Bliss from ’78 tragedy
‘KIDS’ OF FALLEN BRAVEST FIND LOVE
It was a tragedy that tore their families apart — but they found a new family with each other.
Four decades after six firefighters died in Brooklyn’s infamous Waldbaum’s fire, the children of the fallen first responders will be honoring their relatives’ memory at a special Mass on Thursday — in stronger numbers than ever before.
In fact, the children of two of the doomed firefighters are married to each other, and now have a family of their own.
Brian Hastings, the son of firefighter Harold Hastings, and Caroline McManus, the daughter of firefighter James McManus, tied the knot about a decade after their fathers’ deaths brought them together.
“We’ve been married for about 30 years,” said Hastings, a retired NYPD detective. “It really was amazing.”
Brian and Caroline had both turned 14 a few months after the fatal blaze on Aug. 2, 1978. They were two of 18 children left fatherless.
The FDNY put together a Christmas party for the children, but since Brian and Caroline were a little old for a visit from Santa Claus, the two started talking to each other.
“(The organizers) had that look on their face,” Hastings remembered. “They were hustling to try to do something for us. It was kind of funny, because we were enjoying each other’s company.”
“Something tragic had brought our conversation together,” he remembered. “That was the day the friendship started and it’s continued on forever.”
On Thursday, Brian, Caroline and their two children Kaitlyn and Patrick will be attending the 9:30 a.m. Mass at St. Brendan’s Roman Catholic Church on Ave. O and E. 12th St. in Midwood in honor of their fathers and the four other firefighters killed during the Waldbaum’s fire: Lt. James Cutillo and firefighters Charles Bouton, William O’Connor and George Rice.
Besides the six deaths, 34 other firefighters, one EMT and one NYPD Emergency Services Unit officer were injured in the blaze that was considered of the worst disasters in Fire Department history at the time.
Cops arrested 31-year-old Eric Jackson after the fatal blaze and charged him with arson and six counts of murder. He was convicted and sentenced to 25 years to life, but his conviction was vacated a decade later after it was revealed that the defense did not receive a fire marshal’s report that four separate fires actually caused the conflagration.
The Waldbaum’s supermarket on Ave. Y and Ocean Ave. was in the middle of being renovated when the fire broke out about 8:40 a.m.
Firefighters raced to put out the flames. Roughly 20 firefighters were dousing the blaze on the arced bowstring trussed roof when it collapsed, and they plummeted into the fire below.
Louise O’Connor, firefighter O’Connor’s widow, watched the collapse as she stood across the street from the fire with her three small children.
Firefighter O’Connor of Ladder Co. 156 — known by his colleagues and relatives as Billy — was supposed to meet up with his wife and kids that day and go to Breezy Point to paint a relative’s bungalow and hang out at the beach.
Instead, he got called to his last fire.
Louise was planning to pick him up at the firehouse for their Breezy Point trip, but ended up watching her husband perish.
“They told me to go down (by the fire) and he would be able to leave with us,” Louise, 68, remembered. “I went down there with the kids and I
saw all the smoke and I thought to myself, ‘This doesn’t look so great.’”
At the fire, Louise spotted Billy, who was given the nickname ‘Angel’ because of a pair of gag pajamas the firefighter received when he joined the department eight months earlier.
“He saw us and waved and then he got on the ladder,” she remembered. “Then he turned and waved to us again.”
Once he was on the roof, the flames intensified.
“I saw the fire pick up inside the store,” she remembered. “I got really nervous.”
“When the roof collapsed, we didn’t see anything. There was so much smoke billowing all over the place. I took the kids to a nearby butcher shop. We went to an uncle’s house and the chaplain came and the chaos started.”
“I can’t believe it’s been 40 years,” she recalled. “It’s a whole lifetime ago. I didn’t think I was going to make it.”
Yet in her despair, Louise bonded with the other widows. She also focused her energies on helping create an early intervention program for special needs children in her husband’s name.
“We all kept in touch,” Louise said. “The kids grew up and went their separate ways, but the women all tried to go out to dinner once and a while.”
All the kids went their separate ways — except for Brian and Caroline, Louise noted.
“I called that shot,” she joked. “I remember that first Christmas party and I saw them together and I turned to (Caroline’s mother) Barbara McManus and said they were going to end up together — and it happened.”
Hastings, who had his own brush with death when he escaped the World Trade Center’s North Tower as the South Tower came down on 9/11, said the yearly memorial Mass for the victims of the Waldbaum’s fire is a good way to keep up with old friends and colleagues.
“The Mass is held every year and now people go with their grandchildren who never knew their grandfathers,” he said. “It’s grown in size because we all grew up going to the Mass.”
Still, the wound will never heal, he said.
“It’s been 40 years, but sometimes it feels like it was 40 seconds,” said Hastings, who fondly remembers his dad watching from the third baseline at all his softball games in Long Island.
“He would never say anything,” he said, his thoughts lost in a bittersweet memory. “He just watched the game and was always ready with some advice afterwards. I just miss that image...knowing he’s there.”
“I wish he was still leaning on that fence,” he said.