I have to start by saying that I haven’t written anything in a very, very long time. Which is strange since my job title and description is “publisher.” Sure, I’ve written plenty of emails, business plans, memos, etc., over the last few years. But it’s been a long time since I’ve written something that had real meaning to me, and something I wanted to share with others. I guess I’ve been waiting for inspiration.

This story starts with an email from Billy G, aka Chief Goldfeder. He seems to have that kind of influence on most of us. He sent an email to the FireRescue and JEMS team encouraging us to visit the Tribute WTC Visitor Center in New York. The Tribute is run under the auspices of the September 11th Families Association, of which Billy is board member. He told us that we needed to get our butts to NYC to experience the Tribute. Period.

I was back in New York on business the first week of June 2009, but with wall-to-wall meetings, I wasn’t sure I’d have time to get over there. Then I heard Billy’s voice in my head: “make the freaking time.” I was fortunate that Lee Ielpi, a retired 26-year FDNY veteran firefighter, Rescue Company 2 member and co-founder of the Tribute, said I could come by the next morning and he’d personally meet with me and show me around (Ielpi, who turns 65 this year, has known Billy “since he was a snot-nosed kid running around the firehouse”).

Ielpi was waiting for me at the front doors. The crowd was starting to line up to get tickets and sign up for the tour slots (limited to 20 people). He brought me through the front doors, and guided me to a corner with a gentle hand. Up to this point, I was feeling somewhat detached and unemotional. That wouldn’t last long.

The storefront of the Tribute Center

FF Lee Ielpi leads a group of students

I need to say something upfront. I think I know what pain is, what tragedy is, what loss feels like. I have empathy. But as you see the stories on the walls, and as Lee told me his story, I understand that I really don’t know. My stomach turns, my mouth feels dry, my eyes begin to tear, and I realize: what these people felt and feel today is 1 million times what I have ever felt, and I have no idea. All I could do was watch, listen and absorb. And I need to go back again, because I probably only absorbed 1/100th of the words, images and artifacts that are at the Tribute.

Standing in the first exhibit, Lee told me some of his story, as well as the story of how the Tribute got started. FF Ielpi retired from FDNY in 1996, fighting 4,500 to 5,000 fires over his career. Lee is also former Chief of the Vigilant Fire Company in his hometown of Great Neck (Long Island). Lee’s son Jonathan was Assistant Chief of Vigilant Fire Company, and was also a member of FDNY, working at Squad 288 on September 11, the day he was killed while responding at the World Trade Center, along with 342 of his firefighter brothers, as well as EMS and law enforcement personnel. A total of 2,749 people were killed at the World Trade Center site that day, and a total of 2,973 were killed in the three attacks. Ielpi emphasizes to me that the people at the WTC—as well as at the Pentagon in Washington D.C. and in Shanksville, Pa., didn’t “die” or “perish.” They were murdered. Ielpi is not xenophobic. He tells me “I have many Muslim friends. All good people. They are not like the people who did this.”

Ielpi worked at Ground Zero, with along with more than 400,000 volunteers who came to assist in the recovery effort over a period of nine months, including other FDNY fathers looking for their FDNY sons. Brothers, sisters, mothers, friends, all looking for their loved ones. On Dec. 11, 2001, exactly 90 days after, Ielpi found the body of his son, Firefighter Jonathan Ielpi. “I was fortunate,” Ielpi said, who’s other son Brendan works for FDNY at Ladder 157, and is a volunteer firefighter in Great Neck. “I was able to carry Jon out. There were 2,749 murdered, 1,125 still missing, 174 whole bodies, and 21,744 body parts found to date,” Ielpi says, with passion, despite having said it many thousands of times. “There are still 128 firefighters missing,” he says. (To read a very moving piece Chief Goldfeder wrote on the Ielpi family, which he presented at FDIC 2002, go to Firefighter Close Calls.)

During his time searching, Ielpi met many others, including 8 other fathers. They started meeting and sharing their feelings and ideas. Along the way, he met co-founder Jennifer Adams, another volunteer for some four months. These people agreed that something was needed to remember, to create meaning for the families and others affected by 9-11, to promote education and enlightenment. The idea for the Tribute Center was born, and it opened its doors in September 2006.

