Firehouse crews now answer emergency calls while serving as daily 9/11 memorial
Sal Argano was on loan to a Brooklyn fire station on Sept. 11, 2001, when hijacked jets struck the World Trade Center. He rushed downtown after the attacks to find his Manhattan firehouse badly damaged but still standing. Almost 25 years later, the 65-year-old is the last firefighter assigned to the small firehouse across the intersection from the twin towers who still works there, the Associated Press reported.
Argano would later learn that six of his colleagues at the station were among the 343 New York City firefighters killed in the towers’ collapse.
“If I wasn’t sent out on rotation there would have been a good chance I would not be here today,” Argano told the AP. “I think about that all the time.”
The firehouse where Argano remains on duty sits just across an intersection from where the twin towers stood. Across the city, 343 New York City firefighters died in the World Trade Center’s collapse on Sept. 11, 2001. Today the crews at the firehouse respond to emergency calls but also serve as a de facto part of the 9/11 memorial, visited by crowds of tourists daily, according to the AP.