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Those Who Lost Are Ready to Give

BY DENNIS DUGGAN | Newsday Columnist

December 7, 2003

You would think that after the double hit that the Rockaways - especially Belle Harbor - took, losing many of their residents on 9/ 11 and then two months later losing more when Flight 587 crashed in their New England-style village, that thinking of someone else's problems this Christmas would be out of the question.

Think again. Because the spirit of giving is an old but treasured habit in this salt-sprayed, lovely village by the Atlantic Ocean. It's a place where people still can leave their doors unlocked and where neighbors are welcome to drop in for a cup of coffee in the morning.

That spirit of giving is alive and well here, and if you find it hard to believe that after all the tragedy and loss the community has absorbed here, get this: They are trying to raise money for the firefighters on the West Coast who lost their homes to the deadly fires that destroyed almost 3,000 homes.

Several of those homes belonged to volunteer and regular firefighters. "They went out to fight the fires, and when they returned some of them were shocked to find there was nothing left but a smoldering ruin where their home once stood," says Flip Mullen, a retired city firefighter who is leading the charge to raise needed Christmas money for those firefighters.

Mullen, 59, is a story unto himself. He is the father of seven children, all of whom have college degrees. He worked out of a busy firehouse in Brownsville and he teaches handicapped children to ski on weekends during the winter.

He says, "I am the luckiest man in the world," and now he is in the midst of a hurry-up campaign to raise money for the newly homeless West Coast firefighters, some of whom now live in trailers or crammed apartments with their relatives.

The idea came to Mullen just a few days ago and so he is in a hurry-up mode. Larry Gray, also a former firefighter and a Belle Harbor neighbor, has been put in charge of the fund-raising operation and is calling around to people such as former firefighters Lee Ielpe and Pete Hayden, who have agreed to help.

"When I was a firefighter, whenever we got a call to go to a home on fire, we would put out the fire and leave. Then we would come back the next day to do a salvage operation - put plastic sheeting over the windows, patch the roof, little things like that. But they meant a lot to people who had lost their homes," he says.

The group has enlisted the support of the Graybeards, a nonprofit group headquartered in Belle Harbor whose motto is "Old Maybe, but Not Extinct." The group was once a fun-and-games outfit, but after 9/ 11 it decided to get serious about helping people who needed help.

"It's a great idea," says Kevin Boyle, 47, a columnist for the weekly Rockaway newspaper The Wave, and author of "Braving the Waves: Rockaway Rises and Rises Again" (Rising Star Press), which is how this little-known slice of land in Queens coped with its double tragedy.

Doyle credits Flip Mullen for the idea of helping the firefighters on the West Coast and for the slogan "Rockaway Remembers," which will be seen all over the Rockaways leading up to Christmas.

Steve Stathis, president of the Graybeards, explains why his group decided to support the effort to help the West Coast firefighters.

"When we needed help," he says, "they were there for us, as were so many other people all over the country. They are getting help from FEMA and from other groups, but what they need right now is money, and I have no idea how much money we can raise in such a short time. It could be $5,000 or it could be $50,000."

Several of the homeless are volunteer firefighters and it is a little-known but important story how much volunteers here helped the New York City firefighters during the aftermath of 9/11, when 343 firefighters marched into burning buildings and never came back out.

"They gave us their rigs to use and equipment when we were spread thin, and we were attending all those funerals in the city and out on Long Island," Gray says.

The New York City firefighters were even invited to visit San Diego after 9/11. They were treated like royalty by firefighters and even played a football game with them to help raise funds.

I talked to Danny Noonan, a former New York City firefighter who now lives there and who was Grand Marshal of the San Diego St. Patrick's Day Parade this year.

Noonan, who will be coordinating efforts to raise funds with his former pals on the East Coast, teaches at a local college in San Diego. He said there were 11 firefighters whose homes were burned to the ground during the time they were fighting the forest fires.

Noonan is also a former resident of Belle Harbor, where he lived during the decade or so that he worked in the South Bronx and the Lower East Side.

"These guys put their lives on the line to fight those fires," he says, "and they lost everything. They lost everything and now it is up to us to help them when they need it most."

Contributions to the West Coast firefighters can be sent to The Graybeards, 436 Beach 129th St., Rockaway NY 11694. Visit www.graybeards.com for more information.