Fallen Firefighter, Alum, Honored By St. Francis Prep
FiveBoroSports.com 1/31/09
By Dylan Butler
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Photo by Philip Hall |
The wooden
bleachers at St. Francis Prep
brought back a flood of memories for
Josephine Downing, an Irish
immigrant who spent many Friday
nights at the Fresh Meadows school
watching her son John play
basketball for the Terriers.
“This is where I got sore throats
from hollering from the stands,” she
said. “They were good times.”
She returned to the same gym on
Friday night to see her son’s No. 34
jersey retired in an emotional
halftime ceremony. John Downing was
one of three firefighters to die in
the Fathers Day fire of 2001. He was
40.
“It’s fantastic,” she said of the
honor. “I never expected that,
beautiful really.”
John Downing
grew up in Woodside, directly across
the street from Tom Finn, a St.
Francis Prep coach for two decades.
Finn coached Downing in the seventh
and eighth grades at St. Sebastian,
where he won a pair of CYO Diocesan
titles.
“He used to draw three or four
charges a game and to get three or
four you had to go down seven or
eight times,” Finn said. “He used to
give his body for the cause, always
played hard. He was the type of kid
we turned out here for a long time.”
During his time at St. Francis Prep,
the 6-foot-4 Downing delivered a
newspaper and worked at nearby
Calvary Cemetery part-time. But his
love was basketball.
“He was one of our better players,” longtime St. Francis Prep basketball coach Tim Leary said. “He was a tough kid. He was fun to be around and it’s kind of a sad story because we’ve been through so many of these.”
Downing, who graduated in 1979, carried his love of hoops with him to the FDNY, which was another one of passions.
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The FDNY remembered one of its own Friday night as John Downing, who died in the Fathers Day fire of 2001, was honored at St. Francis Prep. Photo by Philip Hall |
“He was a class guy,” said Gerry
Brannigan, who worked with Downing at Ladder 163 in Woodside
for more than a decade. “He was very into his family, very
into the job, he was a good basketball player, a very
motivated guy. He was a perfectionist, he took care of his
house, was into his daughter’s soccer. He was a very good
man, a guy you could count on.”
Downing also had a characteristic that is integral to a
firehouse.
“He was a real good practical joker and he
had the size to back it up, too,” Lt. Nick D’Alessandro said.
“He had a sharp wit, sharp tongue.”
When not playing hoops, playing jokes or playing with his
children, Downing was studying for the lieutenant’s test.
“Outside of my office there’s a chair, it’s still there, you
would see him there all the time with his books open, studying
very hard,” D’Alessandro said. “I think he would have aced the
test.”
Downing never got the chance, dying in the explosion in the
hardware store of the Long Island General Supply Company in
Astoria on June 17, 2001.
Brannigan was with Downing, who was
posthumously named lieutenant, on the call that day.
“It was a very tough day for us,” he said. “We helped in the
search to find him. He was missing for a long time. It was a
very tough day. I actually rode in the ambulance with him. It
was a very hard thing to deal with.”
Two years later the Downing family was
dealt another crushing blow when John’s son, Michael, died after
being diagnosed with neuroblastoma, a form of cancer. He was
just five years old.
Less than three months after the Fathers Day fire, 363
firefighters died in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade
Center. Because of the magnitude of the toll Sept. 11 took on
the FDNY, the Fathers Day fire is often referred to as the
“Forgotten Fire.”
“It was one of the most tragic fires in the history of the
department -- 9/11 is 9/11, it needs no explanation,”
D'Alessandro said. “To us, Fathers Day was a crushing blow
before 9/11, something we'll never get over.”
Those who lived in Woodside, those in firehouses around the city
who put their lives on the line every day will always remember.
They'll never forget at St. Francis Prep, either.
Said Brannigan: “It’s a class move.”
dbutler@fiveborosports.com
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