FDNY honors 36 members who died of WTC illnesses to be added to memorial wall

The FDNY on Wednesday honored 36 heroes whose names will be added to the department’s World Trade Center Memorial Wall following their deaths due to 9/11-related illnesses.

“On Sept. 11, as it is every day, the men and women of the FDNY went to work protecting this city,” Mayor Mamdani said at the ceremony inside the FDNY’s Brooklyn headquarters. “You did not hesitate. You ran toward horror so that others could run toward home. That work never truly stopped.”

“FDNY members stayed on the pile day and night recovering those killed, including the 343 active duty members who lost their lives that day.”

Among those honored at Wednesday’s ceremony was Deputy Chief James J. Riches, who died late last year after suffering from WTC-related illnesses. He was 74.

Riches’ fatal illness resulted from breathing the toxic air at Ground Zero as he searched for his son, Firefighter Jimmy Riches, who died responding to the attack on Sept. 11, one day before his 30th birthday.

“My dad spent months down there looking for my brother,” said James’ son Thomas Riches. “His later years in retirement were marked by illness because of the air down at the Trade Center. We’re here to honor his memory and everything he did.”

“We understand as a family that passing it on to the next gen and keeping their memory alive… is what’s more important,” Thomas said. “It’s part of never forgetting.”

The memorial wall, a 56-foot-long bronze monument located at Engine Company 10 in lower Manhattan, was originally dedicated to the 343 members of the Fire Department who perished on 9/11. The names of 402 fire and EMS personnel who later succumbed to illnesses from exposure to the toxic dust around Ground Zero have since been added. The 36 members honored Wednesday bring that number to 438.

“The tragedy did not end when the rescue and recovery efforts were over,” FDNY Commissioner Lillian Bonsignore said. “For decades afterward, our members continued to become ill from the toxic environment they willingly entered in the service of others. Hundreds more have died of World Trade Center-related illnesses.

“For their families, the passage of time doesn’t lessen the loss of the empty chair at the table, the missed birthdays and anniversary milestones they never got to celebrate.”

But she added, “Even in our sorrow there is gratitude, gratitude for the profound service, gratitude for the lives lived with purpose, gratitude for the time we were given with these remarkable men and women, gratitude for the examples they set.”