September 11, 2026 • 38 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, William M. "Bill" Feehan spent his life fighting fires in New York City. He rose through every uniformed rank in the FDNY, survived the department's brutal "War Years" of the 1970s, and became one of its most respected leaders. Firefighting was also a family tradition. For four generations, the Feehans had answered the same call, building a legacy of service that stretched back to the sons of Irish immigrants.
Brian McDonald, author of Five Floors Up: The Heroic Family Story of Four Generations in the FDNY, shares the story of the Feehans and nearly a century of firefighting in New York. That history reached its most tragic chapter on September 11, 2001, when 71-year-old Bill Feehan responded to the World Trade Center. He was still there, serving alongside another generation of New York firefighters, when the North Tower came down.
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
And to search for the Our American Stories podcast, go
to the iHeartRadio app, to Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
get your podcasts. Up next, an American story and an
(00:30):
immigration story featured in the book Five Floors Up by
author Brian McDonald. It's the story of New York's fire department.
is told through one family that served the department through
four successive generations, the Theon family. From the days just
after the horse-drawn fire truck, to the devastation of the
(00:52):
1970s when the Bronx was indeed burning, to the unspeakable
tragedy of 9-11 and beyond, a Theon has worn the
shoulder patch of the FDNY. We start the story of
this remarkable American family not in the beginnings, But on
September 11, 2001, here.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Is author Brian McDonald.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
The family gathering might have been a late summer barbecue.
The evening was warm and the fading summer's air carried
the scent of ocean salt. But there was nothing ordinary
about this day. In the backyard, Billy Fane cupped his
hand over one ear with his cell phone pressed to
the other as F-16 fighter jets screamed overhead. He and
his family had just arrived from Princeton, New Jersey, where
(01:38):
they lived. Three police departments, the Princeton Junction, the New
Jersey State Troopers, and the NYPD had formed a relay
team to escort them to his sister and brother-in-law's house
in Bell Harbor, New York. It was mid-span on the
Verrazano Narrows Bridge when Billy had his first glimpse of
what was left of the World Trade Center. Even from
(01:59):
that distance, the enormity of it shocked him. The thick
black smoke seemed to reach a mile into the sky.
John Fee and Billy's brother and Brian Davin, both firefighters,
had just returned home from the Trade Center site, still
wearing turnout gear. The cement dust that covered them gave
their faces a ghostly white appearance, and their eyes were
(02:19):
red from the acrid air, exhaustion, and tears. What they
had just seen was beyond their understanding. A six-inch shroud
of dust covered the remains of the mighty World Trade Center.
Brian likened it to walking on the moon. But what
he remembers most is not the deadly dust, the moonscape,
or even the twisted steel girders. It is the sound
(02:41):
of the Firefighter Scott air-packed pass alarms, hundreds of them,
buried under a million tons of cement and steel that
he can still hear in his mind today. On the
phone with Billy was Henry MacDonald, his father's executive officer,
sort of an aide-de-camp. Henry had been the one to
call Billy to tell him that his father, Chief William Theon,
(03:01):
had been killed in the attack. Billy wanted to get
into the city to see his father's body. Though Manhattan
was essentially sealed to traffic, he knew Henry could make
it happen. 75 years before the attack on the World
Trade Center, Chief Feehan's dad, William, was the first of
(03:24):
the four generations of firefighters. William was born in 1891.
His parents were Julia and William Feehan Sr., And they
had emigrated from Ireland like eight years before. They settled
in a part of New York City called Long Island City.
It was a rough and tumble, working class neighborhood. And
William took on the attributes of the neighborhood in which
(03:45):
he grew up. He was a tough kid. He was
the youngest of 10 children and the only one born
in America. But as the youngest, he was especially attached
to his mom. After the father left, the relationship with
the mother grew even closer. And then Julia got sick.
She developed cancer. And William would dote on her for
the rest of her life. But when she died, he
found himself at 34, single and without a career. But
(04:09):
as luck would have it, or divine intervention would have it,
he would meet a woman named Catherine Cashman. Catherine would
be the catalyst or the conduit for William's entry into
the fire department. Catherine had a brother who was a
priest in a local parish. And her brother was not
only a priest at the parish, but he was a
part-time chaplain for the FDNY. You know, so it took
William a long time to find his true calling. Once
(04:31):
he walked into the firehouse, he knew what he wanted
to do. You know, firefighters have this expression, it's called
chasing fire. The fact is that some firefighters are drawn
to the action and danger of the job more than others.
And those firefighters are said to chase fire. In fact,
I documented at least three times when he was hospitalized
(04:54):
from injuries in fires. One time he was actually, it
was so bad that he was given the last rites.
When they put him in the ambulance, everybody thought it
was the last time they were going to see William.
(05:14):
But William would survive and perhaps miraculously he had, you know,
he was a really religious guy. He would go to
church every morning and light a candle. And the story
goes that when he was in the hospital, the nurse
went to take off his scapular metal, and a scapular
metal is like this little cloth, like some Catholics wear.
It's like a badge of devotion. The nurse went to
(05:36):
take Williams off, and he practically jumped right out of
the bed. Not all of Williams' stories were death-defying. One
of the great joys I had in writing this book
was listening to the family stories and the next generations
of firefighters. Firefighters are some of the best storytellers you'll
ever meet Here's one. After a spate of deadly and
(05:56):
spectacular theater fires across the country, mostly caused by the
gas lamps of the day, New York City enacted regulations
that required a uniformed fireman be posted at all theater performances.
For a busy fireman, theater duty was a chance to
take a breather and see a show. One night in
the early 1930s, William volunteered to do fire duty at
a theater featuring an up-and-coming singer named Ella Fitzgerald. Noting
(06:19):
her name, he told his pals he was in the
mood to hear some good Irish music. On another evening,
the detail put him in an uptown opera house. The
performance that night was by an Italian composer and set
during the days of the Roman Empire. Just before the performance,
several of the extras on the show called in sick
with the flu. The director found himself in a real bind.
When William arrived for work, he saw his way out
(06:41):
of it. The local firehouse captain would do rounds each
night to check on the firemen who were on theater duty.
On this particular evening, the captain happened to be accompanied
by his boss, the deputy chief. When they arrived at
the opera house, William was nowhere to be found. As
the search continued, the deputy chief became more and more aggravated.
What all is he, the chief demanded of the captain.
(07:02):
He must be somewhere, the captain answered. Fionn's a good man.
It was at that point the captain's eyes fell on
the performance. There he is, he exclaimed. Where? The third
Roman soldier on the left, he said, pointing at the
back of the stage. The one with the spear.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
And you've been listening to author Brian McDonald tell the
story of the Fionn family. four successive generations served in
the New York Fire Department. More of the story here
on Our American Stories after these messages. Lee Habib here,
the host of Our American Stories. Every day on this show,
we're bringing inspiring stories from across this great country. Stories
(07:40):
from our big cities and small towns. But we truly
can't do this show without you. Our stories are free
to listen to, but they're not free to make. If
you love what you hear, Go to OurAmericanStories.com and click
the Donate button.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Give a little, give a lot.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
Go to OurAmericanStories.com and give. And we're back with Our
(08:16):
American Stories and with author Brian McDonald, His book, Five
Floors Up, is available at Amazon, at local bookstores, or.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Wherever you buy your books.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Now let's return to the story of the Fiends through
the Roaring Twenties and the birth of their son, Bill,
who would go on to lead the FTNY.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
So in 1929, Catherine would give birth to a baby
boy whom they called Bill. And six years later, she'd
give birth again to another boy whom they named Jim
after Catherine's brother, the priest, Father Jim. Bill, the youngest boy,
seemed ordained to be a firefighter right from the start.
