Thomas Von Essen CBE (born 1945 in Brooklyn, New York) was appointed the 30th FDNY Commissioner of the City of New York by Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani on April 15, 1996, and served in that position until the end of the Giuliani Administration on December 31, 2001, nearly four months after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Von Essen is a member of the Essen family, who are part of the German and Swedish nobility. He is a graduate of St. Francis College, class of '72.
In 2002 he was made an Honorary Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) by Queen Elizabeth II. [1]
In 1993 Von Essen was elected as President of the Uniformed Firefighters Association representing the department's firefighters. He was formerly a Senior Vice-president at Giuliani Partners and chief executive officer of Giuliani-Von Essen LLC. [ citation needed ]
Von Essen was the Commissioner for the New York City Fire Department when the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center took place. He personally went to the Twin Towers to oversee evacuations by his department following the arrival of the first units there with 1st Battalion Chief Joseph W. Pfeifer and the companies with him, who were investigating a report of a smell of gas only a few blocks away when American Airlines Flight 11, piloted by Mohamed Atta, crashed into the North Tower, followed 17 minutes later by United Airlines Flight 175, piloted by Marwan al-Shehhi, slamming into the South Tower. Von Essen and his men evacuated as many people as they could until the South Tower collapsed 56 minutes after it was hit, at which point Chief Pfeifer ordered all personnel to evacuate the North Tower before it collapsed. Von Essen escaped the collapse of the Twin Towers, and continued to serve as FDNY Commissioner until Mayor Rudy Giuliani's term ended in December 2001, by which time Von Essen wanted to preserve the accounts of the FDNY's members “before they became reshaped by a collective memory.” According to Jim Dwyer of the New York Times, the FDNY oral histories were “originally gathered on the order of Thomas Von Essen, the city fire commissioner on Sept. 11, who said he wanted to preserve those accounts before they became reshaped by a collective memory.” The oral histories constitute about 12,000 pages of testimony by 503 FDNY firefighters, emergency medical technicians and paramedics collected from early October, 2001 to late January, 2002. Mr. Von Essen’s prophetic act has given us a remarkably rich body of narrative material." Most prominent of which were perceptions of the initiations of the towers collapsing. It is these shocking perceptions that are the focus of the Journal of 9/11 Studies 47. August 2006/Volume 2 118 Witnesses: The Firefighters’ Testimony to Explosions in the Twin Towers Graeme MacQueen, August 21, 2006. Thomas Von Essen was succeeded by Nicholas Scoppetta as FDNY Commissioner under new NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
In October 2017 Von Essen was named FEMA Regional Administrator for Region II in New York City by President Donald Trump. [2]
He and his wife, Rita, have four children; the youngest is actor and singer, and Tony nominee Max von Essen. [3]
The September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center elicited a large response of local emergency and rescue personnel to assist in the evacuation of the two towers, resulting in a large loss of the same personnel when the towers collapsed. After the attacks, the media termed the World Trade Center site "Ground Zero", while rescue personnel referred to it as "the Pile".
Communication problems and successes played an important role during the September 11 attacks in 2001 and their aftermath. Systems were variously destroyed or overwhelmed by loads greater than they were designed to carry, or failed to operate as intended or desired.
The September 11 attacks of 2001, in addition to being a unique act of terrorism, constituted a media event on a scale not seen since the advent of civilian global satellite links. Instant worldwide reaction and debate were made possible by round-the-clock television news organizations and by the internet. As a result, most of the events listed below were known by a large portion of the world's population as they occurred.
9/11 is a 2002 documentary film about the September 11 attacks in New York City, in which two planes were flown into the buildings of the World Trade Center, resulting in their destruction and the deaths of nearly 3,000 people. The film is from the point of view of the New York City Fire Department. The film was directed by brothers Jules and Gédéon Naudet and FDNY firefighter James Hanlon and produced by Susan Zirinsky of CBS News.
The New York City Fire Department, officially the Fire Department of the City of New York (FDNY) is the full-service fire department of New York City, serving all five boroughs. The FDNY is responsible for providing Fire Suppression Services, Specialized Hazardous Materials Response Services, Emergency Medical Response Services and Specialized Technical Rescue Services in the entire city.
The World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan, New York City, was destroyed on September 11, 2001, as a result of al-Qaeda's terror attacks. Two commercial airliners hijacked by terrorists were deliberately flown into the Twin Towers of the complex, resulting in a total progressive collapse that killed almost 3,000 people. It was the deadliest and costliest building collapse in history.
