09/08/2026
This is just one of the stories of the tragedy that struck on 9/11.
Please join us this Friday Sept 11th at 6:30 PM for a memorial service to commemorate the 25th anniversary of 9/11 and keep our promise to never forget the selfless sacrifice that the 343 firefighters of FDNY made on that tragic day. See our Events page for additional details.
Ladder Company 3 — "We Are Still Heading Up"
September 11, 2001
Some stories from that day are about the enormity of what was lost. This one is about the enormity of what was chosen.
136 Years of Service — and One Final Morning
Ladder Company 3 has called Manhattan's East Village home since 1865 — one of the oldest, most decorated fire companies in the history of New York City. For 136 years, they had answered every call their neighborhood made of them. They had never failed it.
On the morning of September 11, 2001, it happened to be a shift change. The overnight crew and the incoming day crew were both in the firehouse at the exact moment the first plane struck. Both tours looked at each other. Both stayed. Ladder 3 rolled to the World Trade Center with more men than usual — and because of that, more names to grieve when it was over.
Leading them was Captain Patrick "Paddy" Brown — one of the most decorated and deeply beloved officers in the entire FDNY. Fearless in the truest sense of the word. The kind of leader whose men would follow him anywhere, into anything, without question.
On September 11, they followed him into the North Tower.
Eleven men entered the building alongside Captain Brown. Around them, thousands of civilians poured downward — ash-covered, terrified, desperate to reach the street. Ladder 3 moved against that tide without breaking stride, climbing floor after floor as the building groaned around them, carrying 60 to 80 pounds of gear through smoke and heat and a stairwell that felt like it was slowly being swallowed by the sky.
By 9:21 a.m. they had reached the 35th floor.
Unable to raise the command post by radio, Captain Brown found a working office phone and called a Manhattan dispatcher. He reported burn victims making their way down the stairs. He described the fire as burning above the 75th floor — forty floors above where he was standing, forty more floors still to climb.
Then he got back on the radio.
His last recorded words were seven words long, and they say everything that needs to be said about who Ladder Company 3 was:
"Three Truck, and we are still heading up."
They never stopped.
When the North Tower collapsed at 10:28 a.m., all twelve members of Ladder Company 3 — Captain Brown and every one of his men — were still inside. They had kept climbing. They had not turned back. Somewhere above the 35th floor, in the smoke and the heat of one of the worst fires in history, they were still looking for people to bring home.
Ladder Company 3 suffered some of the heaviest losses of any single fire company in FDNY history.
Ladder 3 crew:
BC John Williamson
Capt Paddy Brown
Lt Kevin Donnelly
FF John McAvoy
FF Joseph Maloney
FF Michael Carroll
FF Timothu McSweeney
FF Jeffery Giorando
FF Steven Olsen
FF James Coyle
FF Gerard Dewan
FF Joseph Ogren
Ladder 3's apparatus — a 1994 Seagrave aerial ladder truck — was parked on West Street beside Six World Trade Center when the towers fell. The front cab was destroyed. The body crushed and contaminated beyond use. For a decade it sat in storage at Hangar 17 at JFK Airport, waiting for what came next.
In 2011, that 60,000-pound truck was wrapped in American and FDNY flags, lowered by crane seventy feet into the earth, and placed at the heart of the National September 11 Memorial and Museum — exactly where it belongs and sits today.
NEVER FORGET
