Memorial Planned for Dead Firefighters

By Dennis Duggan and William Murphy | STAFF WRITERS

September 15, 2001

A two-hour memorial remembrance for the estimated 350 firefighters who perished in the terrorist destruction of the World Trade Towers is planned for Sept. 23 in Central Park, starting at 3 p.m.

About 1 million people are expected to attend the memorial, which will be televised in all five boroughs and at St. Patrick's and St. John the Divine cathedrals.

An event committee is headed by Deputy Mayor Rudy Washington and includes former Mayors David Dinkins and Edward I. Koch, along with leading Protestant, Jewish, Muslim and Catholic clergy.

"As a backup, we plan to have satellite television screens in all of the city's boroughs," Dinkins said Friday.

A spokesman for Cardinal Edward Egan said the prelate has cleared his schedule to attend the service and has enlisted two bishops to fill in for other public appointments he had scheduled for that day.

The Fire Department suffered its single greatest tragedy ever in the World Trade Center attacks this week. The department lost almost 30 times the number of firefighters from the previous worst incident: 12 firefighters who died in 1966 when a floor collapsed at a fire in a drugstore at Madison Square Park.

Entire companies were wiped out this time, along with most of the department's top command, including Peter Ganci, chief of the department; William Feehan, the first deputy commissioner, and probably

Raymond Downey, chief of special operations, who is missing and presumed dead.

The bodies of Feehan and Ganci were recovered and were buried Saturday after funeral Masses in Farmingdale, for Ganci, and Flushing, for Feehan.

"It's going to be a solemn affair but one with plenty of spirit," Koch said of Sept. 23rd's memorial service. He, along with Dinkins, accompanied President George W. Bush to the site of the Twin Towers Friday.

Koch said well-known singers would be invited to the memorial, to be called a "Service Remembrance." Dinkins said the Harlem Boys Choir also has been invited.

"This won't be a New York-only event," Dinkins said. "It will be for the entire nation as a way of binding the wounds we all suffered in the bombing of the towers."