On Oct. 6, the East Rutherford Fire Department, along with other fire departments, and over 500 honored guests and residents of East Rutherford gathered to open and dedicate the East Rutherford Fire Department's Exempt Firemen's Memorial Park.
The new Firemen’s Memorial Park was officially opened by Fire Chief Alan De Rosa who served as Master of Ceremony. The park is located at Paterson and Randolph avenues, adjacent to Victory Park. The Firemen's Memorial Park was dedicated to Ex-Chief and former Councilman Peter Murray, along with those who were dedicated to protecting the borough as volunteer firefighters. Among those honored for their bravery and service to the East Rutherford Fire Department were 256 individuals who have passed away, and who now are forever eternally named on one of the splendid new granite plinths that adorn the park.
The new Firemen’s Memorial Park includes a semi-circular wall containing 11 plaques in honor of the bravery of those now departed individuals who served on the East Rutherford Fire Department over the past century.
Most moving is a large block of granite dedicated to Murray, who passed away in 2005. He spent two decades to bring such a volunteer firefighter’s memorial park to the town. Murray joined the East Rutherford Fire Department in 1965, and served as chief in 1985. Following 30 years of dedicated service, he retired from the fire department, yet continued to stay active, serving as president of the East Rutherford Exempt Firemen Association and severing his town as councilman.
Attending the Oct. 6 unveiling of the new park, his beloved wife and widow Daryl Murray was sympathetically honored during the ceremony by all in attendance. Those who continued the work of Murray’s vision of the erection of a fire fighters memorial park have included his son Timothy Murray, who said, when his father passed away from cancer, he was "going to carry his dad’s dream on." East Rutherford Fire Chief Alan DeRosa, who has worked tirelessly to see the new park completed to the satisfaction of Murray’s original vision, was acknowledged during the park’s opening ceremony for his exceptional dedication to Murray’s dream and hard work
"Peter made a great sacrifice to make this park happen, with so much time spent away from his family, and his family needs to be recognized for their own sacrifice," said Mayor James Cassella.
The park’s honored deceased also includes Father Mychal Judge who served at St. Joseph’s Church in East Rutherford and lost his life attempting to save the lives of fallen New York Fire Department (NYFD) members during the terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center, Sept. 11, 2001. Also honored in granite is former East Rutherford Fire Department volunteer firefighter Dennis G. Taormina Jr. who lost his life at the Twin Towers. Dennis Taormina was vice president of finance at Marsh and McLennan when two passenger airliners were flown into both towers of the World Trade Center, Sept. 11, 2001. A serene sense of hope can be felt when visiting the new Firemen’s Memorial Park in East Rutherford, which also includes a striking statue of a fully uniformed firefighter in action pose.
The property upon which the new Firemen’s Memorial Park is now located once belonged to East Rutherford school teacher Eleanor Heinrich, who served the community as a teacher for over 40 years before retiring as principal in 1964. When Eleanor Heinrich died in 1998, she bequeathed large sums of money to local schools. Included in her will was the bequeathing of the property, upon which the new park stands, to the borough of East Rutherford for the purpose of the expansion of an already existing park.
Reading through the hundreds of names of individuals now in perpetual honor throughout the new park, the identities of many families, including grandfathers, fathers, sons, and uncles are now engraved in granite for all to see. Cassella made special mention of the fact that so many families are involved.
"I think its very important for the community to bridge the generations of firefighters that have been such a vital part of East Rutherford," said Mayor James Cassella. "By that I mean those organizations that have protected us, not only the fire department, but also the various emergency units. Their service to the community goes back so many years and it bridges those years from the early 1900s through to today. These are people who have risked their lives, and I think that their names should not be ever forgotten. They should always be known for generations to come, and their names shouldn’t be hidden in some filing cabinet somewhere."
