A brother remembers Richard T. Muldowney, Jr.

In 20 years, it's never gotten any easier.”

Kevin Muldowney

Richard T. Muldowney, Jr., came from a Freeport family with a tradition of public service. His father was a Freeport police detective. His brother, Kevin, is a retired New York City Police Department detective.  In his own words, Kevin recalled the loss of his brother on September 11, 2001. 

I was a New York City police detective. Rich was a firefighter. He was in Ladder Company 7. That’s in the Murray HIll section on East 29th Street in Manhattan, so he was not far away from the World Trade Center.

One of the most interesting things about that 9/11 morning was that Richie was just getting off duty. He was actually off, but when the plane hit the tower, he jumped on the rig.

They believe he was assigned to the Marriott next door to the North Tower. He was assigned to evacuate everybody. There was a radio transmission that said his company was going into the Marriott. There were six members from the company. Nobody survived.

We all grew up in Freeport. Richie had moved to Babylon probably four years prior to 9/11. But he was still a member of the Freeport Fire Department, assigned to company 216. He was an ex-captain as well. He and his wife, Constance, had two children, a boy named John and a girl named Catherine.

I went down to the Pile that afternoon of 9/11, probably about 4. I was there for the next seven days, trying to find my brother. I was not assigned to crowd control or anything else. I was specifically assigned to locate my brother.

(Note: The police officers and firefighters who searched the mountain of rubble never referred to it as ground zero, but as the Pile.)

At that time, everything was just so sketchy — confirming where members of the Fire Department were, and where members of the Police Department were. It just took a lot of time.

Originally when I first got down there, we were trying to arrange a command post structure, trying to find where Richie’s company was located. The whole command staff of the New York Fire Department perished, so they had to establish a new command structure. While they redeveloped the command structure, I was assisting with debris removal and searching. We were just in the Pile, removing debris piece by piece.

Richie’s remains were never found. We had his funeral service in April 2002. However, with the new DNA testing that they came out with after 9/11, he was eventually identified.

My family and the HIggins family grew up together in Freeport. We lived a few blocks from each other. Losing Tim Higgins and my brother is so sad. And on top of it, I lost my cousin, Kenneth Watson. He was also a New York City firefighter. He was born in Freeport, but he grew up in Smithtown.

Our families have generations in police and firefighting. My father, Richard Muldowney Sr., was a retired detective from the Freeport Police. He passed away some years ago. Mom just passed this year in January.

I retired from the NYPD in 2003. I still live in Freeport. I am an ex-chief in the Freeport Fire Department, so I’m still active with the Fire Department.

My wife, Amanda Muldowney, just retired this summer. She was the principal of Giblyn Elementary School here in Freeport. She spent 15 years as principal.

This is our second marriage for the both of us. She has a son and a daughter, and I have a daughter. We have three grandchildren with Mandy’s children. I’m one of six kids, so it’s always good having a lot of activity with children and grandchildren.

My sister Mary and I still live in Freeport. My other siblings — my brother Timothy, my twin sister Colleen and Brian my youngest brother — live outside Tampa. Brian is a battalion chief in the Hillsborough County Fire Department. Hillsborough County surrounds the City of Tampa.

On the 10th year anniversary of 9/11, my family and the firehouse that Richie belonged to in Freeport, Wide Awake Engine Co. No. 1, erected the lighthouse monument at Bayview Avenue and Ray Street. We set up the Richard T. Muldowney Jr. Foundation. The proceeds from the fundraising paid for the construction and development of that lighthouse.

A memorial was already there at that traffic circle. Members of the community got together and erected a wooden shelter in 2002 with the names of everybody that people knew, former Freeporters. The annual memorial has taken place at that intersection ever since 2002.

In 2010, we transferred the names from the shelter to be engraved on the lighthouse monument. The Freeport Historical Society has that wooden shelter stored on its premises, on Main Street right at Atlantic Avenue.

Looking back 20 years, I would say 9/11 definitely influenced how I think about international events, especially with what’s going on in Afghanistan. It brings everything back to being aware that something could happen.

The New York Police Department created special units assigned to counterterrorism, so we'd have a quicker response to any kind of incident, any terrorist, anything that threatens security. They developed a counterterrorism unit that has about 800 members in the city, and all around the world as well. I think there were 16 cities around the world where the NYPD assigned a detective to monitor what’s going on in the rest of the world. Without a doubt, threats have been deterred by these counterterrorism units.

When I think about 9/11, the first thing that comes to mind is, “Never forget.” Personally, in my family, in 20 years it’s never gotten any easier.