Raymond
Downey September 12, 2001 Hundreds of New York City firefighters
and police officers were believed dead following the collapse
of the World Trade Center towers, including the confirmed deaths
of several high-ranking officers, a chaplain and a nationally
known chief of rescue operations that led a team of New York firefighters
to Oklahoma City in 1995 in the aftermath of the bombing of a
federal building. Mayor Rudolph Giuliani announced the deaths
of the firefighters at a news conference last night, saying he
recently held a party to honor Ray Downey, chief of special operations
command, who was in charge of the Oklahoma contingent. Also killed
were First Deputy Commissioner William Feehan and Peter Ganci,
chief of the department. Awarded the moniker "God" by fellow firefighters
who revered him for his lifesaving skills, Downey directed the
emergency efforts after the bombings in Oklahoma City, and at
the World Trade Center in 1993, as well as after hurricanes in
the Dominican Republic and elsewhere. He was at the scene yesterday,
as usual, when the towers collapsed. "We really don't know," said
his distraught daughter Kathy Ugalde, who had gathered in a vigil
at her parents' home with 30 friends and family, clinging to prayers
he might yet be recovered from the rubble. Downey's sons Joseph
and Charles, also city firefighters, were on the job last night
hoping they might help find him. Ugalde said Charles Downey, a
lieutenant, had spoken with a firefighter who had been talking
with Downey when the first tower collapsed and seen him survive
it. "Then the second building went down, and the guy said he saw
my father running, and that's the last thing they knew," Ugalde
said. "My brother [Charles] called and said, 'We're going to get
him Mom, we're going to get him, we know where he is,'" Kathy
Ugalde said. But unstable buildings in the area have stalled rescue
efforts. "They're dying to get in there and find him," she said.
Just last month, Downey was honored by Giuliani at Gracie Mansion
with a dinner for 100 and presented with a crystal apple in recognition
of his contributions to the city. Downey's other son Joseph found
out about his father's nickname after joining the department,
when fellow firefighters kept teasingly calling him 'Jesus.' "It's
ironic, he's an expert in collapses and now he's in one," Ugalde
said. "I just feel like my dad saved so many people this way,
I just want someone to save him. I just think he deserves it."
Copyright © 2001, Newsday, Inc.
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September
13, 2001 Capt. Raymond Downey, known nationally for developing
innovative rescue techniques, was also missing. He led a team
from New York sent to help after the federal building in Oklahoma
City was bombed. Excerpt from Newsday
************************
A Legend's Family Keeps Hope for Him Alive By Elizabeth Moore
STAFF WRITER September 13, 2001 Among the elite rescue firefighters
who served under him, Ray Downey was held in awe for his uncanny
ability to arrive at a major disaster and size up the mayhem with
little more than a glance. In a quiet voice, with no discussion,
he would start doling out instructions and assignments and call
for equipment no one had thought of. Somehow, miraculously, the
chaos would transform itself into a smooth and orderly rescue
operation. That's why his fellow New York City firefighters called
him "God." And one of the reasons his family believes the mayor
of New York and leading media organizations spoke too soon when
they listed him as dead. While CNN and The Associated Press ran
stories yesterday listing the nationally renowned special operations
chief as killed in the collapse of the World Trade Center, his
two firefighter sons searched the rubble in hopes of finding him
alive. The rest of his family lobbied their congressman, led prayers
in church and called newspapers to keep him on the list of the
living. "My father is not dead," his third son, teacher Ray Downey,
insisted early yesterday morning, after reading the morning papers.
"They have not found him. People are going to stop praying for
him. He's still in there. We're still praying, and I still want
everyone else to pray." The Twin Towers fell down over and over
on the big TV screen in his daughter Marie Tortorici's Deer Park
living room yesterday morning as friends and family milled in
and out of the house, waiting for word from her brothers Chuck
and Joe Downey. Chuck, a fire lieutenant, and Joe, a captain,
were following up on tips from firefighters who thought they were
the last to see him alive. So far, none of the sightings had panned
out. But the reports have given the family hope, another daughter,
Kathy Ugalde, said Tuesday night, recalling one promising lead
from a firefighter who had seen Downey running from the billowing
dust of the falling second tower. Ugalde said Chuck called her
mother, Rosalie, and said, "We're going to get him, Mom, we're
going to get him. We know where he is." But a few hours later,
the family was taken by surprise when Giuliani held a televised
press conference listing Downey among the dead. Ray Downey had
just phoned a reporter to say his father might still be alive.