But Father Jim had other ideas. Father Jim was grooming
(09:03):
Bill to be the next cardinal. He went to a
high school called Cathedral in Brooklyn. which was a prep
school for seminary. If you took the special courses offered
by Cathedral, you were on a fast track to become
a priest. Now, Bill tells you that he would have
become a priest. The way he puts it, he said
he found out that girls in Bishop McLaughlin High School
nearby were a lot more interesting than Gregorian chants, and
(09:26):
he knew he wasn't going to be a priest. Very
ambitious young man. At the time, it was unusual for
a middle-class kid. He got a four-year degree in history
from St.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
John's.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
He could have been a college professor. He certainly could
have been a teacher. But something called the Korean War
began 6,000 miles away. Even though he was a college graduate,
Bill joined the army and found himself on the Korean Peninsula.
He saw a lot of death and he saw a
lot of misery and war, but he never, ever talked
about it. He was of that generation of men who
(09:57):
didn't bare their souls about the things they saw in war.
When he came out of the army, almost immediately married
his lifelong sweetheart, Betty Keegan, and he needed a job.
At this point, he went back to his childhood love
and wanted to become a firefighter. He wanted to follow
his father's footsteps. However, he needed to wait for the
fire department exam, which was given only every four years. Meanwhile,
(10:21):
he was about to get married to his love, Betty,
and they wanted to start a family, so he needed
a job. He joined something called the fire patrol, which
was like a stepping stone to becoming a real fireman.
So there was a very fire known in history now
as the Worcester Street Fire. It occurred on Valentine's Day night,
February 14th, 1958, while Bill was on the fire patrol.
(10:41):
Inside the building, the heat felt to Bill like it
was melting his skin. The odor surrounding him was a thick,
toxic blend of burning rope, wood, tar, and chemicals. The
room he entered contained heavy machinery, large bales of paper,
and 800-pound rolls of twine. Fire Patrolman Theon took his
covers and climbed the massive roll of twine. At the top,
(11:02):
he was only a foot or so from the ceiling.
He could see the smoke seeping through from the room above.
After he finished covering the bale, he went down for
more covers. By then, the street was filled with rigs
and firemen. Hoses snaked into the building while water cannons
fired at the top floors. On the roof, firemen used
axes to hack holes for ventilation. Thick black smoke poured
(11:25):
out of the openings they made. In less than half
an hour, the blaze had progressed from one alarm to four.
Ten minutes later, it would go to five. Meanwhile, the
temperature outside began to plummet. Snow blew in icy gusts.
Bill went up and down the stairs two more times.
He felt a searing pain in his chest from the smoke.
(11:46):
As the young fire patrolman started down again, a fireman
was standing on the third floor landing, putting on a
mask and blocking the stairwell. When he saw Bill, he
stepped out of the doorframe. You guys go ahead of me,
he said. The next thing Bill heard was a deafening thunderclap.
The last thing he remembered was the floor beneath him
falling away. The rush of air caused by the collapse
(12:09):
lifted him and blew him down the stairwell. Screams from
inside the building were so loud, people on the street
heard them. So when Valentine's Day night turned to the
next day and Bill was supposed to be home that
morning when the shift was over, he worked the overnight
shift and he didn't show up. She started to really
get worried. And this, of course, was before cell phones
(12:30):
and he couldn't get to the phone. Four fire patrolmen
were missing in the rubble. Two New York City firefighters
were also missing. So Bill had his hands full. He
couldn't get to a phone. He couldn't call. Search continued
for the other missing fire patrolmen. The next evening, practically
a whole day later after he had gone to work,
Bill finally walked into the apartment, and Betty took one
(12:51):
look at him and, you know, caught her breath. And
he went in and took the long, hot shower, and
then he started getting dressed and walking out of the
apartment again. And she goes, where are you going? And
he goes, I got to go back. And she said,
you can't. And he said, I have to. And he
went back to the scene. And it had taken another
whole day before they found the bodies of the other
(13:12):
fire patrolmen. Bill would later joke that the Holy Ghost
blew him out of the building. So on August 20th, 1958,
a little more than two months after the Worcester Street fire,
Betty awakened in the early morning hours with severe contractions.
When they arrived, the hospital lobby was empty, save a
Catholic nun at a telephone switchboard. Betty was in severe pain.
(13:34):
The nun rushed to them. I've got her, she told Bill.
You take over the switchboard. You want me to do what,
he asked. There's no one else here, he said. Someone
has to answer the phone. The nun took Betty by
the arm and rushed down the hallway. For a moment,
Bill stood there wondering what had just happened. Then the
phone started to ring. Misericordia, he said in a voice
(13:54):
a bit unsteady. How can I help you? Betty gave
birth that morning to a healthy baby girl named Elizabeth Ann.
the third generation of Elizabeths in the Keegan line. After
a few years on the fire patrol, Bill retook the
fire department's entrance exam. Once again, he aced the written
and physical parts of the test. When he arrived for
the eye examination, the older gentleman administering the test seemed
(14:18):
to Bill to be all business. When he pressed his
face to the machine, he again had trouble making out
the last line of the chart. He squinted as hard
as he could to bring the final letter into view.
It's either a C or an O, he said nervously.
Has to be one of them, kid, the man said softly.
Bill knew his future as a New York City firefighter
(14:38):
hung in the balance. He'd just turned 30, and the
next time the test came around, he might be too
old to take it. Throughout his career in the FDNY,
he would tell the story of that eye test often.
He could never remember, however, which letter he picked. Nor
could he be sure that the letter he chose was
actually the correct one. Betty and Bill were very social.
(15:03):
They used to like to get all dolled up and
go into Manhattan to see a show or a play
and have dinner at a nice restaurant. Betty also had
a group of close-knit friends that she grew up with
and stayed close into adulthood. And she had a quirky
sense of humor, very outgoing. It was always the life
of the party. As a mom, too, she could be
very adventurous. She was a horrible driver. But that didn't
(15:27):
stop her from taking the kids on these extended road trips.
She'd find the destination of some odd event happening, and
she'd put the kids in the car and drive them
all the way to Jersey. One time, they went to
see how police dogs had trained, and she had to
go all the way from Queens to New Jersey, which
is an arduous trip. After she got pregnant with Liz,
(15:52):
she developed postpartum depression, and it got only worse with
each child. subsequent pregnancy. We got so bad by the
time she had Tara, who was the fourth born child,
she had to be hospitalized. And somehow Bill, even though
he had a big job, you know, he was already
climbing the ladder of the department. He'd cook dinner for
(16:13):
the kids or drop them off at the grandparents or
bring them to soccer or twirling practice and then go,
you know, be a captain in a very busy firehouse.
And he somehow kept it all together. But then an
event had that really sent Betty into an incredibly dark
downward spiral. She had a baby they named Michael. And
when he was about four months old, he developed a
(16:35):
condition that needed an operation. It wasn't that severe of
an operation, but it would require him to go under
general anesthetic. And Michael never woke up on the operating table.
Betty was devastated. Bill was so devoted to his wife,
he waited on her hand and foot. But he had
no answer for this depression his wife was in. And
the pressure on him was so severe, he developed these
(16:58):
headaches that were so intense that he would vomit from them.
Yet somehow he kept the family together and continued an
unprecedented climb up the ladder at the FDNY.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
And you're listening to the story of the Feehan family
as told by author Brian McDonald.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
And his book is Five Floors Up. Pick it up.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
It is one heck of a read about New York
City history.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
About Irish immigration, and also about this thing called the
New York.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
Fire Department, which now fields 11,000 firefighters. When we come back,
more of this remarkable story, the story of the Feehan family,
here on Our American Story. And we're back with Our
(18:14):
American Stories and with author Brian McDonald. The 1970s were
a tough time in New York City. Let's find out
how it affected the FDNY.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
The 1970s in the New York City Fire Department are
known as the war years. You might have heard the expression,
the Bronx is burning. Well, that's when the Bronx was
burning during the war years. And it wasn't only the Bronx.