250 tour guides have been trained, and they include those who are survivors of the attack, those who lost loved ones, volunteers who worked at the WTC site in the recovery effort, rescue workers and those who lived or worked in the area. More than 1 million people have visited the Center; interestingly, 40% of the visitors have come from abroad, from 120 countries. For Ielpi and the others at the Center, an important element is about teaching visitors the impact of evil, the impact of hate, and what we can do to change. Ielpi wants 9-11 taught in school curricula, and he’s fighting that battle too.

Visitors to the Center have come from 120 countries

I’m a Southern California native, and had visited the World Trade Center once as a kid. I watched 9-11 unfold on TV from 3,000 miles away. It sickened me, but I know I can’t even come close to understanding what it was like to experience as a New Yorker, as someone who worked in the buildings, who brought their kids to see the entertainers in the WTC plaza, who had family and friends there.

The closest I’ve come to understanding was while standing with Lee in the first gallery. A panoramic image of lower Manhattan surrounds you with correct orientation. A replica of the buildings stands in the center of the space, and it’s easy to feel you’re there, when the buildings were standing. There’s a video that shows the hustle and bustle that was the WTC. This first gallery gives context, and reminds us of the amazing and unique place that was there before 9/11, physically and culturally.

Gallery Two is “Passage through time: September 11th. This area shows what happened on 9/11, at the WTC, Pentagon and Shanksville, Pennsylvania. They also show what happened at the WTC in 1993. There is video, audio, images, words. There are a number of FDNY dispatch tapes, and you hear the chilling voices of firefighters in the final moments. Firefighters preparing themselves to make the ultimate sacrifice. The images of the planes crashing into the buildings, which I’d almost become numb to, remind what it felt like to see it that day, and the photos take on new meaning.

Gallery Three “Aftermath: Rescue and Recovery” was the toughest for me. This area shows many of the objects recovered from the site, videos, graphics. There’s a display of a torn and tattered FDNY helmet and turnout coat. Lee told me I would need to visit that display by myself, and that he’d wait for me. It was his son Jonathan’s helmet and bunker coat. It was one of the toughest—and most emotionally raw moments for me. This wasn’t just a display. It represents that man’s son. It felt good to cry.

One of the many powerful artifacts in Gallery 3

In Gallery Four “Tribute,” the names of those killed are listed, and most poignant, photos of the victims. Each family was invited to send one photo. Every photo is unique, capturing many in their most personal, happiest moments—at their wedding, graduation, having a beer with buddies, on vacation with their family. Lee showed me a photo of a happy, content young man laying on the floor on his stomach, with his two smiling toddler sons flopped on his back, all smiling back at the camera. It’s Jonathan and his sons—Lee’s grandkids. The Tribute is so personal, with a level of connection you could never achieve viewing something online, reading this. Being there makes it a deep, emotional experience.

Photos of the victims line the walls of Gallery 4.

We move on to Gallery Five: Voices of Promise. This is the area where thousands of people—schoolkids to grandparents from all around the world—share their feelings and perspectives on 9-11. There’s poignant artwork and notes. Visitors are encouraged to write their thoughts on cards that are available, and hundreds of thousands have. Seeing the words of optimism, love, brotherhood, expressed by so many gives me a sense of hope. It’s Lee’s belief that if enough people open their hearts, we can change the world. If you think that sounds trite or cliché, I dare you to look FF Ielpi in the eyes.

Gallery 5 is where visitors can share their thoughts.

I’m not an overly emotional guy. But on a very selfish level, it felt really good to feel for a couple hours. It made me truly thankful for my wife and son and daughter and the rest of our family. The colleagues I get to work with, the friends I need to spend more time with, the country I get to live in. The whole experience hit me on so many levels.

Lee walked me out to catch a taxi. I promised him I’d be back, and I will. I promised him that all of us at FireRescue and JEMS will do all we can to support their work. I left for Midtown feeling just a little less concerned about the business meeting I was heading to, and a little more inspired to make the most out of every minute of my life.

Jeff Berend is VP/Publisher of Elsevier Public Safety.

Photos courtesy Tribute WTC Vistor Center


Tribute WTC Visitor Center
120 Liberty St.
NY, NY 10006
866-737-1184
www.tributewtc.org