Captain Patrick John Brown

Inscribed

New York State Fallen Firefighters Memorial Panel 7 Bottom Patrick J. Brown

National September 11 Memorial South Pool · Panel S-8

Sergeant

Also kept at

ladder.nw ↗ Captain · Ladder Co. 3 salute.nw ↗ Sergeant

1952 2001

Oak Park, Illinois The World Trade CenterSeptember 11, 2001

Lived in Manhattan, New York. Worked at New York City Fire Department as Captain, Ladder 3. Served with Ladder Co. 3. Also served in U.S. Marine Corps.

United States of America

Their life

Killed at the World Trade Center on the morning of 11 September 2001. The first aircraft struck the north tower at 8:46 and the second the south tower at 9:03; the south tower came down at 9:59 and the north at 10:28. Two thousand seven hundred and fifty-three people were killed there.

Their story

Patrick John Brown was born on 9 November 1952 in Oak Park, Illinois, the eldest of three children of John Brown, an FBI agent, and his wife Ruth, a music teacher. A year later his father was transferred and the family moved to Queens Village, New York.

At 17, with his father's signature on the waiver, he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. He served from 1969 to 1973, including service in Vietnam, and rose to sergeant. After his discharge he joined the city's Fire Patrol, and in 1977 he was appointed to the New York City Fire Department.

He served with Ladder 26 in Harlem and then with Rescue 1 and Rescue 2, and became one of the most decorated firefighters in the department, with five medals on Medal Day between 1981 and 1988 for rescues from fire escapes, rooftops and burning apartments. He was promoted to lieutenant in 1987 and to captain in 1993. On 14 May 1991, leading Rescue 1 at a fire on the twelfth floor of 723 Seventh Avenue near Times Square, he set up two rope rescues from the roof that brought two trapped people to safety. In October 2000 he took command of Ladder 3.

Off duty he boxed, held a black belt in karate and taught self-defense to the blind, ran marathons, practised yoga and helped others find the sobriety he had found himself.

On 11 September 2001, Captain Brown led Ladder 3 into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. At 9:21 a.m. he reported from the 35th floor that there were many burned civilians and that his company was still heading up. After the South Tower fell and the order came to get out, he answered that he was on the 44th floor with too many burned people and would not leave them. He and ten other men of Ladder 3 were killed when the North Tower came down. He was 48.

His remains were recovered on 14 December 2001, and his ashes were scattered in Central Park at a spot he had chosen. His name is on Panel S-8 of the South Pool at the National September 11 Memorial, and the walkway in East River Park between East 14th and East 18th Streets is named Captain Patrick J. Brown Walk.

The World Trade Center

September 11, 2001

The first aircraft struck the north tower at 8:46 in the morning, the second the south tower at 9:03. The south tower came down at 9:59, the north at 10:28.

Two thousand seven hundred and fifty-three people were killed here: in the offices above the impacts, on the floors below them, in the plaza, in the lobbies, on the stairs, and aboard the two aeroplanes. Three hundred and forty-three were firefighters of the New York City Fire Department. Seventy-one were law enforcement officers. Eight were paramedics and emergency medical technicians.

The rest had gone to work.

Everyone taken by The World Trade Center →

September 11, 2001

On a clear Tuesday morning, four airliners were taken. Two were flown into the towers of the World Trade Center in New York, one into the western face of the Pentagon, and one came down in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after the passengers and crew went forward at the cockpit door.

Two thousand nine hundred and seventy-seven people were killed. Three hundred and forty-three were firefighters of the New York City Fire Department. Seventy-one were law enforcement officers. Eight were paramedics and emergency medical technicians. One hundred and twenty-five died at the Pentagon, military and civilian together. The rest - some two thousand four hundred of them - had gone to work, or boarded a plane, and belonged to no service at all.

None of them began that morning as heroes. A great many of them ended it as heroes: men and women who carried strangers down stairwells, who stayed with people who could not walk, who held a door, who went back up. Four men on a flight over Pennsylvania, who had thirty minutes of telephone calls and knew what had already happened, decided where their aircraft would come down.

At Arlington, the nation set aside its own rules of eligibility and buried the Pentagon's civilian dead in national ground. It had decided that on this day the distinction did not apply.

Everyone taken by September 11, 2001 →

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