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Story by Luis Perez, Staff Writer Sunday, September 13, 2003
Fallen Firefighter Honored
| The corner of 35th Street and Broadway in Astoria was renamed Saturday for a kid from the block, Firefighter Paul Gill of Engine Company 54 in Manhattan, described by family and friends as a soft-spoken, artistic soul who deeply loved his Queens neighborhood. It was a simple ceremony, of a type that has occurred hundreds of times across the city in the last two years. Yet in other ways, it was anything but simple. Standing in solemn row upon row in their crisp blue ceremonial uniforms were 300 or so firefighters -- a stark mirror-image of the 343 firefighters who perished when the towers fell on Sept. 11, 2001. Firefighter Steven Cycan of Ladder Company 116 in Long Island City, where Gill was a probationary firefighter months before the attacks, evoked the assemblage moments before the new street sign was unveiled. "I believe that Paul is in a better place and I believe it is he, and not I, that is a member of the greatest fire department, in heaven," Cycan said. Gill, 34, was among the first to respond to the attack, rushing to the World Trade Center with 14 members of the Hell's Kitchen firehouse, also home to Ladder Company 4 and Battalion 9. Years earlier, Gill helped a local woman escape from a raging fire, his family has said, an experience that inspired him to become a firefighter in 1999. That devotion to the calling drew firefighters from Los Angeles to Saturday's ceremony. Twenty of them came to New York for the second anniversary. "The bottom line is that what happened on 9/11 could have been L.A.," said Capt. Howard Kaplan of the Los Angeles City Fire Department, who participated in recovery efforts here. "Our department could have been wiped out. And I expect that New York would have been there for us had this happened to us -- in a heartbeat." Local firefighters remembered Gill for his quiet nature and his many talents: cook, carpenter, tattoo artist. A sketchbook could always be found under his arm, even when he was in the fire truck. "The guys would always marvel at the tattoos that he had," said Engine 54 Capt. Tom Venditto, noting that Gill designed many of them. "He was always talking about the next one he was going to get." Gill never talked about leaving the two-story Astoria home in which he was raised, said his mother, Lorraine Gill Betancourt. He was happiest when he was temporarily stationed at Engine 261 around the corner, his colleagues said. Among the scores of family and friends at the ceremony were Gill's two sons, Joshua, 13, and Aaron, 16. Counting Saturday's street renaming, four Astoria streets have been dedicated to people who perished at the trade center. "Sometimes the City Council is ridiculed. They say all we do is street name changes," Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. (D-Astoria) said in dedicating the sign. "But on a day like today, I feel it is the most important thing we do."
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