"My brother went to two morgues and it was not him, so there is
still hope he's under the rubble, breathing." New York City firefighters
know they are viewed as the nation's toughest, but they drop their
swagger when Downey's name is mentioned. The operations chief
led an FDNY emergency rescue team to Oklahoma City and directed
recovery work after the first bombing at the World Trade Center
in 1993. He was honored by the mayor at a dinner at Gracie Mansion
just last month. Friends say he planned to retire next year at
age 64. After years as captain of the busiest rescue squad in
Brooklyn, Downey helped pioneer a national network of eight search
and rescue teams under the federal Emergency Management Agency.
Many of the members of the eight FEMA teams now searching for
him were his trainees. And in his spare time, he traveled across
the country preaching the need to prepare for terrorism, said
Hal Bruno, chairman of the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation.
"The general consensus in the current atmosphere is that the next
war we fight will be in an urban area," Downey told Newsday in
1997. Downey also helped teach some of his techniques to senior
commanders of the Marine Corps and the Navy, running combat scenarios
in high-rise buildings and sewers, some of them in the trade center
neighborhood, in 1997. "It's ironic, he's an expert in collapses
and now he's in one," Ugalde said Tuesday night. "I just feel
like my dad saved so many people this way, I just want someone
to save him." Ugalde said her brother Joe learned his father's
nickname after joining the department, when fellow firefighters
kept teasingly calling him "Jesus." But by yesterday morning,
after seven members of Joe Downey's squad were lost and his father
remained missing, the religious kidding turned into real novenas
and a stubborn refusal to lose faith. Giuliani's announcement
was "a miscommunication," Ugalde said, as she stood on the driveway
outside the Deer Park high ranch she shared with her parents.
A few feet away on the lawn, a handpainted wooden sign promised
"Grandma and Grandpa: Hugs and Kisses. Sleepovers. Milk and Cookies."
An American flag was planted on the other side of the driveway.
As Ugalde talked, her daughter, Gina, chimed in that she had been
facing a similar miscommunication problem at John F. Kennedy Intermediate
School in Deer Park. She said her third-grade class was summoned
to an assembly at which her grandfather's name was mentioned as
among those killed in the attack. "I told them it wasn't true,"
she said, fingering the two rosaries her mother had given her
that morning. "He's not dead!" repeated a woman serving at the
12:15 Mass at St. Cyril and St. Methodius Roman Catholic Church,
where the firefighter's family joined with 150 other congregants
to pray for him and others missing in the attack. U.S. Rep. Steve
Israel (D-Huntington) picked up the mantra yesterday evening after
receiving two calls from the family. He went to the floor of Congress
to insist that it was too early to pronounce Ray Downey dead.
Israel said a Downey family member told him that Oklahoma Gov.
Frank Keating called yesterday to convey his condolences, but
the family asked for his prayers instead. As the hours ground
on last night, there still was no good news for the Downey family.
"Nothing yet," Tortorici said as she waited by the phone. Copyright
© 2001, Newsday, Inc.
************************
A
first responder's wisdom September 17, 2001 Among the missing
in the rubble of the World Trade Center towers is a man known
among New York City firefighters as "God," Raymond Downey, chief
of special operations and a nationally recognized expert in rescue.
Downey - who was on the scene in the World Trade Center immediately
after the terrorist bombing in 1993 - had been a booming voice
for the modernization of rescue and recovery units by local departments,
the "first responders" across the country. Three years ago, he
appeared before a congressional committee and warned of the nation's
lack of preparedness for weapons of mass destruction. He dared
to imagine the unspeakable, a threat many Americans might have
dismissed until Tuesday: Not jumbo jets turned into human-guided
missiles, but chemicals weapons. What would have happened, Downey
asked the committee, had the 50,000 occupants of the World Trade
Center complex been exposed to deadly chemicals? "Not a fire department
in the United States could have handled an incident involving
a chemical agent affecting this many victims," he said. "Why?
