By Adam Kramer
Queens lost 41 firefighters.
During the Sept. 11 attacks, when a group of terrorists flew two jet planes into the World Trade Center, 41 of the borough’s Bravest lost their lives along with 302 members of the FDNY.
As the stories of the borough’s dead firemen were flashed across television screens, spread across the papers and recounted by families and friends, there was one thing that remained a constant. All that these men ever wanted to do was to be a part of the brotherhood called the New York City Fire Department.
These men have been honored in different ways throughout the borough. Streets have been named after them, their pictures have been plastered on walls in the neighborhoods where they lived, and wreaths and flowers have been hung in front of their firehouses.
There will be a memorial built in front of the Maspeth firehouse, one of the hardest hit, which lost 19 members of Squad 288 and Hazmat 1.
There will be a memorial service for all of the 343 firefighters who lost their lives Sept. 11 at Madison Square Garden in October.
“The Fire Department’s annual Memorial Day, which was canceled last year after the Sept. 11 attacks, is one of our most important traditions, that of honoring and paying homage to our fallen firefighters,” said Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta. “We are working together with the unions to create an unprecedented memorial service, one that will reflect not only our unity and strength, but the unity and strength of our city and our entire nation.”
Nearly one year after the Sept. 11 attack, a poll conducted by the Uniformed Fire Officers Association found one out of every two firefighters in the upper ranks of the FDNY was considering retirement in the next 12 months. The survey said 360 out of 884 firemen with more than 20 years of service plan to retire within the year.
Some of the borough’s fallen include First Deputy commissioner William Feehan, Firefighters Christopher Santora, Jose Antonio Guadalupe, Michael Mullan and Michael Weinberg.
Feehan, 71, the first to hold every position in the city Fire Department, was a native of Long Island City and a nearly 40-year resident of Flushing. He followed his father’s footsteps into the department and his son John joined him in the FDNY. Feehan served the city for more than four decades and was acting fire commissioner from 1993 to 1994 under then-Mayor David Dinkins.
“We’re going to miss him terribly,” Bill Feehan said at his funeral “He loved being a New York City fireman and loved everything about the department. He was a very honorable, straightforward guy. At the end of his life he accounted for himself very well.”
Santora, 23, of Long Island City and Guadalupe of Rochdale Village will always be intertwined. The two men worked together at Engine Co. 54 in Hell’s Kitchen in Manhattan and died together rescuing thousands in the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. The medical examiner misidentified Santora as Guadalupe because both suffered from a neck condition. It was not until a DNA test was made that the mistake was noticed.
“It is a comfort to me that you always did what you wanted to do, just like Daddy,” said Patricia Santora at her brother’s funeral. “On July 23, 2001 when Chris graduated from the academy, he ran up to me with his diploma saying, ‘Look, I did it. I am finally a fireman.’”
Mullan, 34, who lived in Bayside, was working to rescue people from the Marriott Hotel near the Twin Towers, when he and his fellow firefighters heard the call to evacuate the building, his mother Theresa Mullan said.
Michael was about to leave when he got a mayday call from a pair of trapped firefighters and volunteered to go back, his mother said. He was not seen again, she said.
“He lived every day of his life,” Theresa Mullan said shortly after the Sept. 11 attack. “He had to be where the action was — he had to be in the heart of it.”
On Sept. 11, Weinberg, a 34-year-old Maspeth resident, was on vacation and awaiting his 9:08 a.m. tee time at the Forest Park Golf Course, when he heard the call. The commitment to his job and love of his sister, Patricia Gambino, who worked at the Towers, prompted him to abandon his golf game and head toward the burning buildings.
“No greater love exists than the one that leads a man to lay down his life for another,” Lt. Jim Hallaby, who was in Weinberg’s house Engine 1, Ladder 24 in Lower Manhattan, read from a letter put up on a Web site about Weinberg. “America is a better place because of your unselfish dedication to fellow citizens. You embody the spirit of America and love. May you rest in peace. America will never forget your sacrifice.”
Reach reporter Adam Kramer by e-mail at Timesledgr@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 157.
