Braving the Waves: Rockaway Rises .and Rises Again

The true story of those from Rockaway, New York who ran to help on September 11, and then faced another unprecedented tragedy when American Airlines Flight 587 nose-dived into their small community.

Few places--other than Ground Zero itself--can more acutely mark before and after September 11 and November 12, 2001 than the Harbor Light, a neighborhood pub in Rockaway, located in the shadows of Manhattan’s skyscrapers.

-Before, you might meet regular customer, George Johnson, there. After, he’s one of the flag-raising firefighters in the now-famous photo reminiscent of the marines at Iwo Jima.

-Before, you might bump into Mike Moran. After, he’s the firefighter immortalized on a best-selling CD, who told a packed Madison Square Garden that Osama Bin Laden could "kiss his royal Irish ass."

-Before, young stockbrokers would get a good-natured ribbing from their firefighting buddies for choosing the "safe" career path. After, you’d find they weren’t so safe after all.

-Before—in fact, just the night before—you might have seen Tommy Carroll and Danny Suhr yelling at the Giants as they were losing the season opener to the Denver Broncos. After, Tommy is the guy who got lucky. A fire company was short a man so he filled in. Had he stayed with his regular crew, he’d be dead—just like the rest of them. Truth is, he’s not so lucky. He can still hear the sound of humans hitting the ground from 100 stories above him. And Danny? He’s dead … killed by one of the jumpers.

-Before, you’d meet Pete Hayden, Deputy Chief FDNY, having a beer with his brother Jack, who moonlights behind the bar when he’s not fighting fires himself. After, you wouldn’t see Pete much. He stayed at Ground Zero, working every day for two months straight. When he finally decided to give himself a day off, he picked November 12—the day American Airlines Flight 587 crashed into his Rockaway neighborhood … right next to the Harbor Light.

From a sea wall in Rockaway, Kevin Boyle watched as the twin Towers burned and then crumbled. He was close enough to the crash of Flight 587 that his eyes dried from the heat of the hellish fire.

Boyle has spent his life in Brooklyn and Rockaway. He was editor of Rockaway’s only newspaper, The Wave, for five years and continues his relationship with the paper as a regular columnist. Boyle has been published in The Washington Post, New York Newsday, and the New York Post. He has a master’s degree in radio and television from Brooklyn College. Before becoming editor of The Wave, he operated a sports bar in Brooklyn called The Brooklyn Dodger.