WTC firefighter memorial article, Sep 2001

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD

A Place to Remember •"T^here is a special place in our hearts for a pleasant stopping point for dogwalkers X the rescue workers who sacrificed so and a good place to stretch before siting off much in the hours after the Sept 11 attack on a jog through the park. Only in recent cmthe'Vfodd'DadeGaitec'Ihereisalsoaspe- years has it been restored, thmks to the dal place in our neighborhood where New eflTorts of volunteer groups working in Yorkers have gathered to pay tribute to die Riverside Park. But in the last two weeks, it city’s firefighters. At the comer of Riverside has been remade.Whatever designer Harold Drive andWest 100th Street looking out over 4nBurenMagonigleintended,thememo- the park and the serene waters ofthe Hudson rial has become a gathering point for New

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below, stands a monument to New Yorii Qty’s firefighters. In colonial ® J- I days, all men ■were lequired to B answer the “hue and cry” of a fire alarm. As the city a §

grew, the Mate legislature char- ts-i toed the Fire Department of 3 the Qty of New On Riverside Drive at West 100th Street stands a monument York in March to the city’s bravest. 1778, but fire- fighting remained a haphazard afiSur Yorkers who seek to pay tribute to the throughout the 19th century Volunteers cour:^ and dedication ofwomen and men often signed up for service in search ofpoUt- who will never be forgottetL A few days after ical maneuvering (BossTweed got his start as the attack, a group gathered for a candle- a fireman), male camaraderie and heavy light vigil Those candles remain, tributes to drinking. In the wood-fi-amed, working- the fellen and a symbol ofNewYork’s unity class neighborhoods of lower Manhattan, in diversity: dime-store candles stand next there was little they could do to help. Over to scented sticks fiom fimcy drops; candles time, professionalization and new technolo- for the Jewish New Year ^<cker with the gy made the FDNY one of the worid's fine- same light as those lorn Latino bodegas. most services, able to respcmd in a crowded Flags and flowers abound, and there are city in an xrs^ofsix minutes or less. But it touching drawings left by children who is still a masculine undertaking; less than 1 have grown up a little foster in last two percent of the force is female, and in a cos- weeks than anyone had planned. But what mopolitan city it remains stubbornly white, stuck with me most was a homely clam In 1912, thankful NewYorkers erected a shell, on which some anonymous New memorial to the city’s follen firefighters in Yorker had scrawled a quiet tribute to the its current UpperWest Side locaticxi, tribute determination of the city’s bravest “No to “soldiers in a war that never ends.’’The matter what” No matter what, indeed. monument itselfhas often been overiooked. - Christopher Capooola

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