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FDNY renames valor
medal for Chief
of Dept. lost on 9/11
BY ROBERT POZARYCKI
The New York City Fire
Department announced
Tuesday a special honor
for the highest-ranking member
of the department who died
in the 9/11 attacks.
The FDNY renamed its
James Gordon Bennett Medal
in honor of Peter J. Ganci Jr.,
who was the FDNY’s chief of
department when he responded
to the World Trade Center on
Sept. 11, 2001. The medal is
the highest honor a fi refi ghter
can receive for bravery and
valor demonstrated in the line
of duty.
No one demonstrated bravery and valor
during his time at the FDNY more than
Ganci, who held every uniformed rank
during his 33-year career and received numerous
Chief of Department Peter Ganci Jr.
citations for bravery along the way.
On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, according
to Newsday, Ganci rushed to the
World Trade Center after learning of the
crash of American Airlines Flight 11 into
the North Tower. He arrived just in time
to see the hijacked United Airlines Flight
175 hit the South Tower, and established a
command post there.
Ganci was in the South Tower’s basement
when it collapsed at 9:59 a.m. that
morning, but he managed to dig himself
out and worked to set up another command
post nearby. Newsday reported that he rebuffed
orders to evacuate; other fi refi ghters
overheard him say, at one point, “I’m not
leaving my men.” He died in the collapse
of the North Tower at 10:29 a.m.
PHOTO VIA INSTAGRAM/@FDNY
While acknowledging Ganci’s incredible,
selfl ess work, Nigro noted that the FDNY
also wanted to disassociate itself from Bennett,
a former newspaper publisher who
endowed the original medal more than
150 years ago, who had held “deeply racist
beliefs and used his newspaper to repeatedly
express hateful views in full support
of slavery.”
“Our highest honor for bravery to a
Firefi ghter or Fire Offi cer should be named
for an individual who swore an oath to
serve others and who once crawled down
a hallway like all our Firefi ghters have
done to search for New Yorkers trapped
by fi re,” Nigro said. “It should be named
for a legendary Chief who is still revered
by all of us so many years after his death.”
The Ganci Medal will be awarded for
the fi rst time at a socially-distanced Medal
Day ceremony scheduled to take place later
this year.
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