Lack of sufficient funding and training for weapons of mass destruction.
"What would happen if it occurred today? Would we be prepared?
Some fire departments have increased their capabilities, but the
majority of the country is still not prepared for these type of
incidents." Downey asked Congress to involve "first responders"
with federal agencies that have been preparing for terrorism.
He said, "The federal government needs to provide assistance and
funding for training, detection equipment, personal protective
equipment and mass decontamination capabilities. It is the first
responder that will be facing the challenges that weapons of mass
destruction present. They are the ones that need the funding and
assistance the federal government can provide." Downey, of course,
was the chief of first responders, and that's why he's missing.
Dan Rodricks Copyright © 2001, The Baltimore Sun
************************
Firefighter to the Core October 22, 2001 Raymond M. Downey was
the battalion chief in charge of special operations in the New
York City Fire Department. Here's his son, Chuck, a fire lieutenant:
"Dad joined the Fire Department on April 7, 1962. Coming on in
the 60's, they went to a lot of fires. The war years, they termed
it. In 1995 he was assigned to Special Operations Command, SOC
is the acronym, as chief of rescue operations. . . . "He was on
the Gilmore Commission to fight domestic terrorism. No one's going
to see it all, but I don't think anyone thought of the World Trade
Center. . . . "When the south tower went down, there was a lot
of Maydays. He survived. A lot of the top brass did. These are
all guys with 30- plus years. They went back in. There were two
young firemen, he told them, not in the nicest language, to get
out of here." Here's Chief Downey's daughter, Marie Tortorici:
"Mommy, Rosalie, is Italian. Daddy's Irish. He would have been
64 on Sept. 19. He's very spiritual. He was in Oklahoma City after
the bombing. Gov. Keating gave him a set of rosary beads. He wore
them every day. Well, they broke, and he kept them in his pocket.
He had them with him, because they're not home. . . . "When I
was a little girl, he was working three jobs to support the family,
and he was always too busy to come to the school to do fire prevention
week. Last year, when my daughter was in first grade, he went
to the school for fire prevention week. I don't know. It's so
sad, everything. But a good thing came out of this. My sister,
my father called her the baby, we just found out she's pregnant.
So she felt like it was a blessing from my father." NEW YORK TIMES
************************
*
November 15, 2001 The children of Elizabeth Place and Oak Neck
Road in West Islip recently helped raise over \\$500 to aid the
families of the victims of the World Trade Center terrorist bombing.
The money was matched by the Bradco Supply Corporation and donated
to the American Red Cross in memory of Deer Park resident Deputy
Chief Ray Downey of Special Operations command, FDNY and his fellow
rescue workers who gave their lives to help others in the World
Trade Center Disaster. Pictured are Michelle and Jim Hill, Lynn
Downey and some of the neighborhood children who helped raise
the money. The Babylon Beacon
************************
Roads Renamed After Firefighters By Sumathi Reddy STAFF WRITER
November 26, 2001 He was a runner, his red Rescue 2 sweatshirt
and blue marine sweatpants a blur of color as he jogged along
the streets of Deer Park. Even at the age of 63, Raymond Downey
stuck to his regimen, running five miles a day along the serene
and the trafficked roads of Deer Park. "Everyone used to see my
dad run all over Deer Park," said Ray Downey Jr. His father, a
special operations battalion chief for the New York City Fire
Department, was killed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the
World Trade Center. "He would wave to them. He's been running
there for 40 years." Downey's three sons and two daughters thought
renaming a Deer Park road in memory of their father, a man widely
known for leading New York City's search-and-rescue team in Oklahoma
City after the bombing of the federal building in 1995, would
be most fitting. The family approached Babylon Town Board member