It was Harlem. It was the Lower East Side. It
was parts of Brooklyn, all inner city neighborhoods that were
laid waste by arson, neglect, malfeasance on the part of
(18:49):
city leadership. I interviewed Tom Von Essen. who was the
fire commissioner during 9-11, but he was a firefighter in
the South Bronx during the 70s, and he told me
that dispatch used to warn the fire trucks out on
a run not to stop at other fires on the
way to the fires they were sent to fight. In Harlem,
(19:09):
because of equipment shortage and everything, the expression was all
you needed was sneakers and a raincoat to be a
firefighter in Harlem. Bill's firehouse was no different. The neighborhood
that his firehouse was lined with these five-story tenement buildings,
if you ask a New York City firefighter, they'll tell
you that fires in tenement buildings are the hardest to fight.
(19:32):
Wooden structures, narrow hallways, lots of windows, lots of people usually,
and they're made out of wood. So the tinderboxes, they
go up like a matchbook. Firefighters and Bill's Engine Company
used to say every time they got a call in
a tenement fire, it was always on the top floor
and way in the back of the building, like the
hardest place to reach the crew. So they came up
(19:53):
with this expression, five floors up and five rooms deep.
That became Rallying Cry and the title of my book,
Five Floors Up, because they go anywhere, the fire took them.
Like most firefighters with families, Bill had to moonlight. No
firefighter could raise a family just on a firefighter's salary,
and Bill was no exception. For most of the beginning
(20:15):
of his career, he taught in the New York City
school system. He was a great teacher. But in the
early 70s and the late 80s, New York City ran
out of money, and they stopped the substitute teacher program.
And Bill was out of a moonlight job, and he
needed one badly. He had three kids in college at
the time. His neighbors in Flushing was a man named
Eddie Brady, who was a detective in the New York
(20:35):
City Police Department. And Eddie was working hotel security for
Harry and Leona Helmsley, owners of, among other things, the
Helmsley Palace in New York. Now, years before Donald Trump,
Harry Helmsley was the preeminent real estate mogul in New
York City. But it was Leona who would wrestle the
Donald for the front page of the New York Post.
(20:58):
Page six dubbed her the Queen of Means. She was
so notoriously bad to her employees that her staff at
her mansion in Connecticut would call the staff at the
hotels when Leona had left for the city to warn them, right?
In time, he would realize that Leona was just a sad, sad,
lonely woman. Bill would end up working for Leona for
(21:19):
20 years. All the Fian kids would work for her
as bellhops and waitresses in the hotel restaurants. Bill would
often remind them that it was Leona who paid their
college tuition. After 20 years of working for Leona Helmsley,
she threw him a cocktail party. Things didn't work out
as nicely for her in her later years. Rudy Giuliani
(21:40):
was then the U.S. attorney in the Southern District of
New York, and he prosecuted her on tax evasion and fraud.
She ended up spending 18 months in jail. and was
sentenced to 750 hours of community service, which ballooned to
900 hours of community service after the judge found out
that Leona was using their staff to do some of
(22:00):
the court-ordered work. Bill saw a lot of changes from
the 1950s to the 1990s, including the first female firefighters,
as well as the first African-American commanders. He would always
say it wasn't brawn or even brains that were the
main ingredients of a good firefighter, but heart. When Bill
(22:22):
had time to get home and see his dad, the
two of them would sit and talk fire, as they
called it. Bill loved, revered, and respected his father. Sadly,
William Patrick Fee and Bill's dad died on February 2, 1975.
Emphysema was listed as the cause of death on his
death certificate. He never smoked in his life. In the 1980s,
(22:44):
crime was out of control and New York took on
the name Fear City. Police and firefighters became targets as
they ran towards the disaster, whatever it might be. Bill
continued his rise through the ranks and on August 19th, 1991,
Mayor David Dinkins promoted him to chief of the department.
He was only the 24th man to hold that position.
(23:09):
Two years later, on February 23, 1993, two Jordanian nationals
drove a rental truck filled with 1,300 pounds of urea
nitrate into a sub-basement garage of the North Tower of
the World Trade Center. They blew a six-story crater in
the building. It would be a harbinger of what was
to come. On June 14, 1996, Bill stood in the
(23:35):
kitchen of his house and flushing with a rotary phone
in his hand, His eyes shone with tears. Outside the
kitchen window, the first light of the day began to
filter through the leaves of the oak tree that stood
next to the house. For months, Betty had been in
and out of the hospital, progressively getting worse. By then,
the kids were out of the house and on with
(23:55):
their lives, and aside from the squirrels, Bill spent much
of his time there alone. He clicked the cradle on
the phone and dialed his best friend Henry McDonald's number.
Betty's gone, he said into the receiver. Bill's wife had
spent her last days in St. Clair's Hospital in the
Hell's Kitchen section of Manhattan. He'd fussed over Betty so
many times when she was hospitalized, making sure she had
(24:18):
what she needed and that her room was tidy. Sometimes
he'd go to see her alone, but other times he
came with the children. Afterwards, he'd take the kids to
the Woodside Steakhouse in Queens, where the Irish waitresses fussed
over them. Right to the end, Bill was crazy about Betty,
and she was crazy about him. Ultimately, there was nothing
(24:38):
he could do to save her. Betty was 62 when
she died. It was a great loss to Bill, and
he threw himself into his work. There was always the work.
The firefighters and the department. Meanwhile, his son John took
the test for the FDNY on January 17, 1995, and
(25:00):
aced it, becoming a valedictorian of his academy class. First
Deputy Commissioner Bill Feehan handed his son the award. Bill
knew the sacrifice and risk it took to become a
New York City firefighter. He had to write far too
many obituaries for fallen firefighters. In one he wrote, the
truest kind of love is to lay down your life
(25:21):
for another, but the purest form of love is to
cherish each other every day. Never leave a moment stout
that you love with your whole heart and soul. While
First Deputy Commissioner Bill was instrumental in getting better and
safer equipment, refitting firehouses, upgrading computer systems via data sharing,
(25:41):
and overall improvement of the quality of life for his firefighters.
He once said, no matter what we do, no matter
how well we train, no matter how good our equipment is,
no matter how hard we try, no matter what, the
time will come when we will lose another firefighter. Even
before September 11th, 2001 was a deadly year for the
(26:02):
New York City Fire Department. A fire in a hardware
store in Queens on Father's Day killed three elite firefighters.
Then on August 28, 2001, a 27-year-old probie firefighter named
Michael Garumba would die of a heart attack during a
fire in an auto shop on Staten Island. Firefighter Garumba's
would be the last line of duty death before 9-11.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
And you're listening to Brian McDonald tell the story of
the Feehan family, of the FDNY, and William in particular.
The 70s were indeed the war years. The Bronx was burning.
So was much of New York City, through arson, through malfeasance, criminality,
and just sheer negligence. And then the 80s, well, New
York City earned its reputation, a fear city. Murder was
(27:01):
out of control and violent crime, and the FDNY had
to live through all of it.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
And then, of course, William Feehan. Well, he faces the
loss of his bride.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
When we come back, more of the story of the
Theon family, and William Theon in particular, here on Our
American Stories. And we return to Our American Stories and
(27:40):
author Brian McDonald, his book, Five Floors Up, the heroic
family story of four generations in the FDNY. 9-11 was
a day that will live alongside Pearl Harbor as one
of the darkest days in American history. The heroism of
the men who ran towards the devastation will never truly
(28:00):
be known. One man, chief of the FDNY, Bill Feehan,
at the age of 71, had no reason to be
at ground zero on that day, and yet nothing could
stop him from working alongside his men to try and
stop the carnage.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
He would pay the ultimate price.
