Firefighters line up at the Fireman’s Memorial in Riverside Park. Photo via Riverside Park Conservancy.
The newest class of FDNY firefighters lined up at the Fireman’s Memorial in Riverside Park on Wednesday morning, 18 years after 343 firefighters perished in the attack on the World Trade Center. An Upper West Side firehouse, home of Engine 40 Ladder 35 at 66th and Amsterdam, was hit especially hard.
One of the firefighters from Engine 40 Ladder 35 was rookie firefighter Michael D’Auria. Upper West Sider Rosalinde Block’s kitchen caught fire in August 2001, and her son was saved from the apartment by D’Auria. Just two weeks later D’Auria was killed at the World Trade Center. “He was one of the first that went in,” Block told WCBS Radio. Block talked more about the day in the clip below.
Feel free to leave your memories of that day in the comments.
This always makes me tear up. The memorials outside the fire stations kill me.
Also. I think you mean August 2001, not 2011
Thank you, fixed.
I was a lawyer, lawyering at 919 Third on 9/11- and while I saw a lot of it, I did not really add anything useful. So many of us stood by, wanting to be told what to do, but there was no response.
A very sad day. I still have difficulty walking along West 77th St between Amsterdam and Broadway – FDNY Ladder 25 – on any day, always remembering the pained look on the faces of the firefighters who came in to replace the seven fearless firefighters who went downtown that morning and never came back. A prayer for all of the lives that were lost as a result of the tragedy.
I was away. One may think I was relieved not to be there, but I’ve never been so homesick in my life.
I woke that morning listening to California radio station KFI Los Angeles. The announcer Bill Handel reported that a plane just hit one of the trade towers in NYC…. As I lay still in bed, just awakening, I jumped up to put the t.v. On, as I wanted to see what that looked like. As I stood in front of the t.v. , the second plane hit. I stood there dumbfounded. Nothing, has ever been the same, since. ☹️ My prayers, thoughts, and wishes are for peace for all family members affected by 9-11.