We Remember Carl Molinaro, NYFD, 9/11/2001

"Everybody that knew Carl loved Carl, especially me," said Donna Molinaro, in an interview in October, 2001. Mrs. Molinaro is the widow of firefighter Carl Molinaro. He died in New York City in the collapse of One World Trade Center while aiding building evacuation with Ladder Company 2, on September 11, 2001. Nearly 15,000 lives were saved through evacuation that fateful morning.

Carl was only 32. His newborn son was just three weeks old, and his daughter only 3 at the time of the attack on America. A native of Brooklyn, he had moved to Tottenville on Staten Island in his childhood, played football for Tottenville High, and was raising his family in the same neighborhood.

Carl was remembered by famous writer Kurt Vonnegut at a Memorial Service held on October 23, 2001. In that speech, Vonnegut--whose own life and house had been saved by firfighters just two years earlier--referred to an earlier quote of his, "I can think of no more stirring symbol of man's humanity to man than a fire truck."

Clearly, Carl was as taken by firefighting as was Vonnegut, moving from working in his Dad's New Jersey furniture factory to learning to be a firefighter in his late 20's. His life and contribution to the survivors of 9/11 is memorialized in nearly 2,000 online tributes to him.

This tribute is part of Project 2996, an online initiative which remembers the victims of the terrorist attacks upon the United States on 9/11/2001.