On Father’s Day in 2001, three New York City firefighters went to a hardware store fire in Astoria and did not come home. Twenty-five years later, on the anniversary, their widows stood at the same corner where it happened.
The fire was June 17, 2001, at the Long Island General Supply Company on Astoria Boulevard at 14th Street. It was ruled an accident. Firefighters were outside the building breaking windows for ventilation when a wall collapsed on them. Dozens of people were hurt. Three firefighters were killed: Harry Ford and Brian Fahey of Rescue 4, and John Downing of Ladder 163. They left eight children without a father.
Their wives, Denise Ford, Mary Fahey, and Anne Downing, were handed the same loss on the same day. Over 25 years the three widows leaned on each other through every milestone the men missed, and together they raised those eight kids. Several of those children grew up into careers in public service and health care. One of them, Harry Ford Jr., became a firefighter himself and now serves at Ladder 108.
A fire took these families’ fathers, and a son walked back into the firehouse anyway. The years afterward, the holidays and graduations carried by widows who decided to carry them for each other, rarely make the news.
On the 25th anniversary, the families gathered for a wreath-laying back at Astoria Boulevard and 14th Street. FDNY Commissioner Lillian Bonsignore was there, and members of the families spoke, including a daughter, Joanne Downing, and Mary Fahey. Twenty-five years on, nobody has forgotten Harry Ford, Brian Fahey, or John Downing, and the people they left behind are still together.
Three firefighters died at Astoria Boulevard and 14th Street on a Father’s Day. Eight kids grew up in their absence, and three women made sure none of them did it alone.
