9/11 Construction Workers, FDNY Victims Honored at Historic Church

As bells tolled across the city on 9/11, a construction worker stood outside St. Francis of Assisi church in midtown Manhattan holding his yellow hard hat under his arm.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said with a sigh, holding back tears. “It’s like a faucet. If I open up, everything comes gushing out.”

As he stepped away to join other men and women huddled in groups on the sidewalk, more construction workers poured down the steps of the church on West 31st Street.

“Sixty-one construction workers died that day, 60 men and one woman,” Father Brian Jordan, who leads the Franciscan church, had empathized earlier. Jordan was also one of the chaplains at the World Trade Center in the aftermath of 9/11.

“We did other memorial masses before. But this was the first one [for the construction workers killed] on 9/11,” Father Brian explained, adding that the church would be holding the service every year from now on.

The historic church, which has become a quiet center for 9/11 memorials over the years, was also the home parish of Father Mychal Judge, the FDNY chaplain who became the first identified victim on 9/11. A photo of firefighters carrying his limp body from the North Tower, where he had been hit by falling debris as he prayed in the lobby, became an iconic photo of the day.

Father Brian lovingly described Father Mychal as “a man for all seasons, for all great reasons.”

The church has a sculpture made of three pieces of tangled World Trade Center debris. The centerpiece of this memorial, a gold-plated rose was stolen in November 2024. The thief was caught, but the gold-plated rose was not and will soon be replaced with a replica.

Roughly 400 workers attended the mass for the construction workers. Some of the unions set up their flags in the sanctuary beneath the 133-year-old dome and one of the largest mosaics in the country, “The Glorification of the Mother of Jesus” by Rudolph Margreiter.

Among the union banners were the Mason Tenders District Council, whose over 17,000 members include hazardous materials handlers; the Teamster Local 282, which represents construction truck drivers; District Council 9, the painters union, and more.

“You had the plumbers, the elevator guys, electricians, the carpenters. . . . Who did I miss?,” Danny Moscol, a construction worker, wondered as he stood on the church steps.

Moscol was standing next to his friend Charles Sutton, who is with Local 28, the sheet-metal workers union, but retired now. “Local 79 lost members too,” Sutton said.

“You had 17 electricians that they called out today,” Moscol said, referring to the reading of the names of the workers who lost their lives on 9/11. “It never gets old,” Moscol added. “We never forget.”

According to the 9/11 memorial and museum’s website, Local 3 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) lost 17 electricians in the collapse of the towers, more than any other local union of construction workers. Some of these men were working on the 95th and 105th floors of the North Tower, others on the 90th and 105th floors of the South Tower, and some in the World Trade Center basement.

“I watched the towers come down. At that time, there were no high rises in Brooklyn, so from Kings County Hospital you could see planes going into the towers,” Sutton remembered. “You also saw a bunch of grown men crying.”

Father Brian had said that there were many union construction workers on the job at the WTC, including the 61 who perished. He praised the often-unheralded men and women who helped clear the rubble over the next eight months, many of whom have since died of 9/11 related illnesses.

Earlier in the day, the church had held its annual mass for the firefighters from Battalion 7, which includes the firehouse directly across the street from St. Francis of Assisi. Eleven firefighters from that house died on 9/11.

When Straus News arrived at 10am there were hundreds of firefighters waiting outside, dressed in their classic navy blue dress uniforms.

“Just about everyone from Battalion 7 is here,” Thomas McCarthy, 66, told us. “That’s four firehouses with seven companies in each of those houses. I would say, we got about 300 firefighters here, if not more.” When McCarthy retired in 2023, he was the longest-serving battalion chief of the FDNY. He joined the FDNY in the 1980s and became a chief in 2001.

“We all come back, even when retired, we all come back for this day to remember the people we lost, and show up here at St. Francis. This is our church, this is our parish. These are our priests, and this is where we celebrate the lives of the people we lost,” McCarthy said, smiling with sadness.

”After 9/11, it was very, very tough for all the members of the fire department,” McCarthy recalled. “But we were always so happy and surprised so many people in Chelsea came by, left flowers, cakes, cookies, paid their respects.”

McCarthy had just been promoted to battalion chief—in fact, 9/11 was his first incident as chief. But he was at home in Queens when the planes hit the towers. “I wasn’t working. I was off duty,” he told Straus News. “I got there just after the second tower fell. And then, whatever guys straggled in from across the city formed a team, and I went in with them, trying to search.”

In an interview he gave to CBS before his retirement ceremony, McCarthy remembered that “when they were asking for volunteers from all the guys who showed up,” to go into the mountains of rubble and search for survivors, “every hand went up, they all wanted to go in.”

Father Brian chose the “love one another as I have loved you” from the Gospel of St. John for the mass. “The readings were chosen in regard to showing love and compassion on a national day of service,” he explained. “Love of work, love what you do as your work, and show compassion to those who died and those who got sick.”