Timothy Welty

Timothy Matthew Welty (February 27, 1967 - September 11, 2001) was a firefighter in FDNY Squad 288 who was among the 343 firefighters killed during rescue and firefighting attempts in the World Trade Center following the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York City. Like many of the rescue workers killed in the line of duty on Sept. 11, there is a street named after him, and his name appears on numerous monuments around the city, nation, and world; unlike most, he has been the subject of two Rolling Stone articles.
Welty grew up in Flushing, NY, in the Bowne Park region where there is now a street (159th St. between 29th and 32cnd Aves.) named after him, and attended Archbishop Molloy High School (where his picture hangs in a special area dedicated to Sept. 11 heroes). This neighborhood was home to many FDNY firefighters, including William M. Feehan, Deputy Commissioner. His friendships with many FDNY families influenced him to become a firefighter. After graduating from Queensboro Community College, he spent a short stint "blowing things up" at the UL Labs in Long Island, before getting the call to attend NY firefighter training in 1993. His first assignment was Engine Company 233, aka "The Tin House", in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, one of the busiest firehouses in the city, and indeed, in the world.
While at Engine 233, Welty was embroiled in a minor controversy within the FDNY after he was
the subject of a Rolling Stone Magazine article that appeared in the 30th Anniversary Special Issue as part of a series of articles on "The American Dream, 1998" about a new generation of (mostly working-class) Americans and their lifestyles. In addition to being the 30th anniversary issue, it featured a set of farewell to Seinfeld articles, and was widely read. While Welty participated willingly, and somewhat innocently, in the interview that led to the story, the author had the ulterior motive of exposing what he apparently felt was racism and nepotism in the FDNY.
During his years at Engine 233, Welty gained a reputation as a fearless and single-minded firefighter, who would let nothing and no one stand in his way to fight a fire. This reputation earned him a spot in the new FDNY "Squad" Companies, which were created after the 1993 World Trade Center attacks as elite specially-trained firefighting companies. Each NYC boro has one "Squad" Company, with special training to fight large or difficult fires, that are called in as subsequent alarms to assist first responder units. Welty moved to Squad 288 in Maspeth, Queens, in 1998 as one of its original members. He was known around the firehouse as "MacGyver" because of his ability to make something out of nothing, and was infamous for yelling during fires, "If you're not going in, get out of the way!" to anyone in front of him.
On September 11, Welty had just come off duty when the first plane struck the World Trade Center. The sight was visible from the firehouse, and when the call came in for Hazmat 1, the Hazardous Materials unit that shared the firehouse with Squad 288, Welty called his wife to say he would not be home in time to bring their son to school, donned his turnout gear and jumped on the back of the Hazmat truck as it pulled out. The duty board for the day, which is still preserved in a small memorial inside the firehouse, shows his name scrawled in chalk afterwards. Squad 288 and Hazmat 1 ended up losing 19 that day, more than any other firehouse.
In its year-in-review issue for 2001, Rolling Stone published another article about Welty in a series dedicated to "readers" of the magazine that lost their lives on Sept. 11.

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