In 2001 , a resident told '' The Guardian '' : " It 's impossible to understand unless you live here ... Father Michael Geraghty , a priest quoted in the same article , said that it was common for people to live in the houses that their parents lived in and that many families lived in the same houses for generations . The neighborhood suffered heavy losses from the September 11 , 2001 , terrorist attacks . " The impact of the 9/11 attacks and Flight 587 on the community was the subject of the book '' Braving the Waves : Rockaway Rises , and Rises Again '' by Kevin Boyle . The book contained many personal accounts of Rockaway residents and is interspersed with descriptions of other disasters in the Rockaways
American Airlines Flight 587
American Airlines Flight 587
Rockaway, Queens