About Michael Boyle
Michael Boyle, 37, of Manhattan who grew up in Westbury, was a firefighter with Engine 33 in NoHo. His father said
Michael and his boyhood friend, David G. Arce, 36, also a firefighter with Engine 33, had walked down from the 40th
floor of the north tower when the building collapsed. Their remains were found in the lobby.
A runner, Michael had been training for the New York City Marathon and was pushing to finish the race in under three
hours. He took part in other sports, including playing in a baseball league.
"He loved competition," said his father, James Boyle, a retired firefighter who served two terms as president of the
Uniformed Firefighters Association.
Michael's competitive edge extended to politics.
He once threw a firefighter fundraiser for Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford) in Far Rockaway. On the morning of Sept. 11,
Michael and David were supposed to be in Woodside handing out campaign literature in an effort to get Matthew J.
Farrell - James Boyle's nephew - elected to the New York City Council.
Even with his seemingly busy schedule, Michael found time to do volunteer work. One time, Michael hopped on a
jumbo jet carrying children with special needs to Disney World, his father said. Michael accompanied them for a day
of fun at the theme park.
"He was a compassionate human being," said his father.
James Boyle - who was working for the Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes in 2001 - resigned shortly after his
son was killed.
"I felt I couldn't carry my weight," he said.
Then, he poured his energy into helping others, lobbying lawmakers to pass the James Zadroga Act, which provides
health benefits and compensation for Ground Zero workers.
- Chau Lam
This profile was originally published in 2001/2002
The fortunes and the misfortunes of the Boyle and Arce families have been on a parallel track for years, thanks to the
close and loving relationship of their sons. Michael Boyle and David Arce were boyhood pals, both became firefighters
and both perished on the day that terrorists brought down the Twin Towers.
A few days ago, both men were buried together in the Cemetery of the Holy Rood alongside St. Brigid's Church in
Westbury - Boyle's remains in the family plot, Arce's ashes 100 yards away in the so-called 9/11 plot, where other
firefighters, cops and civilians, 12 in all, casualties of the terrorist attack, are buried.
In a procession behind two firetrucks on which two flag-draped coffins reposed, Jimmy Boyle and Margaret Arce held
hands as they marched to the cemetery after Mass and placed red roses on the coffins of their sons. Michael Boyle, a
former Army paratrooper, is described in former firefighter Dennis Smith's book, "Report from Ground Zero," (Viking
Press) as "the most beloved man within the New York Fire Department family."
Arce is an outgoing woman who had to cope with the deaths of her physician husband and her son David last year.
She was accompanied by her son Peter, who gave the eulogy for his brother at a joint memorial service at St. Patrick's
Cathedral last November. After the funeral, he told me he thought his brother and Boyle had "squeezed all they could
out of their lives. "It was almost as though they had a premonition that they would die young, and so they determined
to use every moment they were alive to give meaning to their lives."
Michael Boyle, 37, and David Arce, 36, spent a good part of their young lives in Queens - the Boyles in Sunnyside, the
Arces in Ridgewood. "You want to know how tough my brother was?" Peter Arce says. "When he was a teenager he
took tap-dancing lessons. Our neighborhood was pretty rough, so you had to be tough to take dancing lessons."
The two families eventually settled in Westbury within a block of one another. Arce and Boyle first met at Westbury
Junior High School and soon were inseparable. A few days ago, Jimmy Boyle sent me a T-shirt with the inscription "In
memory of Michael Boyle and David Arce" and a line under a Fire Department badge that reads, "WTC Sept. 11th
2001," and another line that reads: "Forever in Our Hearts and Minds, Engine 33 and Ladder 9."
Both men had worked two days in a row in order to take Election Day - Sept. 11 - off because they had promised to
work in Woodside for Matt Farrell, who was running for the City Council. Michael Boyle was Farrell's campaign
manager, and it was a tight race. Farrell is a cousin of Jimmy Boyle - who is a retired firefighter and union president and he still recalls a foreboding phone call he got from Jimmy Boyle that afternoon.
"It doesn't look good," the elder Boyle told Farrell. Both younger men were set to leave their East Village firehouse for
Queens at 9 a.m., when the fire alarms began ringing and they marched into the worst catastrophe in the
department's history, in which 343 New York City firefighters died. There were familiar faces everywhere you looked
inside St. Brigid's Church. There was retired firefighter Martin McTeague, who was badly burned and lay near death
for weeks after an explosion at the Con Ed plant in Manhattan. There was Joe Hynes, the Brooklyn district attorney for
whom Jimmy Boyle now works, and Congressman Peter King, for whom Michael Boyle worked in his election
campaigns. King broke into tears reading a eulogy to Boyle and Arce in Congress. Sitting inside the church, you could
hear the sounds of spring filtering through half-opened stained glass windows - the sounds of life, really: birds
chirping, gulls screeching, a baby crying.
The Rev. Ralph Sommer called the two men "brave and wonderful men," and after saying "goodbye to them all over
again," he asked the firefighters to stand and they did and the applause was strong and heartfelt. But now the families
of the two men are within walking distance of the cemetery. They are grateful for that, because sometime soon,
maybe next month or in June, the recovery efforts will end, and that, as retired firefighter Lee Ielpi - who searched for
his son for three months at Ground Zero - says, "will be the saddest day of all." -- Dennis Duggan
His firefighter son and his son's lifelong pal had rushed down 40 flights of stairs in the World Trade Center and were in
the lobby of the north tower.
"They were inches away from escaping," Jimmy Boyle said yesterday of his son, Michael, and Michael's friend, David
Arce.