Speaker 3 (28:26):
When you have a department whose men and women are
expected to be ready at any moment to put their
life on the line, To go to the aid of
a stranger, even when it means that you might put
yourself in harm's way, actually in dire peril, I don't
think you could pay people to do that job. There
(28:48):
has to be something more than money that makes them
do that.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
William M. Feehan.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
So the day started like any other for Bill Feehan
that morning. He had eggs over easy at the North
Shore Diner before heading into work. He was looking forward
to having lunch with Henry McDonald, who had retired a
few months before. He was in his office in headquarters
in Brooklyn when United Flight 11 hit the North Tower.
From some of the offices in headquarters, you could see
(29:18):
the Trade Center clearly. Some reported that the shockwaves from
the impact traveled the 13 miles in an instant and
bowed the office windows. Chief Feehan called to his driver
to get the car. The second jet hit the south
tower just as Chief Bean and the other chiefs with
him reached the scene. Part of the jet's landing gear
(29:38):
slammed into the street just ahead.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
Of them.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
Peel sections of the airplane along with body parts rained
down on. The trek through the concourse to the north
tower was no less dangerous. People had already begun jumping
out the windows from the high floors. A firefighter named
Daniel Scherer was struck and killed by one of them.
The lobby in the North Tower was controlled chaos. Chiefs
had already begun sending fire companies up the stairs as
(30:03):
a steady stream of civilians came down. The first fire
officer on scene at the Trade Center that day was
Battalion Chief Joe Pfeiffer. The French film crew had been
shadowing Pfeiffer that morning for a documentary. Jules Nadei would
go on to record some of the most dramatic footage
ever shot for any documentary. One of the companies that
(30:24):
Pfeiffer sent up the stairs was Engine 33, where his
brother Kevin was the lieutenant. The brothers said a few
words to each other before Kevin entered the stairwell. It
would be the last time they talked. Though the amount
of fire officer experience in the North Tower was astounding,
none of them had ever encountered anything close to what
they were experiencing. At one point, Chief Ray Downey, a
(30:47):
special operations chief, and a nationally known collapse expert looked
at Commissioner Von Essen and told him that the buildings
could come down. Not even Downey, however, expected them to
do so as quickly as they would. After some time
in the lobby, Chief Feehan and several others left looking
for a more suitable command center location. Though setting up
(31:10):
in the lobby was protocol for high-rise fires, the location
and the fact that most of the building and inter-department
communication was failing allowed the chief very little awareness of
what was happening 90 floors above them. Many in the
lobby didn't even know the South Tower was hit by
a second jet. They found a suitable location on West Street,
(31:32):
a thoroughfare that ran on the west side of the
Trade Center. From there, Chief Feehan and the others had
their first look at the entire scene. What they witnessed
shocked them. Like a pair of giant Roman candles, the
tops of both towers were engulfed in smoke and flames.
From the windows of those high floors came dozens and
dozens of jumpers who had made the unthinkable decision. As
(31:55):
they set up magnetic command boards and handy talkie communications,
Chief Feehan looked up at the south tower again and
saw what he thought looked like twinkling Christmas lights surrounding
the building. Those lights turned out to be the tall
windows pulverizing as the building began to collapse. Though it
later was estimated that the building came down at a
(32:16):
rate of 120 miles an hour, it seemed as though
the collapse was in slow motion. The implosion sent chunks
of steel and cement hurtling outwardly, followed by a deadly
wall of debris and dust. In the 2009 documentary 9-11,
Phone Calls from the Tower, the late great columnist for
the New York Times, Jim Dwyer, called the 78th floor
(32:39):
in the South Tower the bridge point between the living
and the dead. There was a transfer floor for the
elevator banks to the lobby. After the hijacked airliner hit
the North Tower, people who worked in the upper floors
of the South Tower had massed on the 78th floor,
hoping to evacuate. When United 175 crashed into the South Tower,
(33:00):
the tip of the wing of the jet sliced through
the 78th floor like a sieve, killing and injuring scores
of people. One of the recordings from that documentary was
from Chief Oreo Palmer. He had radioed that he encountered
a number of 1045 Code Ones, the department designation for
civilian fatalities. That would be the last radio communication from
(33:25):
Chief Palmer. Meanwhile, the North Tower lobby shook violently. Father Judge,
who had always been a rock of faith at fire scenes,
walked in a kind of trance, his lips moving in prayer.
At some point, he looked up at the ceiling that
had started to split. Jesus, please end this now, he yelled.
(33:48):
The chiefs in the West Street command post ran into
the building loading dock for cover. With the power of
a hurricane gust, the wall of debris practically lifted them
off the ground as they did. Some escaped into the building.
Chief Fianna and chief of the department, Gansey, found their
way back out to the street. They looked across West
Street in disbelief. The mighty South Tower of the Trade
(34:12):
Center was gone, and in its place lay 111 stories
of twisted steel and chunks of cement. In the North
Tower lobby, Father Judge's body lay where he had asked
his Lord for help. The collapse had almost completely destroyed
(34:32):
the Marriott Hotel adjacent to the tower. Inside, crews of
firefighters were trapped or killed. Chief Feehan held one of
the few working handy talkies. He began directing a rescue
operation for those in the hotel. Chief Gansey and Ray
Downey had joined them. Within minutes, the unthinkable began to
happen again. It took some time after the collapse of
(34:54):
the North Tower for the search and rescue teams to
climb the mountain of steel and cement to reach the
location of the West Street Command Center. As they searched,
the firefighters saw something glinting in a layer of dust.
(35:15):
It was a helmet, white, with a gold front piece
that read, First Deputy Commissioner. At one point, when Chief
Theon was still in the North Tower lobby, Commissioner Van
Essen had approached him and told him he wanted him
somewhere safe. Bill was 71, about to be 72, and
the commissioner thought he was too old to be in
such a dangerous situation. In remembering the moment much later,
(35:37):
Van Essen can still imagine the incredulous look on his
first deputy's face as he said those words. For 41
years and counting, Chief Feehan had run into burning buildings,
not away from them. He wasn't about to start now.
A student of American history, Bill Feehan was a fan
of General George S. Patton's poetry. In the general's poem,
(35:59):
Through a Glass Darkly, he wrote, So forever in the
future shall I battle as of yore, Dying to be
born a fighter, but to die again once more. The
kind of heroism owned by Chief Feehan and all firefighters
who sacrificed their lives on the fire field can't die.
It must live on from generation to generation, and those
(36:20):
brave enough to answer the siren's call. Chief Feehan was
the highest ranking member of the FDNY killed in the
attack on the World Trade Center. Though a firefighter with
a career like few others perished in the rubble of
the Trade Center that day, the hero among heroes, the
chief's legacy would live on. In the late 1980s, the
(36:44):
chief's daughter, Tara, would meet Brian Davin. Brian would graduate
from the Academy just before they got married in September
of 89. Along with John Thien, Brian would respond to
the World Trade Center just after the towers fell. In
the aftermath of the attack, he was promoted to lieutenant,
then captain, and finally battalion chief as the department sought
(37:06):
to rebuild. Along the way, he and Tara would have
three children. The oldest, Connor, would follow his father's footsteps
into the FDNY. Like his great-grandfather, William Patrick Feehan, nearly
100 years before, Connor works in an engine company in
a very busy house. And like William Patrick, more times
than not, when the bell rings, Connor's on the nozzle,
(37:28):
running it into a burning building. And so it goes
for 96 years and counting. The Feehans and the Davins
have fought fires, and live lives of quiet heroism.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
And a terrific job on the editing and storytelling by
David Wild. And thanks to author Brian McDonald, his book,
Five Floors Up, the heroic family story of four generations.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
In the FDNY.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
It's a piece of New York history, certainly a piece
of fire department history. It's an Irish immigrant story, too.
