09/20/2026
Some stories deserve to be remembered—even when the people who lived them never asked to be recognized.
Twenty-five years ago, after the attacks of September 11, Fire Island Ferries answered a call for help.
The Voyager, Explorer, and Fireball helped restore ferry service to Lower Manhattan when transportation into the city had been severely disrupted. And remarkably, Voyager and Explorer are still carrying passengers today.
When I first approached Fire Island Ferries about recognizing them, they essentially said, no need.
Thankfully, I can be persistent. 😊
Because eventually we discovered something important: even some of the young people working there today didn’t know what their own company and coworkers before them had contributed after 9/11.
That was the reason to tell the story.
Our young people inherit more than jobs. They inherit histories, skills, responsibilities and examples of what ordinary people can do when extraordinary circumstances call upon them.
The plaque O-High Foundation presented says, in part, that “the people who move a community every day may one day be called upon to move it through the extraordinary.”
And that is exactly what they did.
Thank you, Fire Island Ferries. And thank you to Greater Long Island and Andrew Rappaport for helping bring this little-known piece of Long Island’s 9/11 history forward.
Read the full Greater Long Island story
Twenty-five years after the Sept. 11 attacks, Fire Island Ferries is receiving recognition for the role its crews played in NYC’s recovery.
