So much for “Never Forget.”
New York City is making a quick buck by selling firetrucks for scrap — and not bothering to salvage special tributes on many of the rigs to firefighters killed on 9/11, The Post has learned.
The junking of the FDNY trucks and their memorials has been ripped as unconscionable by some family members of the fallen heroes.
This month, an FDNY rig with a still-intact message honoring five Brooklyn firefighters killed at the World Trade Center was found in a New Jersey scrapyard.
“This is very insulting and disrespectful to the memory of these people listed – including my son – and all the others who were massacred that day,” said Sally Regenhard, whose son Christian died at age 28 and was among the Bravest memorialized on the truck. “This is very sacred to the families.”
Thanks to the heroics of a group of New Jersey firefighters, the mural honoring Regenhard, Lt. Anthony Jovic and Firefighters Anthony Rodriguez, Ronnie Henderson and Mike Ragusa of Engine Co. 279 in Red Hook was saved last week — just days before it was scheduled to be crushed and sold as scrap metal.
NYC sold off the rig to Camp Auto and Truck Parts in Wayne, NJ, through a third-party online auction house for $4,000 in May 2022, officials said.
It was part of a larger purchase of roughly 15 FDNY trucks by the scrapyard — of which at least a half dozen still had some sort of tribute to 9/11 firefighter victims on them when they arrived, Camp Auto employees said.
Most of the rigs have since been sold or scrapped for parts and are no longer in the yard, they said.
Retired New Jersey firefighter Jim Sullivan said he spotted a row of five FDNY trucks left for junk while driving by the scrapyard this month and pulled over to take a look.
He said he was “shocked” to see the sacred mural intact on one of them and convinced the yard’s owner to hold off scrapping it until he made arrangements to retrieve it and get it back to the Red Hook firehouse.
Although members of the Brooklyn firehouse were eager to drive across state lines to save the symbol, Sullivan helped simplify the process by reaching out to the Wayne Fire Department for help.
Wayne firefighters – including Chief Michael Payne – drove to the scrapyard June 11 and used rescue tools to cut out the side of the truck honoring the fallen heroes. On Thursday, some of them took a ride to Red Hook to bring the sacred relic home.
They were warmly greeted by members of Ladder Co. 131 and Engine Co. 279, which share the firehouse that includes an indoor shrine to those it lost on 9/11 — where the mural will now be showcased.
“We’re very appreciative,” said Eddie Cane, 45, of Engine 279. “We do pride ourselves as a department for never forgetting the ones we lost.”
Don Campanello, who owns Camp Auto and Truck Parts, said the memorialized rig was just “days away from the chopping block” when he learned of the interest to preserve the mural.
“These [firefighters] aren’t letting go, and it’s very nice thing,” Campanello said. “Life goes on, and everyone forgets. I’m kind of glad people are keeping the spirit up.”
Mark McGrath, who heads the Wayne firehouse that led the rescue effort, said it’s “hard to imagine” how the two-decade-old firetruck “somehow got away from [New York City] with the mural still on its side.”
He added, “We are happy to have this small part in helping it get back to the Brooklyn firehouse.”
Sally Regenhard said she hopes to someday meet Sullivan and the Wayne firefighters who saved the mural, so she can personally thank them for their good deed.
However, she was sickened to learn the rig wound up in a junkyard. Regenhard faulted the city’s Department of Citywide Administrative Services, whose duties include selling off outdated city vehicles and other equipment, for putting the fire truck on the auction block without first removing or covering up the victims’ names.
She and Glenn Corbett, a professor of fire science at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said they hope the embarrassing incident helps nudge city officials to create new protocols ensuring that memorials on municipal vehicles honoring employees who died in the line of duty – a practice that dates back well over a century — are removed before being sold.
“This wound up with a great ending in that the memorial will still be preserved and was returned to the Red Hook firehouse, but the conclusion could’ve been much worse,” said Corbett. “’9/11, ‘Never Forget’ is still important to a lot of firefighters.”
The firetruck was commissioned for use shortly after 9/11 — replacing a rig crushed when the Twin Towers collapsed. It was used by Ladder Company 131 until around 2013, firefighters said. A newer vehicle currently used by the ladder company has a similar 9/11 memorial on its side honoring the five firefighters, but it is a sticker that can be more easily removed.
DCAS declined comment on its practice of selling city vehicles with memorials intact.
FDNY spokesman Jim Long said “we’d have to imagine” that department rigs bearing memorials ended up in a scrapyard before, but added that it’s “never been brought to our attention.”
Long also said the FDNY’s current policy is to remove official department logos and markings from vehicles before releasing them to DCAS for auction, but it intentionally leaves behind any personal memorial tributes out of respect for the fallen.
However, FDNY spokeswoman Amanda Farinacci Gonzalez said in a follow-up email Friday that the department is now reviewing its removal process for memorials and other personal markings on out-of-service rigs.
