Posted: Thursday, September 14, 2017 10:30 am | Updated: 1:16 pm, Thu Sep 14, 2017.
Family, friends, co-workers and politicians display the new Jimmy Lanza Way street sign, raised last Saturday in honor of the 9/11 hero, inset, in full uniform. Lanza’s niece Stephanie Pennachio front row left, his uncle, Tim, and sister Marian Pennachio attended the ceremony.
It wasn’t an easy task to keep up with James Lanza when he was on the job with the FDNY’s Ladder 43/Engine 53 in Spanish Harlem, known as “El Barrio’s Bravest.”
According to his close friend and former co-worker Kurt Lester, Lanza was the last guy to sit down at the end of a hard day’s work — and one of the first to respond on the tragic morning of Sept. 11, 2001.
Lanza would quickly leave his home and respond to what was left of the World Trade Center towers, as family and friends account.
In the midst of chaos and destruction, Lanza and fellow firefighters would complete the successful evacuation of 16 trapped civilians and firefighters who were in the North Tower as the building collapsed. “The Miracle of Stairwell B” was one of the very few positive stories stemming from that day of horrors, and today can be recalled to salute the many firefighters like James Lanza who responded.
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