Thursday, January 8, 2015 workout is dedicated to David Arce, FDNY, Engine 33, who was killed on September 11, 2001. David G. Arce, 36, who grew up in Westbury, was a firefighter with Engine Company 33 in NoHo. He and his best friend, Michael Boyle, also a firefighter, walked down from the 40th floor of the north tower when the building collapsed. His remains were found in the southwest corner of the lobby. When Margaret Arce of Williston Park went to her sons apartment in Manhattans Stuyvesant Town to pack up his belongings after Sept. 11, she discovered that he had been a secret Santa, buying gifts for those less fortunate. He was a person with a big heart, she said. As a teenager she recalled how her son invited a man who didnt have any family to join the Arces for a Thanksgiving dinner. The man continued to visit them. After David died, he went to the cemetery every day and cried for David and for Michael, said Margaret Arce. In her sons memory, she and Peter Arce, the eldest of her four children, visit the man, who moved to a Hempstead nursing home in August. Hell call and ask for two bottles of Dr. Brown Diet soda and a big box of Cheese Nips, she said. The best tribute in David Arces memory, she said, is the many friends he had. The kindness theyve shown her since his death is a reflection of his generosity. Two of his friends have been calling Margaret Arce, 68, a retired nurse, virtually every week to see how shes doing. Every year, on her sons birthday, she gets a call from a firefighter from Ladder 35, Engine Company 40. Theyve adopted me in his name, she said. For the past decade, Margaret Arce spent most of her time doing volunteer work, including spending one to two days at the Tribute WTC Visitor Center in Manhattan. Ive got a new life now. Im dedicated to doing good like he did, she said. Your perspective gets shattered. You can sit down and do nothing or get up and do something. I think the only cure for grief is to get something done. You have to honor these people. His firefighter son and his sons lifelong pal had rushed down 40 flights of stairs in the World Trade Center and were in the lobby of the north tower. They were inches away from escaping, Jimmy Boyle said yesterday of his son, Michael, and Michaels friend, David Arce. Jimmy Boyle learned this from another firefighter, Lt. Warren Smith, who wrote Boyle a poignant three-page letter describing the day the Trade Center shook like a rag doll and collapsed. Michael Boyle and David Arce were trapped together in the collapse, and it wasnt until this weekend that their bodies were recovered in the southwest corner of the north tower lobby. Now, the two will be buried together in a Westbury cemetery. Smith, Boyle and Arce were in the Trade Center together. Smith was with Ladder 9, which shared a house with Engine 33, where Boyle and Arce worked. He was with them all the way down from the 40th floor, said Jimmy Boyle, a retired firefighter and former union president. He made it to safety but Michael and David didnt. Michael Boyle and David Arce had been inseparable since junior high school in Westbury, where they first met. They took the firefighters test together and they could be found at Mets games together. They even went to the same dentist. They were so close that Arces mother, Margaret, called them the Bobbsey Twins. They will remain close, with both mens parents planning to bury them alongside each other in Cemetery of the Holy Rood. Both men were eulogized at an emotional memorial Mass at St. Patricks Cathedral in November, where Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford) called them the first soldiers to die in the first great war of the 21st century. They were so close to getting out alive, King said yesterday. Margaret Arce said uniformed members of Engine 33 in Manhattan told her Saturday that DNA tests had confirmed her son had been found. The same day, Jimmy Boyle was told that his sons remains had been discovered, but the Fire Department was awaiting DNA tests for a positive identification. I am sure that its my son, Boyle said yesterday, because his uniform was found as well. Yesterday, Margaret Arce spent part of the day visiting the site where David and Michael will be buried. My son has already been identified and now were waiting for the DNA tests to confirm Michael, she said. We are not going to have a funeral; this will be a graveside ceremony, said Boyle, who works for Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes. I dont know if I could go through something as emotional again. For both parents, the discovery of their sons remains was bittersweet closure, Boyle said. Boyle had spent weeks searching for Michael, becoming one of many firefighter parents who went each day to the sorrow-soaked site of the terrorist attack, digging, searching, even calling for their lost children. The day of the attack, Jimmy Boyle got a call from Michael, who said that he and David were getting ready to go to Woodside to pass out campaign literature for Matthew J. Farrell, a relative who was running for the City Council. That was at 8:35 a.m. and the call was from the firefighters house on Great Jones Street. But duty pre-empted their plans and both men ran into the infernos. For the two parents, the long months between the reported loss of their sons and the weekend discovery of their remains have been filled with pain and regret for the unfulfilled promise of both their lives. This never ends, Margaret said yesterday. She was already busy rewriting her sons death certificate. It now reads, Not found, she said. I am changing that. Now it will read Found. For weeks after her sons death, Margaret Arce went to her sons $1,000-a-month apartment in Stuyvesant Town to pack his belongings, a sad ritual familiar to many parents. She spoke of a glittering future for her son, whose firefighter friends had dubbed him Buddha because he was so quiet. He was going to take a lieutenants exam in January, she said. Michael Boyle had been making plans to marry Rosemary Kenny, and Jimmy Boyle recalled that David Arce would sometimes join the pair on their dates. When I talked to Margaret in January, her sons remains were still missing, but she was hoping that searchers would find him. If not, then I think theyre in heaven raising hell together, she said at the time. But there are things to be done here on earth. David Arces remains are at the city morgue, awaiting confirmation of Michael Boyles identity and burial together. Its only fitting, Jimmy Boyle said.
Posted on: Thu, 08 Jan 2015 04:05:00 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015