Francine Brown with their idea. Meanwhile, friends of Michael
Otten, another city firefighter killed in the attacks and a former
Deer Park resident, had the same idea. Brown introduced the resolutions
earlier this month, and the town board unanimously voted to rename
two streets in Deer Park in memory of Otten and Downey. Nicolls
Road in Deer Park is expected to become "Raymond Downey Memorial
Road," and Headline Road will be renamed "Michael Otten Memorial
Road." The original resolution called for renaming Oak Street
in Deer Park, but Downey's family members later requested the
more heavily traveled Nicolls Road, from Deer Park Avenue to Commack
Road. Town Board members say they will amend the resolution. It's
a simple but meaningful gesture in a time when government leaders
say they are trying to preserve the memories and honor the victims
of Sept. 11 in any way they can, Brown said. Similar renaming
measures will likely take place across the city and country. Earlier
this month the New York City Council passed a bill to rename a
stretch of West 31st Street in Manhattan after the Rev. Mychal
F. Judge, the Fire Department's popular Catholic chaplain who
was killed by falling debris while administering last rites to
a dying firefighter. Otten, a 42-year-old firefighter for Ladder
35 in Manhattan, will be memorialized on the street where he lived
from age 2 until he got married and moved to East Islip. It's
a street where Otten and his friends, "The Headline Boys," spent
lazy summer afternoons playing ball and hanging out, recalled
his mother, Teresa Otten, who still lives on the street. "He had
a lot of happy times on this block," Teresa Otten said. "A lot
of his friends lived on Headline Road." And a lot of the same
neighbors who lived on Headline Road 40 years ago and knew her
son growing up still make it their home, as well as one of Otten's
sisters, who lives three blocks from the family home. "It's an
honor," Teresa Otten said. "I'm very proud." Copyright © 2001,
Newsday, Inc.
************************
December 13. 2001 DOWNEY-Raymond. Of Deer Park, LI, FDNY-Deputy
Chief of Special Operations Command, heroically in the line of
duty at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, a week before
his 64th birthday. Beloved husband of Rosalie (nee Princiotta).
Loving and adored father of Joseph and Lynn, Marie and Girolamo
Tortorici, Chuck and Melissa, Ray and Christine, Kathy and Brian
Ugalde. Cherishd poppy of Gina Marie, Nicolette Rose, Peter Raymond,
Joseph James, Connor Joseph, Olivia Faith and Kayla Rae. A dear
brother to Eugene, Thomas and the late Joseph and Alice Routledge.
Dear brother-in-law of Eileen Downey, Jean Downey and Sal Princiotta.
Survived by many loving nieces and nephews and cherished family
and friends. Memorial viewing at the Claude R. Boyd-Caratozzolo
Funeral Home, 1785 Deer Park Ave, Deer Park, NY, on Thursday and
Friday from 2-5 PM and 7-9:30 PM. A memorial mass will be held
at St. Cyril and Methodius, RC Church at 11:00 AM on Saturday,
December 15th. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in his
loving memory to the Deputy Chief, Raymond Downey Scholarship
- Charity Fund (D.C.R.D.S.C Fund) 7 Bardish Lane, Babylon, NY
11702. THE NEW YORK TIMES
************************
Crowd
Expected for Services Dec. 13, 2001 Suffolk County police are
advising drivers to steer clear of Deer Park Avenue in Deer Park
during the memorial services of a popular firefighter killed in
the World Trade Center attacks. The family of Deer Park resident
Raymond Downey, who headed the special operations command in the
New York City Fire Department, is receiving mourners at the Boyd,
Caratazzolo Funeral Home on Deer Park Avenue from 2 to 5 p.m.
and 7 to 9:30 p.m. today and tomorrow. A memorial Mass will be
held for Downey on Saturday at 11 a.m. at Sts. Cyril and Methodius
Roman Catholic Church on Deer Park Avenue. Thousands are expected
to attend, and police will close Deer Park Avenue from Bay Shore
Road to Long Island Avenue between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. Saturday.
Police are asking motorists to use alternate routes during these
times. - Katie Thomas Copyright © 2001, Newsday, Inc.
