All,
I thought you would appreciate this cool and different story about a NYC neighborhood Firehouse and the impact on this woman (a fairly well known author) before and of course, after 9/11:
“Engine Co 24, Ladder 5, Battalion 2, is the local fire station in Greenwich Village around the corner from my apt in New York. It’s a beautiful neighborhood with Federal style townhouses, tree-lined streets, and is located at the corner of charming, loft-filled Soho. For years I walked by the station past the smiling, hunky fireman who always made my day. They were always gentleman, always respectful, and always flirted with me.”
“Some days I would deliberately walk by there to start my day, giving the guys an exaggerated big wave. I would always get one back. Sometimes I got a peace sign, or heavy metal fingers.”
“These kind manly men were always uplifting and polite, the opposite of the creepy guy sexual harassers in New York City who yell stupid, controlling shit to women like “Come on baby, smile!” or “I wanna get up on you,” which they consider to be pick-up lines.”
“One day, I walked by the station and wasn’t smiling. I was in tears. My jerky “boyfriend” just dumped me I was mad/sad. “How ya doin’? Vinnie asked. “My boyfriend just dumped me,” I blurted out. “For a yoga instructor.” “What an idiot!”Vinnie said. HE dumped YOU?” Vinnie reminded me of my Dad, who called any guy who ever insulted me or dumped me a “loser.”
“What a jerk,” Paul chimed in. “His loss. “Whoever he was didn’t deserve you,” added Gregory. “Forget about him. Fuggedabout it,” Vinnie said sympathetically, sounding like he was in The Sopranos. They always made me feel better. They were sweetness.”
“A couple of weeks later, I dropped by the fire station with a bunch of cannolis from an Italian Bakery, just because. “What are these for?” the boys asked. “For being ‘real men’,” I told them. And for always being nice to me.” For years.
Then they gave me a Greenwich Village Halloween Parade T-shirt that the guys were going to wear in the upcoming parade.”
“On Sept 11, 2001, the entire battalion rushed down to the Twin Towers a mile away, to the call of duty. None of them refused to go into the buildings. They all died. All of them. Anthony, Vinnie, Gregory, and another 8 of them. They were someone’s son, father, husband, grandson. Some of them had small children. It happened in a New York minute.”
“Shortly after 9:30, I joined my neighbors on the roof and watched the horror show, as the second building collapsed from 24 blocks, 1.2 miles away. “We’ve just been attacked,” a neighbor said. But we didn’t know at that moment who just attacked us. When we came downstairs and went outside, the air was thick with smoke as we watched hundreds of people; men in suits and women in dresses, covered in grey ash, walking uptown from their Wall Street jobs, since the subways quickly shut down.”
“For a the next few days, the whole city shut down, streets were blocked off, taxis were halted, and the subways remained closed. Ambulances lined the streets. One day, I took the bus to get groceries uptown. By this time every inch of available space in lower Manhattan was covered in “missing persons” flyers; street lamps, mail boxes, newspaper boxes, construction fences, trees, everything. Just walking down the street and looking at those flyers would made anyone cry, the streets filled with grief. There was still ash on the ground and debris from the World Trade Center, a whole mile away. All of the people on the missing posters were gone. 2,997 people in total were gone.”
“I got on the bus and young woman holding a stack of missing flyers in her lap was sobbing. Really sobbing. I have never seen anyone publicly cry like that. It was the saddest thing I ever saw. Most of those people in those missing posters were gone. Now I feel stupid for even crying over a stupid boyfriend whose name I don’t even remember. Life sure is short.
“Twenty-four years later, the NYFD in Greenwich Village still honors their fallen brothers with a wall of their photos, a remembrance they will never take down. Some of the current firefighters at Ladder 24 are so young they never even met those men. All of those firefighters rushed into those burning buildings and never came out. So with a dangerous job like theirs, those fireman never forget how precious life is. And every time I walk by, I always remember.”
Take Care. Be Careful. Pass It On.
BillyG
The Secret List 9/11/2025-1134 Hours
