Metro

Thousands gather for funeral of firefighter killed in movie set blaze

Fallen city firefighter Lt. Michael Davidson was remembered Tuesday as “a hero of the highest order” — and “a great family man” who had firefighting “in his blood” — at a funeral service that drew thousands of fellow comrades and loved ones to Manhattan’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

“It was clear from the very beginning of his career that he was special,” FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro, speaking to mourners at the packed landmark church, said of the 37-year-old married father of four young children who lost his life last week while battling a blaze in Harlem – less than eight miles away.

“Mike commanded every situation and led his fellow firefighters into battle,” Nigro said. “Mike Davidson loved being a New York City firefighter. He loved the opportunity it gave him to help others on every tour.”





Mayor Bill de Blasio told mourners “Our city is in pain today. We’re in mourning, we’re in mourning for this good family, we’re in mourning for our fire department.”

“Michael made this city great through his actions every day,” said the mayor, who called Davidson “a firefighter’s firefighter.”

“Now this whole city knows that Lt. Michael Davidson was a hero of the highest order,” de Blasio said.

The mayor addressed Davidson and his widow Eileen’s four children, Brooke, 7, Joseph, 6, Emily, 3, and 1-year-old Amy, saying: “This is a difficult, painful confusing time.”

Hizzoner mentioned his own father, a WWII veteran who took his life in 1979.

“I had a dad who wore a uniform and served with pride as well and lost him too early,” de Blasio said. “One thing you will find is you will remember your father as hero.”





Davidson, of Harlem’s Engine Company 69, had strong family ties to the department as his father Robert is a retired city firefighter of 26 years — and mostly worked out of the same firehouse – and his younger brother, Eric, is an 11-year veteran of Engine Company 88 in The Bronx.

Eric also eulogized his brother, saying, “This is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had” before he described his brave sibling as “salt of the Earth.”

“He was a man of high moral principles and ideals and never wavered from that,” said Eric who noted that Davidson was the one who named him and “has been my hero my entire life.”

“From the day I was born he was watching over me and I know that he is still and always will be,” he said.





Eric called his brother “an amazing father and husband” and praised Eileen for her strength.

“I thought Michael was strong, but you are like if Hercules and Wonder Woman got together and had a lovechild,” Eric said to Eileen.





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He said that besides thinking of Eileen and her and Davidson’s four children when he learned of his brother’s death, another thought that ran through his mind was: “Wow, I’m never going to celebrate a Mets or Jets championship with my brother.”

But then he “quickly realized” that “we could have lived till we were 100-years-old and still probably not have gotten to see that happen,” he said, drawing sounds of laughter.

“Not only was he my older, yet not bigger brother — which I loved to remind him of on daily basis — but really was my best friend who I turned to for advice, decisions, and anything else going on in my life,” Eric said.





“He just had this aura of him that you would just think, ‘wow, if I could just be a fraction of the man he is, I’d be doing alright for myself.’”

He asked mourners “when you think of Michael, please, please, please, I beg of you – laugh, don’t cry. He wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.”

Eric got a standing ovation for his emotional tribute.

Timothy Cardinal Dolan, who presided over the mass, said: “Never did I meet this hero, but now — now I, along, with this entire teeming metropolis feel that I know him very, very well.”

“A son, a brother, a friend, a loyal, tender, loving husband to Eileen and his four children, a son-in-law, a neighbor, a parishioner, and a firefighter whose blood contained the very DNA of the FDNY, whose service as a fireman was a vocation — hardly a job. A man whose name radiates goodness, valor and virtue as sparkling as the badge he wears,” Dolan said of Davidson.

Dolan added: “Jesus and Michael have quite a bit in common. Michael might blush to hear to that.”

He continued, “Jesus came to give life and to save life — so did firefighter Michael Davidson.”

Before the mass, more than 50 NYPD members on motorcycles led a somber funeral procession from Davidson’s Floral Park, LI home to the Roman Catholic Midtown church where a sea of fellow firefighters in their dress uniforms was lined up.

Eileen, a breast cancer survivor, stood close by, her children beside her in the arms of family members, as her husband’s casket – draped in a red, white and gold FDNY flag — was led into the 5th Avenue church as bagpipers played “Amazing Grace.”

De Blasio and wife Chirlane McCray and Nigro and his wife, Lynn, also stood by outside as Davidson’s casket – which arrived on an FDNY engine truck decorated in purple and black bunting – was carried in by nine FDNY pallbearers.

Eileen, wearing sunglasses and clutching the arms of two FDNY firefighters who flanked her, followed into the church right behind Davidson’s casket.

Davidson, according to the city’s medical examiner, was ultimately killed by smoke inhalation last Thursday night after he led his fellow smoke-eaters into the burning basement of a building on St. Nicholas Avenue that was being used as a set for the upcoming Edward Norton-directed flick, “Motherless Brooklyn.”

The 15-year veteran firefighter, who was the nozzleman for the engine company, got separated from the rest of his unit after they were forced to retreat from the four-story building as the flames intensified.

Davidson had run out of compressed air and collapsed while trying to escape the smoke-blinding fire-alarm inferno, sources have told The Post.

By the time his fellow Bravest realized that Davidson was missing and went back in the nearly century-old building for him, he was already unconscious.

The tragedy struck one floor below the former St. Nick’s Jazz Pub, which was being used to shoot the movie that stars Norton, along with actors Bruce Willis, Alec Baldwin, and Willem Dafoe.

“We were filming in a bar and an apartment within the building and our crew noticed smoke rising up into where we were working,” Norton posted on his Instagram page over the weekend. “I was outside setting up a shot outside the building.”

Norton added: “It’s devastating to contemplate that one of the men we watched charging in there lost his life. Please send a prayer of thanks for the spirit and courage of Michael Davidson.”

The cause of the blaze is still not known and the remains of the building were slated to be demolished.

Davidson was posthumously promoted to the rank of lieutenant on Saturday.

He is the 1,150th city firefighter to die in the line of duty in the FDNY’s 153-year-old history.





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Filed under fdny , firefighters , fires , funerals , harlem , 3/27/18