Raccoon Lodge, a place for 9/11 memories

As family members streamed out from the World Trade Center site after the anniversary ceremony Sunday, firefighters in dress uniforms packed into a nearby bar.

"It's a time when music plays loud and you just get away," said Kevin O'Brien, 57, smoking a cigarette outside the Raccoon Lodge on Warren Street near West Broadway. O'Brien, a Staten Islander who was in the FDNY's special operations unit that he said lost 94 men on 9-11, doesn't plan to come back next year.

"It's my last one," he said. "I did it ten years and I think it's time. It hurts too much."

The bar has been a regular stop for many firefighters after 9-11 ceremonies. Firefighters from Chicago and New Jersey and other places walked past a sidewalk placard reading "9-11-01 We Will Never Forget and We Will Carry On" to bond with and support the New York firemen. Some said the bar was one of the spots where they would take beaks from work on the "pile," as the debris from the World Trade Center was called during the clean up.

While old friends smiled and gave warm handshakes, many grumbled that they hadn't had access to the site this year for the ceremonies as they have been in past years.

"Ten years ago we all went down there,' said Capt. Michael Bernstein, 46, of Engine 253. "It seems like ten years later the mayor forgot us."

Firefighters instead paid their respects at Engine 10, Ladder 10 across the street from the site.

But Patrick Martin, 52, a retired firefighter from Farmingville who had been with Engine 305 offered a conciliatory note on account of the volume of first responders who wanted to be there.

"I was annoyed we weren't invited, but I can understand," he said.