Better Angels

We remember the number: 343. This book remembers the people.  On September 11, 2001, 343 members of the FDNY lost their lives. In the years since, the number itself has become part of American memory. But every number had a name, a family, a firehouse, a history, a personality, and a life already in progress. Better Angels: The Firefighters of 9/11 brings those lives forward again. Artist Dawn Howkinson Siebel spent more than three thousand hours over six years creating individual portraits of the fallen firefighters on burned blocks of wood. In partnership with the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation, the completed Better Angels exhibition traveled across the United States, including a presentation at the World Financial Center overlooking the World Trade Center site. Now the portraits are gathered with some of the stories behind the faces. Here are legendary chiefs and young probationary firefighters. Fathers whose children had not yet been born. Brothers who entered the fire service together. Coaches, musicians, veterans, carpenters, cooks, practical jokers, marathoners, and men who had spent years waiting for the chance to join the FDNY. Some were off duty and went anyway. Some were preparing to retire. Some were still climbing when others were coming down. Their stories unfold alongside the events of September 11, the experiences of survivors, the other first responders who died that day, and the continuing toll of 9/11-related illness. Abraham Lincoln called upon “the better angels of our nature.” For Dawn Siebel, these firefighters embodied that ideal: ordinary human beings capable of extraordinary service to others. Three hundred forty-three is a number. Better Angels remembers 343 lives.