************************
'He
Did What He Had to Do' By Katie Thomas STAFF WRITER
December 14, 2001 Some things you learn about people only after
they've gone. For the family of Raymond Downey, the manila folder
was like that. Downey headed the New York City Fire Department's
special operations command and was one of the most decorated firefighters
in the city. From his ruddy complexion to his habit of running
into smoky buildings without a mask, Downey seemed to many of
his colleagues to represent the very essence of what it meant
to be a firefighter - so much so that some of them jokingly called
him "God." But he never boasted about his accomplishments to his
family, never reveled in the praise that seemed to follow him
wherever he went. Except for the manila folder he carried in his
briefcase, that is. It was the only indulgence Downey allowed
himself; He stuffed it with letters and accolades from a 39-year
career and gave it a label in a small, tidy script: "That A Boys."
His wife, Rosalie, found the folder after Downey, 63, was lost
in the World Trade Center attack. "He never complimented himself,"
she said. "He always just did what he had to do." Thousands are
expected to gather at 11 a.m. tomorrow at Downey's funeral in
Deer Park. When they stand in line to enter Sts. Cyril and Methodius
Church, when they deliver their eulogies, when they console his
family, the mourners are unlikely to share Downey's reluctance
to cite his achievements. His knowledge of how buildings fall
apart was so legendary that at national firefighting conferences,
whole rooms would go quiet when he walked in. "He was kind of
like a rock star. He was idolized," said Hal Bruno, chairman of
the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation. His expertise was
sought not only within the five boroughs but at disasters around
the country. Downey directed recovery work at the Oklahoma City
disaster and in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. He
also helped pioneer an urban search-and-rescue program that mobilizes
local firefighters to respond to disasters nationwide. Downey,
fellow firefighters said, had a knack for instantly assessing
a disaster scene and then inventing a novel solution. In Oklahoma,
for example, one of the biggest obstacles to rescuers was a giant
concrete slab they had dubbed "Mother" that dangled precariously
amid the wreckage. Downey thought the slab should be cinched up
against the side of the building. Engineers and other experts
disagreed, offering their own suggestions. In the end, "We eventually
did what Ray told us to do," said Gary Marrs, the recently retired
chief of the Oklahoma City Fire Department. Downey also made frequent
trips to Washington, serving on a congressional advisory panel
on domestic terrorism and lobbying politicians to give local firefighters
more money. In an interview with Newsday in 1997, Downey warned
that the next war would be fought in an urban setting. "He had
been warning everyone of this for years," said Joe Allbaugh, director
of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. For Downey, "it wasn't
a matter of if, it was a matter of when." What dazzled firefighters
and politicians alike was not his way with words - Downey had
a terse, reserved style - but his heroic resume. An ex-Marine,
Downey joined the department in 1962 and served in two midtown
ladder companies before joining Brooklyn's Rescue 2, an elite
unit charged with rescuing endangered firefighters. In 1972, Downey
was promoted to lieutenant and assigned to an engine-and- ladder
company in East Harlem that earned the nickname "the Fire Factory"
because it fought so many blazes. In 1980, after advancing to
captain and serving in other units, Downey returned to Rescue
2 as its leader. There, in the busiest squad in the city, colleagues
say, Downey's reputation blossomed. "He approached a fire straight
on," said Lee Ielpi, a recently retired firefighter from Rescue
2. "The easy thing to do would be to unscrew your head at a major
incident. But he knew exactly what had to be done." John Barbagallo
worked in Rescue 2 with Downey until his retirement in 1992. "He
was the best fire officer I've ever known," Barbagallo said. "And
when you have a good leader, you'd follow him into hell." To his
five children - fire Lt. Chuck Downey of Commack, fire Capt. Joseph
Downey of West Islip, Ray Downey Jr. of Babylon, Marie Tortorici
of Deer Park and Kathy Ugalde of Deer Park - Downey was a strict
yet loving father who kept his work separate from his family life
and encouraged them to channel their energy into sports. When
they were growing up, Downey would sometimes work longer shifts
just so he could make it to a son's wrestling match or a daughter's
soccer game. "He always had that Marine attitude - that tough
exterior," said his son Ray, a physical-education teacher. "But
once you got behind that, he really was a softie." Downey's body
has not been found. Eyewitnesses have said he was last seen in
the Marriott hotel after the first tower had collapsed. He may
have been heading to the second tower to evacuate firefighters
when it came down, Chuck Downey said. It may seem darkly ironic
that a man who achieved international acclaim for his familiarity
with rubbled disasters would himself die in one. To his family
and friends, it makes perfect sense. When a situation turned deadly,
Downey would often order his men out just as he was running in.