But in the end, it's a story of heroism, and
public service. The story of the Feehan family, here on
Our American Stories.
This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
And to search for the Our American Stories podcast, go
to the iHeartRadio app, to Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
get your podcasts. Up next, an American story and an
(00:30):
immigration story featured in the book Five Floors Up by
author Brian McDonald. It's the story of New York's fire department.
is told through one family that served the department through
four successive generations, the Theon family. From the days just
after the horse-drawn fire truck, to the devastation of the
(00:52):
1970s when the Bronx was indeed burning, to the unspeakable
tragedy of 9-11 and beyond, a Theon has worn the
shoulder patch of the FDNY. We start the story of
this remarkable American family not in the beginnings, But on
September 11, 2001, here.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Is author Brian McDonald.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
The family gathering might have been a late summer barbecue.
The evening was warm and the fading summer's air carried
the scent of ocean salt. But there was nothing ordinary
about this day. In the backyard, Billy Fane cupped his
hand over one ear with his cell phone pressed to
the other as F-16 fighter jets screamed overhead. He and
his family had just arrived from Princeton, New Jersey, where
(01:38):
they lived. Three police departments, the Princeton Junction, the New
Jersey State Troopers, and the NYPD had formed a relay
team to escort them to his sister and brother-in-law's house
in Bell Harbor, New York. It was mid-span on the
Verrazano Narrows Bridge when Billy had his first glimpse of
what was left of the World Trade Center. Even from
(01:59):
that distance, the enormity of it shocked him. The thick
black smoke seemed to reach a mile into the sky.
John Fee and Billy's brother and Brian Davin, both firefighters,
had just returned home from the Trade Center site, still
wearing turnout gear. The cement dust that covered them gave
their faces a ghostly white appearance, and their eyes were
(02:19):
red from the acrid air, exhaustion, and tears. What they
had just seen was beyond their understanding. A six-inch shroud
of dust covered the remains of the mighty World Trade Center.
Brian likened it to walking on the moon. But what
he remembers most is not the deadly dust, the moonscape,
or even the twisted steel girders. It is the sound
(02:41):
of the Firefighter Scott air-packed pass alarms, hundreds of them,
buried under a million tons of cement and steel that
he can still hear in his mind today. On the
phone with Billy was Henry MacDonald, his father's executive officer,
sort of an aide-de-camp. Henry had been the one to
call Billy to tell him that his father, Chief William Theon,
(03:01):
had been killed in the attack. Billy wanted to get
into the city to see his father's body. Though Manhattan
was essentially sealed to traffic, he knew Henry could make
it happen. 75 years before the attack on the World
Trade Center, Chief Feehan's dad, William, was the first of
(03:24):
the four generations of firefighters. William was born in 1891.
His parents were Julia and William Feehan Sr., And they
had emigrated from Ireland like eight years before. They settled
in a part of New York City called Long Island City.
It was a rough and tumble, working class neighborhood. And
William took on the attributes of the neighborhood in which
(03:45):
he grew up. He was a tough kid. He was
the youngest of 10 children and the only one born
in America. But as the youngest, he was especially attached
to his mom. After the father left, the relationship with
the mother grew even closer. And then Julia got sick.
She developed cancer. And William would dote on her for
the rest of her life. But when she died, he
found himself at 34, single and without a career. But
(04:09):
as luck would have it, or divine intervention would have it,
he would meet a woman named Catherine Cashman. Catherine would
be the catalyst or the conduit for William's entry into
the fire department. Catherine had a brother who was a
priest in a local parish. And her brother was not
only a priest at the parish, but he was a
part-time chaplain for the FDNY. You know, so it took
William a long time to find his true calling. Once
(04:31):
he walked into the firehouse, he knew what he wanted
to do. You know, firefighters have this expression, it's called
chasing fire. The fact is that some firefighters are drawn
to the action and danger of the job more than others.
And those firefighters are said to chase fire. In fact,
I documented at least three times when he was hospitalized
(04:54):
from injuries in fires. One time he was actually, it
was so bad that he was given the last rites.
When they put him in the ambulance, everybody thought it
was the last time they were going to see William.
(05:14):
But William would survive and perhaps miraculously he had, you know,
he was a really religious guy. He would go to
church every morning and light a candle. And the story
goes that when he was in the hospital, the nurse
went to take off his scapular metal, and a scapular
metal is like this little cloth, like some Catholics wear.
It's like a badge of devotion. The nurse went to
(05:36):
take Williams off, and he practically jumped right out of
the bed. Not all of Williams' stories were death-defying. One
of the great joys I had in writing this book
was listening to the family stories and the next generations
of firefighters. Firefighters are some of the best storytellers you'll
ever meet Here's one. After a spate of deadly and
(05:56):
spectacular theater fires across the country, mostly caused by the
gas lamps of the day, New York City enacted regulations
that required a uniformed fireman be posted at all theater performances.
For a busy fireman, theater duty was a chance to
take a breather and see a show. One night in
the early 1930s, William volunteered to do fire duty at
a theater featuring an up-and-coming singer named Ella Fitzgerald. Noting
(06:19):
her name, he told his pals he was in the
mood to hear some good Irish music. On another evening,
the detail put him in an uptown opera house. The
performance that night was by an Italian composer and set
during the days of the Roman Empire. Just before the performance,
several of the extras on the show called in sick
with the flu. The director found himself in a real bind.
When William arrived for work, he saw his way out
(06:41):
of it. The local firehouse captain would do rounds each
night to check on the firemen who were on theater duty.
On this particular evening, the captain happened to be accompanied
by his boss, the deputy chief. When they arrived at
the opera house, William was nowhere to be found. As
the search continued, the deputy chief became more and more aggravated.
What all is he, the chief demanded of the captain.
(07:02):
He must be somewhere, the captain answered. Fionn's a good man.
It was at that point the captain's eyes fell on
the performance. There he is, he exclaimed. Where? The third
Roman soldier on the left, he said, pointing at the
back of the stage. The one with the spear.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
And you've been listening to author Brian McDonald tell the
story of the Fionn family. four successive generations served in
the New York Fire Department. More of the story here
on Our American Stories after these messages. Lee Habib here,
the host of Our American Stories. Every day on this show,
we're bringing inspiring stories from across this great country. Stories
(07:40):
from our big cities and small towns. But we truly
can't do this show without you. Our stories are free
to listen to, but they're not free to make. If
you love what you hear, Go to OurAmericanStories.com and click
the Donate button.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Give a little, give a lot.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
Go to OurAmericanStories.com and give. And we're back with Our
(08:16):
American Stories and with author Brian McDonald, His book, Five
Floors Up, is available at Amazon, at local bookstores, or.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Wherever you buy your books.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Now let's return to the story of the Fiends through
the Roaring Twenties and the birth of their son, Bill,
who would go on to lead the FTNY.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
So in 1929, Catherine would give birth to a baby
boy whom they called Bill. And six years later, she'd
give birth again to another boy whom they named Jim
after Catherine's brother, the priest, Father Jim. Bill, the youngest boy,
seemed ordained to be a firefighter right from the start.
But Father Jim had other ideas. Father Jim was grooming
(09:03):
Bill to be the next cardinal. He went to a
high school called Cathedral in Brooklyn. which was a prep
school for seminary. If you took the special courses offered
by Cathedral, you were on a fast track to become
a priest. Now, Bill tells you that he would have
become a priest. The way he puts it, he said
he found out that girls in Bishop McLaughlin High School
nearby were a lot more interesting than Gregorian chants, and
(09:26):
he knew he wasn't going to be a priest. Very
ambitious young man. At the time, it was unusual for
a middle-class kid. He got a four-year degree in history
from St.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
John's.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
He could have been a college professor. He certainly could
have been a teacher. But something called the Korean War
began 6,000 miles away. Even though he was a college graduate,
Bill joined the army and found himself on the Korean Peninsula.
