In Its Own Way, ‘10 House’ Marks Return

 by Ronald Drenger

The mayor and the governor had visited weeks before, marking the reopening of the firefighters’ Liberty Street house with a ribbon cutting ceremony. And the men also had been feted with a big “Welcome Back” party at Embassy Suites.

Firefighters of Engine 10 and Ladder 10, some retired, stand for a ceremony commemorating the reopening of their firehouse on Liberty Street. Photo: Allan Tannenbaum

But in early December, two months after a $3.5 million renovation of their firehouse, badly damaged on Sept. 11, the guys of Ladder 10 and Engine 10 came together in their own way to celebrate the return of their house, to thank those who had shown their support, and to honor their dead.

As if at a roll call, Battalion Chief Gene Kelty, the captain of Ladder 10 on Sept. 11, read the names of those who died that day. After each he paused.

“Lt. Gregg Atlas…No response,” he said. “Lt. Stephen Harrell…no response.”

And on he went, with Firefighters Jeffrey Olsen, Paul Pansini, Sean P. Tallon, and Capt. James Corrigan, who was retired and worked as a security officer in the Trade Center.

Ladder 10 Firefighter John Morabito rang the firehouse’s bell five times for each man.

Then the ceremony continued with some of those who

had stood by the firefighters after Sept. 11.

Workers from HBO presented the house with a plaque depicting the fallen firefighters against a Lower Manhattan skyline—including the Twin Towers. Rosalie Joseph, co-chair of the Battery Park City Neighbors and Parents Association who helped lead the effort to reunite the men (they had been dispersed to firehouses around the city), read the Firemen’s Prayer. In turn, the firefighters gave Joseph and the HBO employees gold necklaces with a Maltese cross, the firefighters’ emblem, decorated with a “10.”

There was a buffet of six-foot-long hero sandwiches and hot Italian food, followed by tours of the new quarters.

“I was used to the old place,” said Sal Lomonaco, a Ladder 10 firefighter since the house opened in 1984. “Everything now is different.”

Some of the firefighters who were working at Ten House as of Sept. 11—about half of the current firefighters are new since then—feel the same way. They say they love their new six-burner gas stove, painted fire-engine red and decorated with a Maltese cross and “The Ten House” written in gold lettering. It was created and donated by workers in California, and replaced an old, slow-to-heat electric stove.

But several of the men commented on the sterile feeling of the firehouse’s new metal and cinderblock interior.

“Right now it’s almost like being in Ikea,” joked Jimmy Calvanese, a Ladder 10 firefighter.

“We’re spending time trying to make this a comfortable place to live now. We have to make it a home,” said Ladder 10’s captain, Tom Engel.

But being back at Ten House means facing the World Trade Center site every day. “Working right across the street from a cemetery for all my friends—it’s tough,” said Calvanese.

Still, Morabito, like other Ten House firefighters, said that he didn’t want to be anywhere else. “This is our house, our community,” he said.

Before the terrorist attack, he recalled, he used to stand in front of the firehouse with a few dog biscuits in his pocket. “When residents walked by with their dogs, I’d feed the dogs and talk to the people. I was part of the neighborhood.”

Now the firefighter has a bag of dog biscuits in his locker again.