Motorcycle ride honoring Howard Beach 9/11 fi rst
responder will roll on despite COVID-19 concerns
TIMESLEDGER | QNS.COM | SEPT. 11-SEPT. 17, 2020 25
BY BILL PARRY
For the fifth straight year,
the Forest Hills Volunteer Ambulance
Corps will honor Richard
Allen Pearlman with its
Run for Richie 9/11 Memorial
Motorcycle Ride saluting the
youngest first responder killed
during the attacks on the World
Trade Center.
In years past, thousands of
motorcyclists would gather at
Aqueduct Raceway before following
hundreds of emergency
vehicles filled with 9/11 first responders
on a convoy thundering
its way through Queens on
the way to Ground Zero.
This year, the Run for Richie
will be completely different due
to restrictions caused by the
COVID-19 pandemic. Organizers
said this year there will be
no gathering at Aqueduct, no
ceremony, no emergency vehicles,
no NYPD escort, no helicopters
or fighter jets flying
overhead, and no FDNY draping
flags along the route.
“We can’t ride together in the
masses but we can meet by WTC
to continue our mission, keeping
our promise, keeping our
promise,” the Run’s Eventbrite
page says. “We will pay our respects
in downtown Manhattan
on 9/13, 9-6 p.m., remembering
a way of life before 9/11, cherishing
memories as we unified
after 9/11/01.”
One longtime supporter,
however, is wishing the Run for
Richie took this year off: Richie’s
mother, Dorie Pearlman.
“I don’t agree with them
going ahead with the Run for
Richie this year because of the
COVID threat,” Pearlman said.
“For them to risk their lives
would trouble my son. God love
them for doing it, but I still worry
that they’re going through
with this during this season of
COVID.”
Richie Pearlman was an
18-year-old from Howard Beach
who served as a dispatcher for
the Forest Hills Ambulance
Corps. He was working for a law
firm that summer as a messenger
and found himself delivering
a package at One Police Plaza
when the attacks occurred.
Pearlman ran to the scene
and began helping survivors
escape the towers. He was inside
one of the towers helping
a heart attack victim when he
was killed in the collapse. His
body was found in the wreckage
of Ground Zero a week later.
“The Forest Hills Volunteer
Ambulance Corps and the Boy
Scouts were everything to my
son, they were his life,” Pearlman
said. “My son was the kind
that would give his life for anyone
and that is why he was in
the World Trade Center, to begin
with. He loved the Corps and
this was going to be his future
as a paramedic. That was his
thing, always helping people.”
QNS reached out to the Forest
Hills Volunteer Ambulance
Corps and is awaiting a response.
The Run for Richie will
welcome all sports bikes both
foreign and domestic, trikes,
sidecars, choppers, home-made
bikes, and anything that would
require a motorcycle license.
Organizers say all New York
state health mandated protocols
will be observed and masks of
face coverings are required.
“I would never badmouth
the Corps and I’ve been a supporter
of the Run for Richie for
years,” Pearlman said. “I’m just
worried about the participants’
health and I know my son would
be worried, too.”
Reach reporter Bill Parry by
e-mail at bparry@schnepsmedia.
com or by phone at (718)
260–4538.
Howard Beach resident Dorie Pearlman worries that those participating
in her son’s 9/11 memorial motorcycle ride may endanger
their health due to COVID-19. QNS/File
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