He saw a lot of death and he saw a
lot of misery and war, but he never, ever talked
about it. He was of that generation of men who
(09:57):
didn't bare their souls about the things they saw in war.
When he came out of the army, almost immediately married
his lifelong sweetheart, Betty Keegan, and he needed a job.
At this point, he went back to his childhood love
and wanted to become a firefighter. He wanted to follow
his father's footsteps. However, he needed to wait for the
fire department exam, which was given only every four years. Meanwhile,
(10:21):
he was about to get married to his love, Betty,
and they wanted to start a family, so he needed
a job. He joined something called the fire patrol, which
was like a stepping stone to becoming a real fireman.
So there was a very fire known in history now
as the Worcester Street Fire. It occurred on Valentine's Day night,
February 14th, 1958, while Bill was on the fire patrol.
(10:41):
Inside the building, the heat felt to Bill like it
was melting his skin. The odor surrounding him was a thick,
toxic blend of burning rope, wood, tar, and chemicals. The
room he entered contained heavy machinery, large bales of paper,
and 800-pound rolls of twine. Fire Patrolman Theon took his
covers and climbed the massive roll of twine. At the top,
(11:02):
he was only a foot or so from the ceiling.
He could see the smoke seeping through from the room above.
After he finished covering the bale, he went down for
more covers. By then, the street was filled with rigs
and firemen. Hoses snaked into the building while water cannons
fired at the top floors. On the roof, firemen used
axes to hack holes for ventilation. Thick black smoke poured
(11:25):
out of the openings they made. In less than half
an hour, the blaze had progressed from one alarm to four.
Ten minutes later, it would go to five. Meanwhile, the
temperature outside began to plummet. Snow blew in icy gusts.
Bill went up and down the stairs two more times.
He felt a searing pain in his chest from the smoke.
(11:46):
As the young fire patrolman started down again, a fireman
was standing on the third floor landing, putting on a
mask and blocking the stairwell. When he saw Bill, he
stepped out of the doorframe. You guys go ahead of me,
he said. The next thing Bill heard was a deafening thunderclap.
The last thing he remembered was the floor beneath him
falling away. The rush of air caused by the collapse
(12:09):
lifted him and blew him down the stairwell. Screams from
inside the building were so loud, people on the street
heard them. So when Valentine's Day night turned to the
next day and Bill was supposed to be home that
morning when the shift was over, he worked the overnight
shift and he didn't show up. She started to really
get worried. And this, of course, was before cell phones
(12:30):
and he couldn't get to the phone. Four fire patrolmen
were missing in the rubble. Two New York City firefighters
were also missing. So Bill had his hands full. He
couldn't get to a phone. He couldn't call. Search continued
for the other missing fire patrolmen. The next evening, practically
a whole day later after he had gone to work,
Bill finally walked into the apartment, and Betty took one
(12:51):
look at him and, you know, caught her breath. And
he went in and took the long, hot shower, and
then he started getting dressed and walking out of the
apartment again. And she goes, where are you going? And
he goes, I got to go back. And she said,
you can't. And he said, I have to. And he
went back to the scene. And it had taken another
whole day before they found the bodies of the other
(13:12):
fire patrolmen. Bill would later joke that the Holy Ghost
blew him out of the building. So on August 20th, 1958,
a little more than two months after the Worcester Street fire,
Betty awakened in the early morning hours with severe contractions.
When they arrived, the hospital lobby was empty, save a
Catholic nun at a telephone switchboard. Betty was in severe pain.
(13:34):
The nun rushed to them. I've got her, she told Bill.
You take over the switchboard. You want me to do what,
he asked. There's no one else here, he said. Someone
has to answer the phone. The nun took Betty by
the arm and rushed down the hallway. For a moment,
Bill stood there wondering what had just happened. Then the
phone started to ring. Misericordia, he said in a voice
(13:54):
a bit unsteady. How can I help you? Betty gave
birth that morning to a healthy baby girl named Elizabeth Ann.
the third generation of Elizabeths in the Keegan line. After
a few years on the fire patrol, Bill retook the
fire department's entrance exam. Once again, he aced the written
and physical parts of the test. When he arrived for
the eye examination, the older gentleman administering the test seemed
(14:18):
to Bill to be all business. When he pressed his
face to the machine, he again had trouble making out
the last line of the chart. He squinted as hard
as he could to bring the final letter into view.
It's either a C or an O, he said nervously.
Has to be one of them, kid, the man said softly.
Bill knew his future as a New York City firefighter
(14:38):
hung in the balance. He'd just turned 30, and the
next time the test came around, he might be too
old to take it. Throughout his career in the FDNY,
he would tell the story of that eye test often.
He could never remember, however, which letter he picked. Nor
could he be sure that the letter he chose was
actually the correct one. Betty and Bill were very social.
(15:03):
They used to like to get all dolled up and
go into Manhattan to see a show or a play
and have dinner at a nice restaurant. Betty also had
a group of close-knit friends that she grew up with
and stayed close into adulthood. And she had a quirky
sense of humor, very outgoing. It was always the life
of the party. As a mom, too, she could be
very adventurous. She was a horrible driver. But that didn't
(15:27):
stop her from taking the kids on these extended road trips.
She'd find the destination of some odd event happening, and
she'd put the kids in the car and drive them
all the way to Jersey. One time, they went to
see how police dogs had trained, and she had to
go all the way from Queens to New Jersey, which
is an arduous trip. After she got pregnant with Liz,
(15:52):
she developed postpartum depression, and it got only worse with
each child. subsequent pregnancy. We got so bad by the
time she had Tara, who was the fourth born child,
she had to be hospitalized. And somehow Bill, even though
he had a big job, you know, he was already
climbing the ladder of the department. He'd cook dinner for
(16:13):
the kids or drop them off at the grandparents or
bring them to soccer or twirling practice and then go,
you know, be a captain in a very busy firehouse.
And he somehow kept it all together. But then an
event had that really sent Betty into an incredibly dark
downward spiral. She had a baby they named Michael. And
when he was about four months old, he developed a
(16:35):
condition that needed an operation. It wasn't that severe of
an operation, but it would require him to go under
general anesthetic. And Michael never woke up on the operating table.
Betty was devastated. Bill was so devoted to his wife,
he waited on her hand and foot. But he had
no answer for this depression his wife was in. And
the pressure on him was so severe, he developed these
(16:58):
headaches that were so intense that he would vomit from them.
Yet somehow he kept the family together and continued an
unprecedented climb up the ladder at the FDNY.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
And you're listening to the story of the Feehan family
as told by author Brian McDonald.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
And his book is Five Floors Up. Pick it up.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
It is one heck of a read about New York
City history.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
About Irish immigration, and also about this thing called the
New York.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
Fire Department, which now fields 11,000 firefighters. When we come back,
more of this remarkable story, the story of the Feehan family,
here on Our American Story. And we're back with Our
(18:14):
American Stories and with author Brian McDonald. The 1970s were
a tough time in New York City. Let's find out
how it affected the FDNY.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
The 1970s in the New York City Fire Department are
known as the war years. You might have heard the expression,
the Bronx is burning. Well, that's when the Bronx was
burning during the war years. And it wasn't only the Bronx.
