Tunnel to Towers Run Honors 9/11 Victims Despite Nor’easter Rain

If it rains—you get wet. This was the guiding counsel of America’s largest 9/11 charity event, the 24th Annual Tunnel to Towers 5K Run/ Walk from Red Hook, Brooklyn through the Battery Tunnel and up to Warren Street, on Sunday morning Sept. 27, a time well within the swirling bands of the large nor’easter that blew into the city over that weekend.

In the low-lying peninsula of Red Hook, high tide Saturday morning saw Gowanus Bay spilling over Valentino Pier, the foot of Van Brunt Street flooded—and Tunnels to Towers staff setting up the starting area and festooning the Battery Tunnel’s perimeter with hundreds of American flags.

This decision was correct: the tide would recede, the wind and rain were manageable, and come Sunday, more than 45,000 participants, friends, event staff and volunteers were descending on Red Hook anyway. With temperatures in the low 60s, they’d survive a few damp hours and compared to the sacrifices made by those on 9/11—it was nothing, and it’s what they signed up for.

If the Tunnel to Towers (T2T) story is by now a familiar one it’s worth retelling. The event honors the memory of firefighter, Stephen Gerard Siller. A member of FDNY Squad 1 in Park Slope, Brooklyn, on Sept. 11, 2001, the 34-year-old Siller had gotten off duty and was driving to play golf with his brothers on Staten Island when the North Tower of the World Trade Center was hit at 8:46 a.m.

Hearing the news on his scanner, Siller rushed back to the firehouse, retrieved his gear and tried to drive to the World Trade Center to help. Finding the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel closed to private vehicles, Siller ditched his car and ran the nearly two miles into lower Manhattan carrying 60 pounds of gear on his back.

Siller died sometime following the collapse of the South Tower at 9:59 a.m. He was survived by a wife, five children and other family. His body was recovered on March 19, 2002.

Eleven other members of Squad 1 also died that morning, including firefighter Gary Box, 37. He left behind a wife, two children and other family. His body has never been recovered, and the exact circumstances of his death remain unknown.

There is, however, a last image of Box, discovered in the 9/11 archives in 2009. It shows Box on foot, in full turnout gear, making his way through the Battery Tunnel as the Squad 1 truck is stuck in traffic behind him. For those who know the photograph—which is perhaps underknown because of the time lapse in its discovery—the image is indelible.

Let Us Do Good

It’s also a direct link to the selfless last hours of Stephen Siller’s life and what’s become, via T2T, his immense legacy. How that first time event became the largest 9/11-related charity, and how it expanded its mission from assisting 9/11 first responders and their families to also materially aiding Gold Star families and severely wounded military veterans is the subject of Tunnel to Towers Foundation CEO Frank Siller recent book, “Let Us Do Good,“ recently published by Broadside Books. The title comes from a saying of St. Francis of Assisi, which Siller heard from his parents—devout Catholics like himself— “While we have time, let us do good.”

Unlike many non-profit government organizations, much of whose spending goes to the self-enrichment of executives, T2T has a demonstrable record of doing good with minimal frills. This success has bred success, with thousands of T2T related events nationwide raising money for the cause which besides material assistance, including permanent affordable housing for veterans, 9/11 education programs and scholarships for the children of first responders and veterans.

Let Us Get Wet

As T2T’s signature event has become so huge, if not impersonal, it’s difficult to convey its scale. The logistics alone are daunting, with participants arriving by ferry, the distant F or G subway, driving to and trying to find parking in adjacent neighborhood (because much of Red Hook is closed off for the event) or, as some of out-of-town firefighters do, taking a chartered bus and getting dropped off near the Battery Tunnel.

All of this is exclusive of the large police and other security present, the fleets of trucks that transport runner’s bags to Manhattan, and all the other event logistics, including a post-race food and a concert in Rockefeller Park. The emotional peak of the event is not the actual finish, it is when runners emerge from the Battery Tunnel met by memorial banners for all of 9/11’s first responder victims often held by current firefighters from their former house.

Depending on one’s starting wave, T2T participants—with firefighters especially coming from around the world, nation and region—might be outside for hours and almost a mile from the start. One familiar name spotted among the firefighters was Vecsey, formally Captain Taylor Kari Vecsey of the Bridgehampton, Long Island volunteer fire department, and the daughter of famed basketball reporter Peter Vecsey.

Tucked into Taylor’s helmet was a memorial card for FDNY firefighter Ray Casey, who her proud father recalled as “a dear friend & bball compadre at Harvey World (next to firehouse, 14th St, 1st Ave) who served that day and for months afterward on site, which affected his physical & mental health thereafter.”

Ceremony & Sacrifice

Spirits and camaraderie remained high throughout the waiting, however, with large video screens with loudspeakers set up to keep everyone in the corrals abreast of the ceremony unfolding at the Tunnel, which was broadcast nationally by Fox.

Also attracting attention to sharp-eyed participants were a a number of local landmarks: the Red Hook Ikea, built, with park-like amenities adjacent, upon the historic Todd Shipyard site: Red Hook Houses, the largest NYCHA project in Brooklyn, with around 5,000 residents; and the imposing Gothic edifice of the Church of the Visitation of St. Mary, completed in 1898. First largely Irish, then Italian, the parish is today mostly Hispanic. Just up Richards Street from the church, is the stationhouse of FDNY Engine Company 202 / Ladder Company 101, aka the Red Hook Raiders, who lost seven men on 9/11.

Up by the tunnel, NYPD Chief Charles Minch, Commanding Officer of Patrol Borough Brooklyn South, was on the scene, as were this years T2T celebrity guests, the affable cooking personality Guy Fieri and Barstool Sports-founder Dave Portnoy. Whatever the latter’s abrasive public persona, Portnoy was warm and modest interacting with the firefighters, other first responders and 9/11 victim family members who comprised the opening wave of the runners.

Among them was John Herold, older brother by a year of Gary Herold, 44, of Farmingdale, Long Island. John was living in Arizona on 9/11, while Gary was a risk management supervisor for Aon insurance on the 98th floor of the South Tower. “When 9/11 happened, he called his wife, I think twice, and just left messages— a plane hit the North Tower, across from his,” John recalled. “He told her everything was fine, there was stuff going on and that he’s OK.” A co-worker of Gary’s called the Herold family after 9/11 to tell them that Gary had “walked her to the stairwell, gave her a hug and said, ‘I’m going to go back and make sure everyone else is out.’”

John, who with his wife Stella, has since became a race director for Tunnel to Towers events in Phoenix, stood out among those near the tunnel because of the carefully folded flag he was carrying in a clear plastic pouch, inside of which was a photo of a smiling middle-aged with a beard and mustache—Gary Herold, “Forever in our hearts.”

”I came for for the 25th anniversary,” John explained, “And I’m going to take him with me.” Gary was also survived by a wife and three young children, including a daughter, Jennifer, now 41. Jennifer, who now has three children of her own, has told them, “Pop-Pop was a hero. He helped people get out of the tower when bad men crashed the planes.”