By Jeremy Walsh
They died as heroes and now, eight years down the line, northeast Queens paused to remember them once more.
City Councilman Tony Avella’s (D-Bayside) annual 9/11 Memorial Motorcade made its run Sunday to 16 street corners named after firefighters and civilians who died in the terrorist attacks and one soldier killed in Iraq. All either grew up in or had significant ties to College Point, Whitestone, Flushing, Bayside or Douglaston.
The councilman started the event in 2005, three years after he began sponsoring the street renamings. The street signs honor Firefighters Michael Elferis, Michael Haub, Michael Carlo, Carl Asaro, Timothy Welty, Michael Mullan, Andrew Brunn, Christopher Racaniello and Thomas Casoria, along with Battalion Chief Lawrence Stack, Captains James Corrigan and Vincent Giammona and Deputy Fire Commissioner William Feehan. Also honored are civilians Thomas Shubert and Glenn Travers as well as PFC James Prevete, who was killed in Iraq in 2004 after enlisting in the U.S. Army in wake of the terrorist attack.
Avella drove the florist’s van full of flowered wreaths through the afternoon. He remembered the renaming ceremony for Bayside resident Giamonna, who had five young daughters at the time of the attack, as the most tearful.
“To see the family he left behind, I can’t express the emotion all of us felt,” he said.
Corrigan, a former firefighter, was fire director for the World Trade Center Sept. 11, 2001. A squad of firefighters lined up and saluted at the corner named for him on Francis Lewis Boulevard and 35th Avenue in Bayside.
“It’s a great honor,” said Corrigan’s son, Brendan, who joined the department after the attack. “The city hasn’t listed him on any walls or memorials.”
In Whitestone, family members came from as far as Albany and Middletown to pay their respects to Asaro.
“Carl watches over them, I’m sure,” said Asaro’s sister, Sally, who visited the corner of Willets Point Boulevard and 147th Street along with her brother’s widow Heloise, son Carl Jr. and daughter Rebecca.
“For each one of you guys being here, that’s what keeps us going,” Heloise Asaro said.
Remembrance was also tearful for the family and loved ones of Douglaston resident Racaniello, who had sent out invitations to his wedding Sept. 10, 2001.
“Though life goes on, there is always still a special place in my heart,” said a teary Lisa Greco, Racaniello’s former fiancée. “He was my first kiss.”
Racaniello’s father, Frank, is growing a flower garden with one bloom for every American killed during the attacks and the subsequent military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“As parents, you never move on,” he said. “Wives and husbands can move on. Parents never can.”
In the face of loss, some families strengthened their resolve in their own ways. The family of Travers, a Bayside electrician who died in one of the towers, for example, named his granddaughter Hope when she was born several months later.
“After all these years, it doesn’t get any easier,” said Travers’ widow, Barbara. “I just wish Glenn was here.”
Reach reporter Jeremy Walsh by e-mail at jewalsh@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 154.
