By Kathianne Boniello
When Edward Byrne looks around 248th Street’s Louis Pasteur Park, he does not see the relatively new concrete or the loud, happy middle-school students dashing around the playgrounds.
Instead the Little Neck native envisions the hectic neighborhood athletics of his youth, when the adjacent MS 67 was new and one particular “playground legend” ruled the court — Firefighter Harry Ford, who was one of three firefighters killed in last year’s Father’s Day fire in Astoria.
“This was a bit of a mecca,” said Byrne, who grew up with Ford near MS 67 and the park at 248th Street and 52nd Avenue. “This was like our world up here — Harry was a star athlete.”
For the past six months Byrne and a group of friends who grew up with Ford have been working to have the park’s ballfield renamed in honor of the Woodside firefighter.
After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, in which 343 firefighters were killed, Byrne said Ford’s family suggested a more inclusive moniker: “Firefighter’s Field.” Byrne’s group has been working with the city Parks Department on the renaming and hopes to bring the project to fruition later this year.
“We’d like to have all of the firefighters from the neighborhood included,” said Byrne.
While Byrne would like the commemorative plaque planned for Louis Pasteur Park to represent as many firefighters from Little Neck/Douglaston who have been killed as possible, he shares the problem of how to collect information about victims with MS 67.
The middle school has created an artistic memorial to the victims of Sept. 11 in the lobby of the building, which faces Marathon Parkway in Little Neck.
MS 67 Principal Mae Fong said the school would like the memorial’s March 20 dedication ceremony to be a community event which welcomes both survivors and families of Sept. 11 victims.
Fong said the school wants to reach out to potential ceremony participants without being intrusive and without excluding anyone.
“We invite Little Neck and Douglaston community members who may have suffered a loss to our ceremony,” the invitation to the March 20 ceremony said. “The students and staff will be honored to help our community look back and move forward together.”
“We would like community people participating in the ceremony to meet the artists,” said Fong, who said about 300 of the school’s 1,200 were expected to take part in the memorial’s public unveiling.
Byrne voiced a similar desire for his memorial project.
“We do not want to overlook someone who should be remembered here,” he said of Louis Pasteur Park.
To contribute information to the “Firefighter’s Field,” contact Edward Byrne at 100 North Park Ave., Rockville Centre, N.Y. 11570. By phone: 516-766-3200. By e-mail: mcb50@msn.com
To attend the MS 67 event, contact the school by March 9 at MS 67, 51-60 Marathon Pkwy., Little Neck, New York 11362, or call 718-423-8138.
Reach reporter Kathianne Boniello by e-mail at Timesledgr@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 146.
