The Sound of Footsteps

I am slowly, inexorably coming to grips with the fact that Margaret and I are not likely to spend September's final weekend in lower Manhattan, as we have done every year for the past decade.  Although it has not yet been officially cancelled, it certainly appears unlikely to me that the annual Tunnel to Towers New York City 5K, which begins on the Brooklyn side of the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel and ends in lower Manhattan shall take place this year.  Given that it is our participation in it that has brought us into the city at September's end all these years, if it is cancelled then so shall our annual pilgrimage be.  

There is no greater example of which I am aware of a family turning an unspeakable tragedy into something extraordinary than what the family of FDNY FF Stephen G. Siller, Squad 1 (Brooklyn) has done since he died while saving others at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.  Stephen Siller was the youngest of the seven Siller children.  He was orphaned by age ten after losing first his father and then, eighteen months later, his mother.  His older siblings raised him.  

FDNY FF Stephen G. Siller - Squad 1 (Brooklyn)

On the morning of September 11, 2001, FF Siller was heading to a golf game with his brothers, having just completed a twenty-four-hour shift, when he heard the call on the scanner of the North Tower being struck by a plane.  He telephoned his wife, Sally, and asked her to call his brothers to tell them he could not join them and why.  Off-duty, and with five children at home, the idea of being anywhere but at the World Trade Center was an anathema to him.  He hung up with his wife, headed back to his firehouse to grab his gear, and then headed to the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel so he could get to lower Manhattan. 

The tunnel had already been closed to vehicle traffic.  FF Siller grabbed his gear out of his truck, dressed, and started running to Manhattan through the tunnel.  As someone who has made that journey wearing shorts, a t-shirt, and running shoes I can attest firsthand to just how hot and uncomfortable an experience it is to run through that tunnel.  Discomfort did not stop Stephen Siller.  It likely did not even slow him down very much, if at all. 

He made it to the World Trade Center. There, working shoulder to shoulder with his brothers from the FDNY as well as members of the NYPD and the PA NY/NJ PD, he died.  

He was just thirty-four years young. 

Sand Sculpture Tunnel to Towers NYC 5K

Photo Credit:  Adam Kenny 

-AK