Son of FDNY hero who died on 9/11 carries World Trade Center iron bell across America
The son of a famous NYC firefighter is marking Father’s Day by hauling more than 16,000 pounds of World Trade Center steel across America, a rolling monument to honor his hero father, who ran to hell on 9/11 and never came back.
Stephen Siller Jr. honors his father, Stephen, who ran two miles through the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, carrying 80 pounds of gear, to the South Tower. Siller was not found in the 1.6 million tons of steel and concrete waste.
His son, who was only 9 months old when his father was killed on September 11, 2001, is now driving across the country with the 16,900-pound, 21-foot-plus steel found in the South Tower.
“Dad’s body was never found, so who was put in that metal,” Siller Jr., 25, said.
Siller Jr. is part of the Steel Across America tour, which began in May and covers 10,500 miles, stopping at national monuments, museums, memorials and MLB baseball stadiums in more than 35 cities in 21 states – with WTC steel in a flatbed truck.
“We share those stories of heroes, men who are like fathers. And those stories will also inspire the next generation,” Siller Jr. said. he told The Post.
The tour will culminate at Ground Zero on September 11 to mark the 25th anniversary of the terrorist attack, the day Siller Jr. and his family to pick up the last heroic steps of his father, who worked with Squad 1 in Park Slope, Brooklyn.
The Staten Island father of five, 35, was off work that day and was driving to play golf with his brothers when he heard a call come through his radio.
“So he turned his car around and went into his firehouse. When he got there, he realized that his army had already responded. So he took his gear, threw it in his truck, and started driving towards the World Trade Center. But they had closed all the entrances to Manhattan. You couldn’t get in unless you were an emergency vehicle,” explained his son.
“So he parked his car outside the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel” and ran toward the burning towers.
Siller Jr., who lives on Staten Island, works full-time at the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, a nonprofit organization his uncle Frank Siller created in honor of his father. Foundations have donated millions to the families of September 11 first responders, military veterans and other heroes.
It built dozens of homes for disabled vets, and paid the bills of widows killed in action.
The Tunnel to Towers hosts the Steel Across America tour, whose stops so far have included the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville, PA, and the Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Fla., where President George W. Bush was teaching students when he received news of the attack.
“We had Andy Card there, who was the man who told Bush; he was his chief of staff. To be with him and to see his reaction that day. It was amazing,” Siller Jr. said.
“We also had a teacher in the classroom. So Andy went down and met the teacher again for the first time since September 11th. It was a fun reunion.”
Siller Jr. you remembered one of the most powerful moments of the tour.
“At our first stop, we had an FDNY firefighter who was killed by the entire force on September 11. He was off duty that day. Everyone else in this house lost their lives. And he came to that bell, he went to it. He started to break down. He was hugging it and crying. His friends … are part of that bell.
It was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. . . hugging the metal as if he hugged his friends.”