Sometimes, Rosalie Downey says, she still talks to her husband,
a man she met more than 40 years ago when they flirted through
a glass partition in a Manhattan bank. She asks him why he didn't
stay out when he led other firefighters to safety that day. But,
she says, she knows better than that. "Then I tell myself, Ray
would have never lived with himself." Copyright © 2001, Newsday,
Inc.
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Extra Train For Funeral Dec. 14, 2001 The Long Island Rail Road
is adding an extra train from Penn Station tomorrow to accomodate
riders attending the funeral of New York City Fire Chief Raymond
Downey, who was killed in the attack on the World Trade Center.
The train will leave Penn Station at 8:50 a.m., arriving at Deer
Park at 9:51 a.m. It will also make stops in Woodside, Jamaica,
New Hyde Park, Mineola and Hicksville. An additional train will
depart Deer Park for Penn Station at 5:39 p.m. Additional LIRR
schedule information can be found at: http://www.mta.nyc.ny.us/lirr/html/ttn/lirrtt.htm
Newsday
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Top
New York Fire Official Mourned By Associated Press December 15,
2001, 11:21 PM EST NEW YORK -- Thousands of firefighters gathered
Saturday at a memorial for their fallen colleague Ray Downey,
one of three top Fire Department officials lost in the Sept. 11
terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. Downey, chief of
special operations command, was a firefighter for nearly 40 years
and was the city's most decorated firefighter at age 63. At the
memorial service in Deer Park, on Long Island, a bagpipe procession
was followed by a fire truck that carried a large flower arrangement
made to resemble an American flag. Downey's helmet was on top.
Large American flags hung from fire ladders outside the Sts. Cyril
and Methodius Church, where Gov. George Pataki and Mayor Rudolph
Giuliani were among the mourners. After the service, a group of
children released two bouquets of white balloons into the air.
Downey was an expert on urban search-and-rescue, and led a team
of New York City firefighters who responded to the 1995 Oklahoma
City bombing. It was his idea to use cables to anchor a giant
slab that was dangling from a roof of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal
Building, endangering rescuers. Copyright © 2001, The Associated
Press
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Saluting a Hero FDNY's Ray Downey remembered Samuel Bruchey and
Michael Rothfeld Staff Writers December 16, 2001 They braced themselves
against metal railings on the cold, clear morning Saturday, hundreds
of them, to pay their respects to the New York City firefighter
they always knew as a giant, and now the world knows, too. In
the street, Raymond Downey's troops stood saluting him for the
last time as the truck from Rescue Company 2 rumbled slowly down
Deer Park Avenue. Then with only his memory to honor, firefighters
unloaded a bed of red, white and blue flowers with his helmet
resting on top and carried them into the packed Sts. Cyril and
Methodius Church. Additional mourners gathered in an adjacent
school to watch the memorial service on a large-screened television.
"How often have we decried our children no longer have any heroes,"
Monsignor Brendan Riordan said from the pulpit moments later.
"How blind of us not to know that the heroes have been around
us all the time. We are here this morning saluting a truly world-class
hero, Deputy Chief Raymond Matthew Downey." Downey, 63, of Deer
Park, was last seen in the lobby of the Marriott Hotel on Sept.
11, directing the rescue mission as the World Trade Center towers
crumbled around him. His body has not been found. During his 39-year
career, Downey became one of the city's most decorated firefighters
and achieved almost mythical status among them for his steely
resolve in the face of disaster. Fire Commissioner Thomas Von
Essen said yesterday learning of Downey's loss was as crushing
a blow as he suffered on Sept. 11. "It was absolutely impossible
to overcome," Von Essen said. "I couldn't imagine the New York
City Fire Department without Ray Downey, especially with this
tragedy to deal with." A nationally known expert on urban search-and-rescue
efforts, Downey directed recovery efforts at the bombings of the
World Trade Center in 1993 and of the federal building in Oklahoma
City in 1995. Downey, who long led Rescue 2 in Brooklyn, was head
of the New York Fire Department's special operations command at
his death. His memorial mass yesterday drew hundreds, from as
far as Broward County, Fla., where Peter DeJesse, a firefighter
from Fort Lauderdale, took classes from Downey on dealing with
hazardous materials. "He shakes your hand, and its like you've
known him for 20 years," DeJesse said, standing outside the church.
