Photo: Forest Hills Volunteer Ambulance Corps.
Aug. 20, 2019 By Allie Griffin
The fourth annual Run for Richie 9/11 Memorial Motorcycle Ride returns next month to honor the memory of Richard “Richie” Allen Pearlman, the youngest first responder lost on 9/11.
On Sept. 8, several thousand emergency vehicles and motorcycles will drive from Queens’ Aqueduct Racetrack to Ground Zero and back in memory of all those lost on 9/11 like Pearlman, as well as those still suffering from 9/11 related illnesses today.
Pearlman joined Forest Hills Volunteer Ambulance Corps’ Junior Corps at the young age of 14 and soon excelled to become a dispatcher, later joining the Senior Corps at 18 years old.
“It was only supposed to be a way of keeping a teenage boy off the streets and out of trouble. But soon after Richard Pearlman’s mother signed him up, the Forest Hills Volunteer Ambulance Corps unlocked a life’s passion. For four years, no matter the weather, he was always there, riding two buses from his home in Howard Beach to Forest Hills, determined to learn as much as he could,” read a New York Times profile of Pearlman from November 2001.
On September 11, 2001, Pearlman was working as an office clerk for a Queens lawyer and had been sent to run an errand at 1 Police Plaza. There he learned a plane hit the twin towers, and alongside police officers, he rushed on foot to the scene.
A photograph in Newsweek’s Extra Edition of America Under Attack shows Pearlman aiding the injured at Ground Zero. He became the youngest first responder who died in the tragedy.
The motorcycle ride “Run For Richie” was named in his honor. It is hosted by NYC Punishers Law Enforcement Motorcycle Club and Forest Hills Volunteer Ambulance Corps, Inc. All proceeds from ticket sales will go to the Forest Hills Volunteer Ambulance Corps.
Kickstands will go up at 1 p.m. and the ambulances and motorcycles will drive from the Aqueduct Racetrack parking lot to the Cross Bay Boulevard to Woodhaven Boulevard then follow the Long Island Expressway into Manhattan, where they will take the FDR Drive to Ground Zero, where drivers will loop around and head up to 42nd Street and back into Queens, ending again at the racetrack parking lot.
For tickets and further details, visit the run’s Eventbrite.
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4 Comments
If you equate quiet with peace, perhaps you’ve never laughed? Or consoled? We “bikers” love peace. We also make noise. Every one of us riding to honor Richie, the youngest first responder who died on 9/11, is part of this city, too. We don’t want anyone to forget him or the thousands of lives lost that day. So if it takes thousands of bikers to make you uncomfortable for a couple of hours to do so, well then, we’re okay with that. Quit your whining & be grateful for your freedoms! God bless America.
I think the motorcycles are great to help the people who have forgotten that over 3,000 people died including my husband from the disease of cancer. We hear more noise everyday from the people who are alive and nothing is said, but this is special, thank you motorcycle drivers and God Bless you all.
So the way to honor someone is to blast the city with loud motorbikes?
What does destroying the peace have to do with “honoring”?
This seems more like an opportunity for Bikers to draw attention to themselves (which they dearly love).
And why is the city allowing this?
I totally agree. Also I have been stuck in a parking lot for the last 45 minutes because of this event. Traffic is in really bad shape right now. It is especially frustrating that a law enforcement motorcycle club would call themselves the punishers. How wretched. I also would really like to know who approved the event.