Retired flight attendant pushes cart from Boston to NYC to honor 9/11 crews

NEW YORK (WPIX) — A 210-mile journey pushing an airline beverage cart from Boston’s Public Garden to the 9/11 memorial at Ground Zero in New York City is how retired flight attendant Paul Veneto honors the memory of the flight crews that lost their lives in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

“I flew with every one of these guys. Amy Jarret worked with me on the back of the plane,” said Veneto as he showed a picture of the flight crew aboard United Airlines Flight 175 on Sept. 11, 2001.

Veneto had worked the previous shift on the same plane. A couple of hours after waking up, he got the news.

“From what they endured in that plane and what they were able to accomplish under those conditions, as far as I’m concerned, they are true heroes,” Veneto said.

The now-retired flight attendant knew he didn’t want the memories of his friends and coworkers forgotten, so he came up with Paulie’s Push.

“I’m going to push that beverage cart from the gate they left out of on C19 on the street to Ground Zero New York,” Veneto said.

That was in 2021. After he returned to Boston, good Samaritans started to send him donations, including a mobile home. Veneto took it as a sign.

“I decided to do each airplane, so the next year, I decided to go from Washington Dulles airport to the Pentagon where [American Airlines Flight 77] crashed. Then last year I went from Newark Airport to Shanksville in Pennsylvania. That was a long one, 300 miles,” Veneto said.

He’s now back in New York for the second time. On the way, he received a lot of support.

“I see family members and community members standing out there holding signs saying, ‘Go Paulie go,'” Veneto said.

Paulie’s Push, according to Veneto, is a mission he signed up for life. He feels that more could be done to honor his friends’ lives.

Veneto said he’s been going around the country talking to new generations about the heroic actions taken by the flight crews on that Tuesday morning 23 years ago.