The annual Tunnel to Towers 5k Run and Walk commemorates firefighter Stephen Siller, who heroically ran through the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel in full gear on 9/11 to reach the burning World Trade Center towers, only to die in the collapse while saving his fellow New Yorkers.
BY COLIN MIXSON
If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.
After years of giving Tunnel to Towers 5k organizer John Hodge the runaround when he sought permits, members of Community Board 1 have finally decided to form their own group to participate in what’s become the area’s premier charity event and memorial honoring the sacrifice of firefighter Stephen Siller and the hundreds of other first responders who gave their lives during the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
“The guy is a local hero,” said Community Board 1 member Tom Goodkind, who is organizing the Lower Manhattan Tunnel to Towers group. “This is the biggest event. It’s tremendous, and the party’s fantastic, and now we’re going to be a part of it, which is very cool.”
Stephen Siller, Hodge’s cousin, heroically ran through the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel in full gear on 9/11 to reach the burning World Trade Center towers, only to die in the collapse while saving his fellow New Yorkers.
The Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation’s annual 5k Run and Walk retracing his steps has raised millions of dollars for worthy charities since its inception in 2002. But before the event can happen each year, Hodge must go before CB1 to get its approval for the permits he needs to take over streets in Lower Manhattan. And every year, board members subject Hodge to a litany of demands — including restrictions on music, drinking, and alterations to planned routes that might interfere with local residents’ quality of life — which Goodkind called unreasonable.
“You can’t have music, you can’t close our streets, you have to clean up, no one’s allowed to drink — we absolutely brutalize this guy,” Goodkind recounted. “Imagine 30,000 firemen and no one’s allowed to drink. Nobody would come!”
Hodge was diplomatic when asked to respond to Goodkind’s characterization of the board’s conduct, and instead referred to the panel as “very thorough” in its attempts to safeguard the community from the thousands of runners and after-party revelers that take over local streets.
Anthony Notaro, chairman of the board’s Battery Park City Committee, agreed that the board has given the event a hard time in the past, largely in response to the run’s after-party, in which beer was typically served on the streets to the thousands of revelers.
“What we beat them up on is there’s been a couple of years where the after-party has had too much impact on the neighborhood,” Notaro said. “There were a couple of years where they were selling beers on Vesey Street, and when you have a couple thousand people, it gets pretty ugly. But they’ve been accommodating for the past few years.”
After the 2014 event, the foundation agreed not to serve alcohol after last year’s run.
Of course, it’s not exactly unusual for CB1 to give a large event like Tunnel to Towers a hard time — that’s what a community board is for, according to Notaro.
“We give everybody a hard time. That’s our job, to make sure that the community’s quality of life is preserved,” he said.
It wasn’t until last September, after more than a decade of community gripes, that Goodkind suggested forming a group of community members to join the thousands of first responders, family members, and runners who take part in the 5k.
“At the end of the meeting I said, ‘Can I join this? I really like this,’ and everybody looked at me like I was from outer space,” he said.
And Goodkind was surprised when CB1 chairwoman Catherine McVay Hughes piped up to endorse his plan, saying that now, the 15-year anniversary of 9/11, was a great time to come together as a community and commemorate that fateful day in 2001.
“As we approach the 15-year anniversary, it’s really important for everybody to get together and show our unification, and that we’re strong and more resilient than ever,” said Hughes.
Goodkind said he was also inspired to join Tunnel to Towers after several failed attempts among community members to institute their own 9/11 memorial event, including a parade that fizzled out after three years, and an attempt to make a massive human chain that ultimately failed to pick up steam.
“This is a really great thing, and we’ve been looking for a way to commemorate this for years, and everything else has failed,” he said.
Anyone interested in joining Goodkind and his running team, called The Neighbors, can head over to crowdrise.com/the-neighbors to register. Registration is $60 for adults and free for children. All donations go to the Fireman’s Fund.
