A top developer yesterday scrapped plans to commission a politically correct statue that would have changed the races of two of the three firefighters who took part in a celebrated flag-raising at Ground Zero.
After talks with Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta, developer Bruce Ratner abandoned efforts to erect the statue, which was to be based on a photo that made the front pages of newspapers nationwide.
All three firefighters in the original picture are white. But Ratner’s plan called for one fireman to be white, another to be black and the third Hispanic – setting off a firestorm of controversy.
Under a compromise worked out yesterday, Scoppetta will consider other options for a memorial to the hero firefighters who died Sept. 11 and those who toiled at Ground Zero, and Ratner will foot the bill.
Lawyer Bill Kelly, who represents the three firefighters and the newspaper photographer who took the picture, Thomas Franklin of The Record of Hackensack, N.J., said he was encouraged that both sides “are exploring new options.”
Franklin snapped the photo after firefighter Danny McWilliams, 35, who had been working at Ground Zero, spotted a flag on a yacht bobbing near the World Financial Center.
McWilliams, an 11-year veteran assigned to Ladder Co. 157, carried the flag back to Ground Zero and he, George Johnson, 36, also of Ladder 157, and Billy Eisengrein, 37, of Rescue 2, planted it in a 20-foot mountain of debris.
McWilliams said he was disgusted by the controversy that erupted over the statue because the flag-raising was supposed to promote harmony.
“It’s just disgraceful that the country should be focusing on this,” he said. “Guys are dying in Afghanistan and this is what we’re fighting over?”
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These names were added yesterday to the list of confirmed dead in the World Trade Center attack:
Yugi Goya, 42, and Abraham Nethanel Ilowitz, 51.
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HERO’S FUNERAL
There is a funeral scheduled today for a fallen hero of the World Trade Center attacks:
* FDNY Firefighter Daniel Harlin, Ladder 2. At 11 a.m., St. James the Apostle Roman Catholic Church, 14 Gleneida Ave., Carmel, N.Y.