It was Harlem. It was the Lower East Side. It
was parts of Brooklyn, all inner city neighborhoods that were
laid waste by arson, neglect, malfeasance on the part of
(18:49):
city leadership. I interviewed Tom Von Essen. who was the
fire commissioner during 9-11, but he was a firefighter in
the South Bronx during the 70s, and he told me
that dispatch used to warn the fire trucks out on
a run not to stop at other fires on the
way to the fires they were sent to fight. In Harlem,
(19:09):
because of equipment shortage and everything, the expression was all
you needed was sneakers and a raincoat to be a
firefighter in Harlem. Bill's firehouse was no different. The neighborhood
that his firehouse was lined with these five-story tenement buildings,
if you ask a New York City firefighter, they'll tell
you that fires in tenement buildings are the hardest to fight.
(19:32):
Wooden structures, narrow hallways, lots of windows, lots of people usually,
and they're made out of wood. So the tinderboxes, they
go up like a matchbook. Firefighters and Bill's Engine Company
used to say every time they got a call in
a tenement fire, it was always on the top floor
and way in the back of the building, like the
hardest place to reach the crew. So they came up
(19:53):
with this expression, five floors up and five rooms deep.
That became Rallying Cry and the title of my book,
Five Floors Up, because they go anywhere, the fire took them.
Like most firefighters with families, Bill had to moonlight. No
firefighter could raise a family just on a firefighter's salary,
and Bill was no exception. For most of the beginning
(20:15):
of his career, he taught in the New York City
school system. He was a great teacher. But in the
early 70s and the late 80s, New York City ran
out of money, and they stopped the substitute teacher program.
And Bill was out of a moonlight job, and he
needed one badly. He had three kids in college at
the time. His neighbors in Flushing was a man named
Eddie Brady, who was a detective in the New York
(20:35):
City Police Department. And Eddie was working hotel security for
Harry and Leona Helmsley, owners of, among other things, the
Helmsley Palace in New York. Now, years before Donald Trump,
Harry Helmsley was the preeminent real estate mogul in New
York City. But it was Leona who would wrestle the
Donald for the front page of the New York Post.
(20:58):
Page six dubbed her the Queen of Means. She was
so notoriously bad to her employees that her staff at
her mansion in Connecticut would call the staff at the
hotels when Leona had left for the city to warn them, right?
In time, he would realize that Leona was just a sad, sad,
lonely woman. Bill would end up working for Leona for
(21:19):
20 years. All the Fian kids would work for her
as bellhops and waitresses in the hotel restaurants. Bill would
often remind them that it was Leona who paid their
college tuition. After 20 years of working for Leona Helmsley,
she threw him a cocktail party. Things didn't work out
as nicely for her in her later years. Rudy Giuliani
(21:40):
was then the U.S. attorney in the Southern District of
New York, and he prosecuted her on tax evasion and fraud.
She ended up spending 18 months in jail. and was
sentenced to 750 hours of community service, which ballooned to
900 hours of community service after the judge found out
that Leona was using their staff to do some of
(22:00):
the court-ordered work. Bill saw a lot of changes from
the 1950s to the 1990s, including the first female firefighters,
as well as the first African-American commanders. He would always
say it wasn't brawn or even brains that were the
main ingredients of a good firefighter, but heart. When Bill
(22:22):
had time to get home and see his dad, the
two of them would sit and talk fire, as they
called it. Bill loved, revered, and respected his father. Sadly,
William Patrick Fee and Bill's dad died on February 2, 1975.
Emphysema was listed as the cause of death on his
death certificate. He never smoked in his life. In the 1980s,
(22:44):
crime was out of control and New York took on
the name Fear City. Police and firefighters became targets as
they ran towards the disaster, whatever it might be. Bill
continued his rise through the ranks and on August 19th, 1991,
Mayor David Dinkins promoted him to chief of the department.
He was only the 24th man to hold that position.
(23:09):
Two years later, on February 23, 1993, two Jordanian nationals
drove a rental truck filled with 1,300 pounds of urea
nitrate into a sub-basement garage of the North Tower of
the World Trade Center. They blew a six-story crater in
the building. It would be a harbinger of what was
to come. On June 14, 1996, Bill stood in the
(23:35):
kitchen of his house and flushing with a rotary phone
in his hand, His eyes shone with tears. Outside the
kitchen window, the first light of the day began to
filter through the leaves of the oak tree that stood
next to the house. For months, Betty had been in
and out of the hospital, progressively getting worse. By then,
the kids were out of the house and on with
(23:55):
their lives, and aside from the squirrels, Bill spent much
of his time there alone. He clicked the cradle on
the phone and dialed his best friend Henry McDonald's number.
Betty's gone, he said into the receiver. Bill's wife had
spent her last days in St. Clair's Hospital in the
Hell's Kitchen section of Manhattan. He'd fussed over Betty so
many times when she was hospitalized, making sure she had
(24:18):
what she needed and that her room was tidy. Sometimes
he'd go to see her alone, but other times he
came with the children. Afterwards, he'd take the kids to
the Woodside Steakhouse in Queens, where the Irish waitresses fussed
over them. Right to the end, Bill was crazy about Betty,
and she was crazy about him. Ultimately, there was nothing
(24:38):
he could do to save her. Betty was 62 when
she died. It was a great loss to Bill, and
he threw himself into his work. There was always the work.
The firefighters and the department. Meanwhile, his son John took
the test for the FDNY on January 17, 1995, and
(25:00):
aced it, becoming a valedictorian of his academy class. First
Deputy Commissioner Bill Feehan handed his son the award. Bill
knew the sacrifice and risk it took to become a
New York City firefighter. He had to write far too
many obituaries for fallen firefighters. In one he wrote, the
truest kind of love is to lay down your life
(25:21):
for another, but the purest form of love is to
cherish each other every day. Never leave a moment stout
that you love with your whole heart and soul. While
First Deputy Commissioner Bill was instrumental in getting better and
safer equipment, refitting firehouses, upgrading computer systems via data sharing,
(25:41):
and overall improvement of the quality of life for his firefighters.
He once said, no matter what we do, no matter
how well we train, no matter how good our equipment is,
no matter how hard we try, no matter what, the
time will come when we will lose another firefighter. Even
before September 11th, 2001 was a deadly year for the
(26:02):
New York City Fire Department. A fire in a hardware
store in Queens on Father's Day killed three elite firefighters.
Then on August 28, 2001, a 27-year-old probie firefighter named
Michael Garumba would die of a heart attack during a
fire in an auto shop on Staten Island. Firefighter Garumba's
would be the last line of duty death before 9-11.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
And you're listening to Brian McDonald tell the story of
the Feehan family, of the FDNY, and William in particular.
The 70s were indeed the war years. The Bronx was burning.
So was much of New York City, through arson, through malfeasance, criminality,
and just sheer negligence. And then the 80s, well, New
York City earned its reputation, a fear city. Murder was
(27:01):
out of control and violent crime, and the FDNY had
to live through all of it.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
And then, of course, William Feehan. Well, he faces the
loss of his bride.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
When we come back, more of the story of the
Theon family, and William Theon in particular, here on Our
American Stories. And we return to Our American Stories and
(27:40):
author Brian McDonald, his book, Five Floors Up, the heroic
family story of four generations in the FDNY. 9-11 was
a day that will live alongside Pearl Harbor as one
of the darkest days in American history. The heroism of
the men who ran towards the devastation will never truly
(28:00):
be known. One man, chief of the FDNY, Bill Feehan,
at the age of 71, had no reason to be
at ground zero on that day, and yet nothing could
stop him from working alongside his men to try and
stop the carnage.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
He would pay the ultimate price.
