Nassau exhibit honors local 9/11 heroes
From left, firefighter Peter Langone and his brother, Thomas. Peter was with Engine Company #252 from Bushwick, Brooklyn and Thomas was an Emergency Service Police Officer with ESU Truck #10 in Flushing, Queens. Both brothers were also members of the Roslyn Rescue Fire Department. Credit: Handout
Thomas Langone's job was to respond to the worst emergencies, construction accidents, hostage takings, bus crashes, explosions. He and other members of the NYPD's Emergency Service Unit knew how to rappel from helicopters, detect nerve agents, climb bridges and scuba dive.
He was among the first to arrive at the World Trade Center 10 years ago on Sunday. Langone, 39, of Williston Park, husband of JoAnn, father of Caitlin and Brian, who were then children and are now adults, was in the south tower guiding people out of the building when it collapsed. JoAnn Langone later heard reports from a rookie cop of a tall, slender, gray-haired ESU officer on the 20th floor.
"I'm sure it was my husband," she said.
Langone's older brother Peter, 41, who lived in Roslyn Heights, was a firefighter with Squad 252 in Bushwick, Brooklyn. He and his squad responded to the fifth alarm, reporting to the north tower. The brothers never saw each other that day, as far as anyone knows.
Long before the Langone brothers went to work in the city, they were volunteers in their local fire station, the Roslyn Rescue Fire Company. Their father was its former chief, and the Langone boys practically grew up in the station.
The Langones are among 18 local volunteer firefighters (most worked professionally as firefighters, police officers and paramedics in the city) who died that day and are part of a temporary exhibit at the Nassau County Firefighters Museum and Education Center -- called "Lives of Service; Celebrating the Heroes of September 11" -- which opens Friday at the museum's annual Badge of Courage banquet.
The focal point of the 5,000-square-foot exhibit is a ring of panels with biographies and photographs of the 18 men. In the center of the ring, the twin towers are depicted with strands of hanging beads. The exhibit also features video footage of the attack, interviews with family members, and personal possessions from the men.
In all, 15 volunteer fire departments in Nassau County are represented in the exhibit.
Volunteers put in hours of their own time at risk to their lives out of a sense of "community," said Chief John Murray, the head instructor at the museum and a lifelong firefighter.
"Fire service is a tradition passed down in a family," said Murray, who is among 25 in his family who have called themselves firefighters.
Keith Fairben, 23, was the youngest of the 18 men in the exhibit, and the only child of Ken and Diane Fairben. He was a burly 6-foot-4 with a baby face, which made him look even younger than he was.
He lived with his parents in Floral Park, where he followed in his father's footsteps and volunteered with the Floral Park Fire Department while still in high school, taking its basic emergency medical technician course. (His mother also worked as an EMT.) On the day he died, he was to interview for a job closer to home, with the Nassau County EMS.
Fairben and his partner were among the very first to arrive at the towers. He spent most of that morning in the plaza, performing triage.
Ken Fairben reached his son on his cellphone at 9 a.m. "I can't talk right now, Dad, it's just crazy here," he told his father.
"Be careful," Fairben said to his son. "I'll see you tonight."
"That's the last time I talked to him," he said.
Six months after the attack, workers recovered Keith Fairben's body intact.
"This," his mother said, waving her arm around the museum, "is Keith's home. This is where he belongs."
