{"id":8384,"date":"2026-09-08T11:06:16","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T11:06:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=8384"},"modified":"2026-09-08T11:06:16","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T11:06:16","slug":"actor-denis-leary-details-chilling-9-11-experience-that-helped-lead-to-tv-hit-rescue-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=8384","title":{"rendered":"Actor Denis Leary details chilling 9\/11 experience that helped lead to TV hit ‘Rescue Me’"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Actor Denis Leary was unloading his hockey gear at Manhattan\u2019s Chelsea Piers for a morning game when United Flt. 175 struck the South Tower of the World Trade Center 25 years ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Read more Exclusive | Pete Davidson was a kid when he lost his dad on 9\/11 \u2014\u00a0now he wonders how to explain it to daughter he named after the FDNY hero<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThey turned the rink into a morgue, and they lined up all the ambulances,\u201d Leary, 69, told The Post.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The heartbreaking scene was the beginning of a journey that led to Leary\u2019s famous TV series \u201cRescue Me\u201d \u2013 a defiantly politically incorrect dramedy around FDNY members ridden with Sept. 11 survivor\u2019s guilt.<\/p>\n

The New Englander star and his pick-up-hockey teammates from his production company had a clear, firsthand view of the terrorism and destruction unfurling that day from the West Side Highway. <\/p>\n

Leary described seeing the \u201cendless flow\u201d of dust and cut-covered corporate workers fleeing uptown for hours.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe sound of the buildings \u2026 it\u2019s almost like it goes into your bones,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He was unaware of it at the time, but his friend, Garnet \u201cAce\u201d Bailey of the NHL\u2019s Bruins \u2013 a hockey talent who once played with Wayne Gretzky\u2019s Oilers in the World Hockey Association \u2013 was on board United 175, which had departed Boston\u2019s Logan Airport for Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew I was going to hear about firefighter friends of mine from the FDNY that didn\u2019t make it,\u201d Leary said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the next day, to hear that \u201cAce\u201d Bailey had died in the thing as well, we were just like, \u2018That is crazy.\u2019 I mean, it\u2019s insanity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leary was already incredibly attached to New York\u2019s Bravest.<\/p>\n

His cousin and close friend Jeremiah Lucey was a Worcester, Mass., firefighter who was one of six responders killed in a warehouse blaze in the town in 1999 \u2014 and the actor remembered how his FDNY buddies came up and helped search the building\u2019s ruins at the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of members of the FDNY who I was friends with had come up to help look for the bodies,\u201d Leary recalled.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The actor launched the Leary Firefighters Foundation in 2000 \u2014 and then an early supporter, FDNY Lt. Tim Higgins, was killed in the 9\/11 terror attack that murdered nearly 3,000 people that day \u2013 343 of them FDNY, 23 NYPD and 37 Port Authority Police Department members.<\/p>\n

Leary said he \u201cpretty quickly\u201d decided he wanted to turn the pain into a purpose.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of the guys I knew that had survived, I was spending time with them and in their firehouses as they were digging through The Pile in the fall right after 9\/11,\u201d he said. \u201cWe were witnessing the grief that they were going through.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leary would often be joined in the firehouses by writer Peter Tolan, who saw the carnage firsthand while filming another project in New Jersey.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The pair initially discussed a film concept about a firefighter killed in the line of duty \u2013 but one night during the aftermath, changed everything.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was literally in the blink of an eye. We went from watching a guy come up from downtown from The Pile \u2014 they had found a friend \u2013 a piece of a friend \u2013 and so he was just overwhelmed with grief. I mean, he could barely talk,\u201d the actor said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWatching him trying to fight to talk in that firehouse kitchen was a very tough experience to watch. Maybe 20 minutes later\u2026all of us were laughing about something.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when the lightbulb went off for the duo to create \u201cRescue Me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to make a show where people are on the edge of their seat watching an action sequence involving fire,\u201d Leary said, \u201cAnd then the next minute they\u2019re crying because they\u2019re so sad, and then the minute after that, they\u2019re laughing their asses off.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Mamdani\u2019s top task to fix NYC schools: make kids show up<\/a><\/p>\n

The 2004 FX hit show launched around the plot line of Leary\u2019s alcoholic firefighting character, Tommy Gavin, as he struggled to cope with the death of his FDNY cousin after only one of his fingers was found at Ground Zero.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It mixed tearjerking tragedy with take-no-prisoners humor.<\/p>\n

\u201cRescue Me\u201d and its seven-season run also greatly revolved around cathartic, comedic, often irreverent firehouse kitchen conversations among Gavin\u2019s crew.<\/p>\n

They notably involved John Scurti\u2019s hilarious snack-loving Lt. \u201cLou\u201d Ken Shea and Michael Lombardi\u2019s sexually confused new, \u201cprobie\u201d member Mike Silletti.<\/p>\n

There also was Daniel Sunjata\u2019s eventual 9\/11 conspiracy theorist firefighter Franco Rivera and Steven Pasquale\u2019s lovable idiot Sean Garrity, whose heartbreaking cancer diagnosis becomes on-screen musical theater.<\/p>\n

Many scenes needed little to no Hollywood embellishment, thanks to the real-life stories that FDNY members and firefighting consultants gladly dished to the show\u2019s creators.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had so much information on a daily basis, not just comedically, I\u2019m talking about dramatically,\u201d Leary said. \u201cAll the ideas for our fires came basically from experiences those guys had.\u201d<\/p>\n

Younger firefighters \u2013 many who were rapidly promoted because so many senior superiors were killed on 9\/11 \u2013 saw the pilot before airing and loved its portrayal of raw firehouse behavior.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey said, \u2018You got it. You totally nailed it,\u2019 \u201d Leary recalled.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As for the older officers, \u201cI had one tell me, \u2018You\u2019re giving away our secrets.\u2019 \u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t take long for the crew to realize \u201cRescue Me\u201d also struck a chord outside the firehouses \u2013 especially while filming early seasons in first-responder-heavy areas of outer Queens such as the Rockaways.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were shooting on blocks and in houses where every block had lost somebody,\u201d Scurti told The Post.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople were out in their lawn chairs with a bottle of wine, watching us shoot all night. That\u2019s when I remember getting a lot of real families and real widows saying that they loved the show and that you\u2019re putting such a great light on the New York City Fire Department.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scurti wrote four episodes and said the source material of everyday New Yorkers wanting to share their tales was everywhere after 2001.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou walk into a deli, and you come out with another great 9\/11 story that maybe we want to tell,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

The show\u2019s legacy \u2013 and healing power \u2013 is still reaching new New Yorkers over 20 years later.<\/p>\n

Scurti recalled being stopped in a parking lot by a former detective late last month to be told thank you.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe and his son discovered \u2018Rescue Me,\u2019 and they\u2019ve been sitting in front of the TV for the past two weeks,\u201d the actor said.<\/p>\n

Leary\u2019s foundation continues to help firefighters too, especially during a yearly charity event at an FDNY academy \u201cwhere people pay big money to become a firefighter for a day.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI still get firefighters, a lot of first responders and military people, who talk about how the show helped them through or how they still go back and watch the show because it helps them to still process it,\u201d Leary said.<\/p>\n

Read more Trump, GOP turn up the heat to ensure fairness, purge wokism on campuses<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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