The New York Marriott World Trade Center was a 22-story 825-room hotel within the original World Trade Center complex in Manhattan, New York City. Situated on the original Three World Trade Center, It opened in April 1981 as the Vista International Hotel and was the first major hotel to open in Lower Manhattan south of Canal Street since 1836. In November 1995, it was bought by Marriott Corporation and renamed the Marriott World Trade Center.
Jules Clément Naudet and brother Thomas Gédéon Naudet are French-American filmmakers. The brothers, residents of the United States since 1989 and citizens since 1999, were in New York City at the time of the September 11 attacks to film a documentary on members of the Engine 7, Ladder 1 firehouse in Lower Manhattan.
Peter James Ganci Jr. was a career firefighter in the New York City Fire Department killed in the September 11 attacks. At the time of the attacks, he held the rank of Chief of Department, the highest ranking uniformed fire officer in the department.
William Michael Feehan was a member of the Fire Department of New York who died during the collapse of the World Trade Center during the September 11 attacks. He was the second-highest official in the department.
As Mayor of New York City on September 11, 2001, Rudy Giuliani played a major role in the immediate response to the terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center towers in the city.
Sally Regenhard is an American activist who has become one of the leading voices for the families of the victims of the September 11 attacks. A former long-time resident of Co-op City in The Bronx in New York City who has degrees in behavioral sciences and gerontology and has worked in the nursing home industry for over 20 years, Regenhard became an advocate for skyscraper safety after the death of her 28-year-old son, Christian, a probationary firefighter with the New York City Fire Department, who perished in the collapse of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.
Stephen Cassidy was the longest serving President of the Uniformed Firefighters Association of Greater New York (UFA) in its 100-year history. He was first elected to the position in August 2002 and is the only UFA President in the union's history to be elected directly out of a firehouse. In 2016, Cassidy resigned his position as UFA President to serve as the executive director of the New York City Fire Pension Fund. In 2018, following his arrest for driving while intoxicated, New York City Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro removed Cassidy from his position as executive director of the New York City Fire Pension Fund.
"The Real Rudy" is a series of four viral videos by documentary film director and activist Robert Greenwald.
Rudy Giuliani: Urban Legend is a video produced by the International Association of Firefighters (IAFF). On July 11, 2007, the IAFF released the 13-minute video in DVD format to fire departments across the U.S. The DVD outlines its complaints against Rudy Giuliani. It is critical of the 2008 Republican Party presidential candidate and former New York City mayor. As the video has been issued on a website, and not just DVD, it is classifiable as a viral video.
Orio Joseph Palmer was a Battalion Chief of the New York City Fire Department who died while rescuing civilians trapped inside the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Palmer led the team of firefighters that reached the 78th floor of the South Tower, the floor where the plane had struck the building. As of 2024, his remains have never been identified.
The September 11 attacks were the deadliest terrorist attacks in human history, causing the deaths of 2,996 people, including 2,977 victims and 19 hijackers who committed murder–suicide. Thousands more were injured, and long-term health effects have arisen as a consequence of the attacks. New York City took the brunt of the death toll when the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center complex in Lower Manhattan were attacked, with an estimated 1,600 victims from the North Tower and around a thousand from the South Tower. Two hundred miles southwest in Arlington County, Virginia, another 125 were killed in the Pentagon. The remaining 265 fatalities included the ninety-two passengers and crew of American Airlines Flight 11, the sixty-five aboard United Airlines Flight 175, the sixty-four on American Airlines Flight 77 and the forty-four who boarded United Airlines Flight 93. The attack on the World Trade Center's North Tower alone made the September 11 attacks the deadliest act of terrorism in human history.
Salvatore Joseph "Sal" Cassano served as the 32nd New York City Fire Commissioner from 2010 to 2014.
William M. Feehan is a fireboat built for and operated by the New York City Fire Department (FDNY). Her namesake, William M. Feehan, was the oldest and most senior FDNY firefighter to perish in the line of duty on September 11, 2001. Her nameplate is carved from a steel plate salvaged from the collapse of the World Trade Center. The vessel's $4.7 million cost was largely covered by a FEMA Port Security Grant Program.
Joseph W. Pfeifer is a retired American firefighter who served with the New York City Fire Department (FDNY). Pfeifer served as First Deputy Commissioner of the FDNY from February 2023 until September 2024, and as Acting Fire Commissioner of the FDNY in August 2024. Prior to his civilian work in the FDNY, Pfeifer was an Assistant Chief. He retired in 2018.