E-MEN: memories for officers’ families

Among the Gramercy Park Block Association’s September 11 projects was an effort to record the memories of fellow officers. The Block Association’s relief-effort record describes a film crew interviewing Emergency Service colleagues about fourteen officers who died at the World Trade Center, creating a record for their children.

That work preserved something different from a list of names: the recollections of people who had worked alongside those who were lost.

In September 2017, the Block Association shared the E-MEN video series again as part of the sixteenth-anniversary remembrance. It identified the series as a GPBA-developed project documenting Emergency Service detectives’ memories of their colleagues.

The published program included tributes to Brian McDonnell, Rodney Gillis, John Coughlin and others, alongside recollections from Emergency Service Truck 4 and the Bomb Squad. The original newsletter remains a record of the series and its subjects.

The video project sits alongside the Remembrance Garden, memorial gatherings and the practical relief effort that followed the attacks. Together they show how support for first responders continued beyond the immediate emergency.