Chris Pelszynski, a volunteer firefighter from North Babylon,
had never met Downey, but still wanted to help hoist one of the
three American flags from fire trucks on both sides of Deer Park
Avenue. "He was like God, that's what everybody says," said Pelszynski,
referring to Downey's nickname. After mourners entered the church
to bagpipes playing "Danny Boy," Msgr. Riordan spoke, and Downey's
widow, Rosalie, walked with family members down the center aisle,
laying a red rose on the pew. She sat with their five children,
Lt. Chuck Downey of Commack, fire Capt. Joseph Downey of West
Islip, Ray Downey Jr. of Babylon, Marie Tortorici of Deer Park
and Kathy Ugalde of Deer Park. Addressing them, Gov. George Pataki
said, "We hope you have some consolation knowing that on that
horrible day, the actions of Ray Downey and the men that he trained
saved thousands and thousands of lives." Mayor Rudolph Giuliani
recalled two days this year when Downey stayed away from home,
first to battle a gas main rupture in Brooklyn, and then to work
at a building collapse in lower Manhattan. When the mayor asked
him how he was at the time, Downey said he was fine, but asked
Giuliani to bring his wife a note, excusing his absence. "Now
I ask Rosalie to excuse his absence one last time," Giuliani said
yesterday. "Her husband, our hero, has laid down his life doing
what he loved to do." Others recalled some of Downey's signature
rescue missions. In Oklahoma City, he urged those he oversaw to
recover the most bodies, and they did, said Lt. Al Fuentes of
Rescue 2. At the scene of the US Air Flight 405 crash at LaGuardia
Airport in 1992, Fuentes said, Downey "was directing the rescue
effort like he was directing a symphony orchestra." His five children
and two of Downey's grandchildren described a quiet, strong father
who pushed them to excel in sports and learn the value of earning
a living. To them, he was the man who piled into the car and drove
to Iowa for an important wrestling match, who blew up the balloons
at a birthday party. His son, Ray Downey Jr., who was one of the
last to speak yesterday, said, "I didn't need Sept. 11 to tell
me who my hero was." Copyright © 2001, Newsday,Inc
************************
DOWNEY Sunday, May 19, 2002 DOWNEY-Raymond of Deer Park, LI, FDNY-Deputy
Chief of Special Operations Command, Heroically in the line of
duty at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, a week before
his 64th birthday. Beloved husband of Rosalie (nee Princiotta).
Loving and adored father of Joseph and Lynn, Marie and Girolamo
Totorici, Chuck and Melissa, Ray and Christine, Kathy and Brian
Ugalde. Cherished Poppy of Gina Marie, Nicolette Rose, Peter Raymond,
Joseph James, Connor Joseph, Olivia Faith, Kayla Rae and Emma
Raye. Dear brother to Eugene, Thomas and the late Joseph and Alice
Routeledge. Dear brother-in-law of Eileen Downey, Jean Downey
and Sal Princiotta. Survived by may loving nieces and nephews
and cherished family and friends. Mass of Christian Burial on
Monday at Ss. Cyril and Methodius RC Church, Deer Park, NY at
10:15 AM. Interment to follow at St. Charles Cemetery. In lieu
of flowers, donations may be made in his loving memory to the
Deputy Chief, Raymond Downey Scholarship-Charity Fund (D.C.R.D.S.C.),
PO Box 223, Deer Park, NY 11729. Copyright © 2002, Newsday, Inc
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View/sign Raymond Downey's Guest Book provided by the New York
Times. Memorial Garden Entrance The Memorial Garden Created And
Owned By Marj Klug
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