Speaker 3 (28:26):
When you have a department whose men and women are
expected to be ready at any moment to put their
life on the line, To go to the aid of
a stranger, even when it means that you might put
yourself in harm's way, actually in dire peril, I don't
think you could pay people to do that job. There
(28:48):
has to be something more than money that makes them
do that.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
William M. Feehan.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
So the day started like any other for Bill Feehan
that morning. He had eggs over easy at the North
Shore Diner before heading into work. He was looking forward
to having lunch with Henry McDonald, who had retired a
few months before. He was in his office in headquarters
in Brooklyn when United Flight 11 hit the North Tower.
From some of the offices in headquarters, you could see
(29:18):
the Trade Center clearly. Some reported that the shockwaves from
the impact traveled the 13 miles in an instant and
bowed the office windows. Chief Feehan called to his driver
to get the car. The second jet hit the south
tower just as Chief Bean and the other chiefs with
him reached the scene. Part of the jet's landing gear
(29:38):
slammed into the street just ahead.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
Of them.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
Peel sections of the airplane along with body parts rained
down on. The trek through the concourse to the north
tower was no less dangerous. People had already begun jumping
out the windows from the high floors. A firefighter named
Daniel Scherer was struck and killed by one of them.
The lobby in the North Tower was controlled chaos. Chiefs
had already begun sending fire companies up the stairs as
(30:03):
a steady stream of civilians came down. The first fire
officer on scene at the Trade Center that day was
Battalion Chief Joe Pfeiffer. The French film crew had been
shadowing Pfeiffer that morning for a documentary. Jules Nadei would
go on to record some of the most dramatic footage
ever shot for any documentary. One of the companies that
(30:24):
Pfeiffer sent up the stairs was Engine 33, where his
brother Kevin was the lieutenant. The brothers said a few
words to each other before Kevin entered the stairwell. It
would be the last time they talked. Though the amount
of fire officer experience in the North Tower was astounding,
none of them had ever encountered anything close to what
they were experiencing. At one point, Chief Ray Downey, a
(30:47):
special operations chief, and a nationally known collapse expert looked
at Commissioner Von Essen and told him that the buildings
could come down. Not even Downey, however, expected them to
do so as quickly as they would. After some time
in the lobby, Chief Feehan and several others left looking
for a more suitable command center location. Though setting up
(31:10):
in the lobby was protocol for high-rise fires, the location
and the fact that most of the building and inter-department
communication was failing allowed the chief very little awareness of
what was happening 90 floors above them. Many in the
lobby didn't even know the South Tower was hit by
a second jet. They found a suitable location on West Street,
(31:32):
a thoroughfare that ran on the west side of the
Trade Center. From there, Chief Feehan and the others had
their first look at the entire scene. What they witnessed
shocked them. Like a pair of giant Roman candles, the
tops of both towers were engulfed in smoke and flames.
From the windows of those high floors came dozens and
dozens of jumpers who had made the unthinkable decision. As
(31:55):
they set up magnetic command boards and handy talkie communications,
Chief Feehan looked up at the south tower again and
saw what he thought looked like twinkling Christmas lights surrounding
the building. Those lights turned out to be the tall
windows pulverizing as the building began to collapse. Though it
later was estimated that the building came down at a
(32:16):
rate of 120 miles an hour, it seemed as though
the collapse was in slow motion. The implosion sent chunks
of steel and cement hurtling outwardly, followed by a deadly
wall of debris and dust. In the 2009 documentary 9-11,
Phone Calls from the Tower, the late great columnist for
the New York Times, Jim Dwyer, called the 78th floor
(32:39):
in the South Tower the bridge point between the living
and the dead. There was a transfer floor for the
elevator banks to the lobby. After the hijacked airliner hit
the North Tower, people who worked in the upper floors
of the South Tower had massed on the 78th floor,
hoping to evacuate. When United 175 crashed into the South Tower,
(33:00):
the tip of the wing of the jet sliced through
the 78th floor like a sieve, killing and injuring scores
of people. One of the recordings from that documentary was
from Chief Oreo Palmer. He had radioed that he encountered
a number of 1045 Code Ones, the department designation for
civilian fatalities. That would be the last radio communication from
(33:25):
Chief Palmer. Meanwhile, the North Tower lobby shook violently. Father Judge,
who had always been a rock of faith at fire scenes,
walked in a kind of trance, his lips moving in prayer.
At some point, he looked up at the ceiling that
had started to split. Jesus, please end this now, he yelled.
(33:48):
The chiefs in the West Street command post ran into
the building loading dock for cover. With the power of
a hurricane gust, the wall of debris practically lifted them
off the ground as they did. Some escaped into the building.
Chief Fianna and chief of the department, Gansey, found their
way back out to the street. They looked across West
Street in disbelief. The mighty South Tower of the Trade
(34:12):
Center was gone, and in its place lay 111 stories
of twisted steel and chunks of cement. In the North
Tower lobby, Father Judge's body lay where he had asked
his Lord for help. The collapse had almost completely destroyed
(34:32):
the Marriott Hotel adjacent to the tower. Inside, crews of
firefighters were trapped or killed. Chief Feehan held one of
the few working handy talkies. He began directing a rescue
operation for those in the hotel. Chief Gansey and Ray
Downey had joined them. Within minutes, the unthinkable began to
happen again. It took some time after the collapse of
(34:54):
the North Tower for the search and rescue teams to
climb the mountain of steel and cement to reach the
location of the West Street Command Center. As they searched,
the firefighters saw something glinting in a layer of dust.
(35:15):
It was a helmet, white, with a gold front piece
that read, First Deputy Commissioner. At one point, when Chief
Theon was still in the North Tower lobby, Commissioner Van
Essen had approached him and told him he wanted him
somewhere safe. Bill was 71, about to be 72, and
the commissioner thought he was too old to be in
such a dangerous situation. In remembering the moment much later,
(35:37):
Van Essen can still imagine the incredulous look on his
first deputy's face as he said those words. For 41
years and counting, Chief Feehan had run into burning buildings,
not away from them. He wasn't about to start now.
A student of American history, Bill Feehan was a fan
of General George S. Patton's poetry. In the general's poem,
(35:59):
Through a Glass Darkly, he wrote, So forever in the
future shall I battle as of yore, Dying to be
born a fighter, but to die again once more. The
kind of heroism owned by Chief Feehan and all firefighters
who sacrificed their lives on the fire field can't die.
It must live on from generation to generation, and those
(36:20):
brave enough to answer the siren's call. Chief Feehan was
the highest ranking member of the FDNY killed in the
attack on the World Trade Center. Though a firefighter with
a career like few others perished in the rubble of
the Trade Center that day, the hero among heroes, the
chief's legacy would live on. In the late 1980s, the
(36:44):
chief's daughter, Tara, would meet Brian Davin. Brian would graduate
from the Academy just before they got married in September
of 89. Along with John Thien, Brian would respond to
the World Trade Center just after the towers fell. In
the aftermath of the attack, he was promoted to lieutenant,
then captain, and finally battalion chief as the department sought
(37:06):
to rebuild. Along the way, he and Tara would have
three children. The oldest, Connor, would follow his father's footsteps
into the FDNY. Like his great-grandfather, William Patrick Feehan, nearly
100 years before, Connor works in an engine company in
a very busy house. And like William Patrick, more times
than not, when the bell rings, Connor's on the nozzle,
(37:28):
running it into a burning building. And so it goes
for 96 years and counting. The Feehans and the Davins
have fought fires, and live lives of quiet heroism.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
And a terrific job on the editing and storytelling by
David Wild. And thanks to author Brian McDonald, his book,
Five Floors Up, the heroic family story of four generations.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
In the FDNY.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
It's a piece of New York history, certainly a piece
of fire department history. It's an Irish immigrant story, too.
But in the end, it's a story of heroism, and
public service. The story of the Feehan family, here on
Our American Stories.
Host
Lee Habeeb
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