Transcript: Mayor de Blasio Delivers Remarks at Staten Island September 11th Postcards Memorial

September 11, 2014

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Thank you very much. I have to say, I appreciated the passion of Jimmy Oddo’s words. I appreciated that this was a very real responsibility he felt, not just to continue this memorial, but I remember in the days after 9/11, we all went in the City Council together – a number of us, after this tragedy – and tried to figure out how to comfort people and help our communities move forward, and Jimmy was tireless and compassionate, trying to help in every way he could the people he served. I just want us to recognize what a true public servant he is. Let’s thank Jimmy Oddo for all he does.

[Applause]

I want to thank, most importantly, all of you who are here, keeping your commitment and your connection and your feeling for those we’ve lost. It’s what every one of us would want when our day comes – to know that people remembered us, carried on, tried to remember something that we did that inspired them.

I want to thank all the elected officials, all the clergy who are here. It’s an important moment – this day is always important – because we have to remember those we’ve lost. We have to pay them our respect. We have to think about what they would have us do.

Staten Island was hit very very hard that day, in large measure because so many Staten Islanders chose to serve others as police officers and firefighters and EMTs and civil servants. We lost a lot of people who worked to better other people’s lives. We lost a lot of good civilians who cared about their communities and helped in so many ways. Staten Island had a particularly horrible toll that day, but it’s also a tribute to Staten Island that so many people from this borough were committed to helping others.

We cannot forget the day – as long as we all live, we will never forget that day and the images and the confusion and the pain – but nor will we forget the days after. In those days after, where we kept hoping that more people would be rescued – we hoped against hope. And we can’t forget that people looked for any way to get information about their loved ones – the signs that people put on walls all over Lower Manhattan and subway stations and bus stops – any place they could find – hoping that someone would know something to help them find one they loved. It’s hard to comprehend the sheer totality of the loss that day – it kept coming to us in waves – and it was so hard to accept.

Everyone here thinks of this in personal terms. For me, I knew so many families who experienced a deep loss that day. One family – their story is particularly poignant to me – Marian and David Fontana. I had gotten to know Marian in my neighborhood in Brooklyn. She has since now become a resident of West Brighton here in Staten Island. That day, that morning – which you remember – before we knew tragedy lurked around the corner, it was a beautiful day, it felt like summer had continued a little longer – and she dropped her son off to kindergarten. She was literally planning and putting the final touches on her eighth anniversary – eighth wedding anniversary – with her husband Dave. Dave was a member of Squad 1 FDNY based in Park Slope, Brooklyn. He had just finished the night shift when he had gotten the word that the planes had hit the towers. Like so many of our first responders that didn’t hesitate, whether they were on duty or off, they didn’t hesitate to go toward the danger. Marian was planning a wedding anniversary and then found that her husband had gone where he was needed. That day, Squad 1 lost half of its members – 12 firefighters – never to be seen again, including Dave Fontana.

The FDNY took a horrible toll – 343 members – but so did the NYPD and the Port Authority and the EMTs and first responders of all kinds that we lost that day – and among them, over 270 names engraved on this memorial.

We can take some solace in the fact that this city responded with resiliency and compassion. We can take some solace in the fact that, in that horrible moment, it brought out the very best in those who were here and those who survived – how volunteers went and did all they could do. People gave blood, people went down to the site and did everything they could – some people, in fact, came from all different parts of the country to try and help us here. In that agony, we saw some of the good in people.

My friend Marian Fontana has certainly been an example. She tried to help other families who had lost their loved ones. She helped to lead the 9/11 Families Association and did a lot of good. And like so many others, she turned that grief into action to help those in need.

Another person who I know and think the world of and felt such great loss that day is now our fire commissioner, Dan Nigro, who is an extraordinary public servant, who was the chief of operations for the FDNY that day. And Dan, on that day, lost his very best friend in the world – Pete Ganci, the chief of department. Imagine losing your closest friend – imagine that day and then, in the middle of it, getting the battlefield promotion and having to become the chief of the department amidst all that pain. Dan Nigro did that. He’s carried that day with him and wanted to serve again and now serves as our fire commissioner – another example of people turning their pain into, first, resiliency, and then action, to help others.

I’ll finish by saying we have more to do. Just earlier this week, I stood with our US Senator Kirsten Gillibrand to call on the US Congress to reauthorize the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act. That has to happen, because our first responders deserve it.

[Applause]

We made the point that day, standing by Ground Zero, that there is no difference – there’s no moral difference – between the first responders who served that day and for weeks and weeks after and our veterans who returned from war. My dad came back from World War II – he fought in Okinawa and many other battles in the Pacific – he came back and it was a guarantee he would get the G.I. Bill. We owe our first responders the same kind of guarantee. They did all we could ask of them. Their healthcare is all of our business, and our nation needs to stand and be counted, and the Zadroga Bill must be reauthorized.

[Applause]

Finally, some words from someone I have the honor to work with. Cardinal Dolan spoke at a service a few years back for some of our fallen FDNY heroes. He said of 9/11, “On that day, when the demons of our nature could have conquered, the angels of our nature triumphed.” Thanks to them, 13 years later, let’s appreciate our resiliency, let’s honor those we’ve lost, and let’s make sure the angels of our nature always prevail. Thank you and God bless you.

[Applause]