Mike Colón Media

On a day with both the NYPD and FDNY on the 22nd anniversary of the 9/11 attacks

The anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks is without question always a solemn one. No matter how much time has passed since that tragic late summer’s morning, for the first responders who ran down there to help, and for the families of the fallen, that day might as well be yesterday.

Throughout my life, it’s an anniversary I’d always observed from a respectful distance. Seeing it on television, I’d in past years made it a point to observe the reading of the names, watch whatever documentaries on that day I could, and read whatever articles I could as well. Never did going to New York on the anniversary cross my mind, that I felt, was solely for the families who wanted to remember lost loved ones.

Being older now and having been fortunate to befriend the terrific community that is New York City Police Officers and Firefighters however, my mentality changed and with time I knew I at some point wanted to experience that day and all the emotion it entails within the confines of the five boroughs with what’s become an extended family for me. For this solemn 22nd anniversary, I’d get that opportunity.

Making my way down to Harlem, I, thanks to the invite of Anne Tetukevitch and Pat Pogan, got to go to Squad 2 of the NYPD’s Emergency Service Unit. Located in the 26th Precinct, Truck 2 would lose three members on September 11, 2001. Officer John D’Allara, Detective Joseph Vigiano, and Sergeant Michael Curtin would respond from the very quarters of which I’d found myself standing in. Never would those men return. At 8:46, the same time American Airlines Flight 11 would strike the North Tower and sound the alarm for those men to respond to what would be their last emergency, roll call was read aloud. Read were the names of not just the lost heroes of Squad 2, but all 23 fallen officers and detectives of the NYPD who no matter their rank, years of service, or unit they pertained to, rushed down to help. Shortly after, Detective Seth Gahr, who served in Squad 2 as a proud member of Emergency Service from 1991 until his retirement in 2006, spoke to the members both active and retired like only an E-Cop can. His remarks simple yet poignant as could be.

In total, five men from Truck 2, including those three I just mentioned, would hurry out in response that morning. The fourth, was Officer Eddie Torres, the fifth was Officer Vincent Danz. Normally assigned to Emergency Service Squad 3 in the South Bronx, Officer Danz was filling in at or in ESU vernacular “flying” to Truck 2. Of that heroic group, Torres was the sole survivor, the rest dying as they lived: heroically. Danz, a father to two young girls, entered the South Tower with fellow Truck 3 squad mates Jerome Dominguez and Walter Weaver as well as North Bronx Emergency Squad 4 members Officer Stephen Driscoll and Sergeant John Coughlin, who’d lead the squad as high as the 110-story skyscraper’s 20th floor before their Herculean efforts were halted by the Tower’s collapse at 9:59AM.

Vigiano and D’Allara accompanied by Officer Brian McDonnell of Emergency Squad 1 would enter the North Tower led by Sergeant Curtin, rescuing numerous civilians before Curtin and D’Allara began trekking down to the plaza area of the complex to assist in exterior evacuation whilst Vigiano and McDonnell remained in the burning Tower to steadfastly continue their interior rescues and evacuation of whomever remained in the stairwells.

Curtin and D’Allara would eventually entering the directly adjacent to the North Tower Customs House where they, like the lions they were, attempted to rescue more downed victims. Accompanied by amongst others Bomb Squad Detective Claude “Danny” Richards, who was carrying a backboard, they were in the process of conducting a sweep of the lobby when the North Tower collapsed at 10:28AM, killing all three.

As I commented to my friend Ken Bowen, a retired former Sergeant in Squad 2, the apparatus may change, so for that matter may the personnel, but one thing that never does is the history. The same is true of FDNY Squad 288 in Queens. Tucked away in a corner of a narrow street in Maspeth, the Squad, formed on May 2, 1998, and housed with Haz-Mat Company 1 as part of a then-revamped Special Operations Command, would lose the most members of any firehouse impacted by the attack when 19 firefighters in total would without a moment’s hesitation rush into the flaming towers and never come back out.

Turning out of their quarters for what would be at least a 20-minute journey to Downtown Manhattan, the companies arrived shortly after the strike of the second hijacked aircraft into the South Tower. Though fully knowing what they were going into, in they went anyway, saving who knows how many lives in the process. Saddling up to once again rise up to the occasion and do the extraordinary work they’d come to set as the standard, even if this occasion would require them to perform that work under the direst conditions imaginable. They performed it until the very end, they too charging into harm’s way like lions, taking not one step backward.

In both places, giants of their profession have worked, and their footsteps remain evident everywhere you look. At Squad 288, everything from plaques of the Squad’s very first day with so many of those names who’d not live to see the company they helped form’s incredible growth, to tools, and photos from many a job well done adorn the walls, reminding you these men were heroes long before 9/11, that was just the day the rest of the world found out. A wall bears the 19 plaques, it’s placement fittingly next to Haz-Mat 1’s rig, a reminder to all Squad members of just who came before them and what courage as a firefighter really means.

At a restaurant just down the street from the iconic firehouse, the surviving members were congregated. Kevin Kubler, who arrived at the company two months after its formation in July of 1998, Hank Molle, a longtime member of Manhattan’s famed Rescue 1 from 1986 until 1997 and later brought key seniority as a member of Squad 288 from 1998 until his retirement in 2002, and Louis Rufrano who would serve two stints in the Squad, first as a firefighter from 1998 until 2002 and again as a Lieutenant from 2009 until his retirement in 2019. The stories told in that restaurant, O’Neill’s Pub, owned fittingly by a retired FDNY Firefighter, both from the men there and the photos aligned along the walls enough to make you feel every emotion imaginable. That’s what 22 years of remembering and missing the ones you’ll never stop loving will do.

At ESU Squad 2, a similar scene. Pictures, mementos, and plaques neatly aligned along their walls. Everything from daring tactical assignments and amazing rescues proudly displayed. Each a reminder of the imprint men like Mike Curtin, Joe Vigiano, and John D’Allara left on not just their squad, but the unit as a whole. Their many good deeds forever archived for everyone and anyone to know. Various jobs captured of the men doing everything from corralling suicidal would-be bridge jumpers, conducting search warrants on the hoodlums operating their criminal enterprises in their midst, and saving people from car accidents, frigid waters, and building collapses. Displayed most prominently however, is Sergeant Curtin’s locker. Untouched, exactly as he left it. The detail that most caught my attention was the number of pictures he had of his family, specifically his daughters. A reminder of what it’s all about for our first responders and sadly, what a man like Sergeant Curtin was so cruelly ripped away from that day.

If the walls of either place could talk, the stories they’d tell would undoubtedly leave you speechless. The feats of valor, the good-natured pranks, the conversations, the people. Everything from their heroism, quirks, idiosyncrasies, and talents forever safely preserved in the confines of those walls of which was for them and always will be for their families, a second home. Those homes, sacred and welcoming, were places I felt honored to be in. Standing amongst giants of the present, with the legacies of the giants of the past forever preserved through plaque, photo, and story. Remembered, and loved they are and always will be. Then, now, and always.

Mike Colón is the host of the Mic’d in New Haven Podcast which can be found on all podcast platforms and is simulcast in video form on YouTube.