‘9/11: Reunited’ Firefighter on Giuliani’s Mamdani Attack: “Leave Politics Out of It”

Bill Spade, one of the first responders featured in National Geographic‘s new docuseries 9/11: Reunited, has a message for those seeking to turn today’s 25th anniversary commemoration into a political battle: “Leave politics out of it.” Spade, the only member of Staten Island’s FDNY Rescue Company 5 crew to return home on Sept. 11, 2001, spoke to The Hollywood Reporter after former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani called on current Mayor Zohran Mamdani to stay away from the ceremony at Ground Zero. “As firefighters, we always got a call, and if it was a fire, we responded into a building,” Spade says. “Most of the time, you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face, and we were searching for victims and survivors. We never asked the color of their skin, their nationality, their beliefs or anything like that, political affiliations. We just went in and tried to save a life and help people.” “The same thing on 9/11,” he continues. “You didn’t know who you were saving or who you were helping, and it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. You were just trying to help people.” Giuliani, who led New York during the attacks, said during a Newsmax appearance that there was “no question” Mamdani should skip the commemoration and that his attendance offended him. He also drew a connection between the Muslim mayor’s faith and the ideology of the 9/11 hijackers, claiming Mamdani was concealing a desire to make Islam the country’s dominant religion. Mamdani, New York’s first Muslim mayor, has confirmed that he will attend the ceremony and other anniversary events. He has said the focus should remain on the families “whose loved ones were stolen from them 25 years ago” and the first responders who tried to save them. “I just try to stay out of politics with it and keep it as a day of memorializing all 2,977 people,” Spade continues. “They were killed. They didn’t die. They were killed. So leave it for a day of remembering all those people, and let’s leave politics out of it.” Spade will not be at Ground Zero on Friday. He traditionally leaves the ceremony to the victims’ families and instead accepts speaking engagements elsewhere, often accompanied by his wife and sons. This year, he will participate in a firefighters’ memorial in Coppell, Texas, before appearing in Behind the Lines: A 9/11 Story, a touring stage production in which he recounts his experience alongside Army veteran Jaymes Poling and trumpeter Dominick Farinacci. In the three-part 9/11: Reunited, survivors are brought together with people whose lives became bound to theirs during the attacks. For Spade, participating offered the chance to complete something he had wanted to do for nearly 25 years: tell the sons of NYPD Emergency Service Unit officer John D’Allara about their father’s final moments. Spade and D’Allara met in the darkness inside the North Tower, where they worked together to help trapped civilians escape. Although they knew each other for only about half an hour, the two men spoke about their wives and young sons as the catastrophe unfolded around them. D’Allara was killed when the tower collapsed. Spade met D’Allara’s widow, Carol, several years later and told her what had happened, but her sons were still young. In 9/11: Reunited, he finally sits down with the now-adult brothers and recounts the conversation he shared with their father. “It was something I felt I had to do,” Spade says. “It was always lingering in my mind that I wanted to tell them about the last moments of their dad.” The meeting, he says, “lifted” a weight he had carried for decades. D’Allara’s eldest son, John, became a Marine reservist and a nurse, while his younger son, Nicholas, followed his father into the New York Police Department. Spade has told his own story at least 500 times, including during more than 300 walking tours. He now volunteers as a docent at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, where he also speaks to graduating FDNY recruits and teachers developing classroom curricula. His two sons attended New York public schools, but Spade says their formal observance of the attacks seldom extended beyond a moment of silence. “That really bothered me, that we can’t do more in our schools than have a moment of silence,” he says. With a growing portion of the population born after the attacks, Spade believes preserving the individual stories has become more urgent. Spade says he experienced survivor’s guilt only briefly, reasoning that although he missed the men of Rescue 5, he would have missed his family even more had he died. For years, however, he had the same recurring dream. “I was in a school, and they were outside playing, all those guys,” he recalls. “I would always think, ‘Hey, I want to be outside with them playing and not here in the school.'” Then one night, his friend Mike Fiore, one of the Rescue 5 firefighters killed that day, approached the window. “He gives me the thumbs-up, like, ‘We’re okay,'” Spade says. “Since then, I’ve never had that dream. I kind of realized to move on and that they are okay.” 9/11: Reunited is streaming on Disney+ and Hulu.