Jimmy Boyle learned this from another firefighter, Lt. Warren Smith, who wrote Boyle a poignant three-page letter
describing the day the Trade Center "shook like a rag doll" and collapsed.
Michael Boyle and David Arce were trapped together in the collapse, and it wasn't until this weekend that their bodies
were recovered in the southwest corner of the north tower lobby. Now, the two will be buried together in a Westbury
cemetery.
Smith, Boyle and Arce were in the Trade Center together. Smith was with Ladder 9, which shared a house with Engine
33, where Boyle and Arce worked.
"He was with them all the way down from the 40th floor," said Jimmy Boyle, a retired firefighter and former union
president. "He made it to safety but Michael and David didn't."
Michael Boyle and David Arce had been inseparable since junior high school in Westbury, where they first met. They
took the firefighters test together and they could be found at Mets games together. They even went to the same
dentist. They were so close that Arce's mother, Margaret, called them "the Bobbsey Twins."
They will remain close, with both men's parents planning to bury them alongside each other in Cemetery of the Holy
Rood.
Both men were eulogized at an emotional memorial Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral in November, where Rep. Peter
King (R-Seaford) called them the "first soldiers to die in the first great war of the 21st century."
"They were so close to getting out alive," King said yesterday.
Margaret Arce said uniformed members of Engine 33 in Manhattan told her Saturday that DNA tests had confirmed
her son had been found.
The same day, Jimmy Boyle was told that his son's remains had been discovered, but the Fire Department was
awaiting DNA tests for a positive identification.
"I am sure that it's my son," Boyle said yesterday, "because his uniform was found as well."
Yesterday, Margaret Arce spent part of the day visiting the site where David and Michael will be buried.
"My son has already been identified and now we're waiting for the DNA tests to confirm Michael," she said.
"We are not going to have a funeral; this will be a graveside ceremony," said Boyle, who works for Brooklyn District
Attorney Charles Hynes. "I don't know if I could go through something as emotional again."
For both parents, the discovery of their sons' remains was "bittersweet closure," Boyle said.
Boyle had spent weeks searching for Michael, becoming one of many firefighter parents who went each day to the
sorrow-soaked site of the terrorist attack, digging, searching, even calling for their lost children.
The day of the attack, Jimmy Boyle got a call from Michael, who said that he and David were getting ready to go to
Woodside to pass out campaign literature for Matthew J. Farrell, a relative who was running for the City Council.
That was at 8:35 a.m. and the call was from the firefighters' house on Great Jones Street. But duty pre-empted their
plans and both men ran into the infernos.
For the two parents, the long months between the reported loss of their sons and the weekend discovery of their
remains have been filled with pain and regret for the unfulfilled promise of both their lives.
"This never ends," Margaret said yesterday. She was already busy rewriting her son's death certificate.
"It now reads, 'Not found,'" she said. "I am changing that. Now it will read 'Found.'"
For weeks after her son's death, Margaret Arce went to her son's $1,000-a-month apartment in Stuyvesant Town to
pack his belongings, a sad ritual familiar to many parents. She spoke of a glittering future for her son, whose
firefighter friends had dubbed him "Buddha" because he was so quiet.
"He was going to take a lieutenant's exam in January," she said.
Michael Boyle had been making plans to marry Rosemary Kenny, and Jimmy Boyle recalled that David Arce would
sometimes join the pair on their dates.
When I talked to Margaret in January, her son's remains were still missing, but she was hoping that searchers would
find him.
"If not, then I think they're in heaven raising hell together," she said at the time.
But there are things to be done here on earth.
David Arce's remains are at the city morgue, awaiting confirmation of Michael Boyle's identity and burial together.
"It's only fitting," Jimmy Boyle said. -- Dennis Duggan
Firefighters Michael Boyle and David Arce hit it off from the moment they met at Westbury High School more than
two decades ago.
"They were like the Bobbsey twins," Arce's mother, Margaret, said yesterday.
They studied together and ran track together - first in high school, then later in the annual fireman's marathon, where
they usually finished first and second. They worked out together, preparing for the firefighters' test, and they went to
Mets ballgames every Tuesday and Thursday during the baseball season.
Both became firefighters, inspired by the legendary Jimmy Boyle, Michael's father, a fearless firefighter who became
president of the firefighters union during the 1980s and 1990s.
"There was no one like Jimmy Boyle," said Margaret Arce, a geriatric nurse. "I think his son Michael would have
become president of the union and I think my son David would have been his backup guy."
Both died on a sunny morning in September made bitterly dark by the single worst municipal disaster in the city's
history. Both were off-duty but they answered the call to arms, ringing inside Engine 33's house on Great Jones Street
in the East Village, without a moment's hesitation.
The last message Jimmy Boyle received from his 37-year-old son that day - the day of the Democratic primary that was
called off - came at 8:35 a.m.
"We're going up to campaign headquarters in Woodside," Michael said.
Both had been working to try to help get Matthew J. Farrell, chief of staff for Councilwoman Karen Koslowitz, elected
to the City Council. Jimmy Boyle is Matthew's uncle, and Dave, so quiet he was nicknamed "Buddha" by his firehouse
pals, and Michael planned to spend that day handing out literature for Farrell.
Rep. Peter King, who grew up in Sunnyside and who was close to Jimmy Boyle, who grew up there also, described
Michael as a "natural" in politics. He said Michael once threw a firefighter fund-raiser for him in Far Rockaway.
"It was a huge success and all because of the work Michael did," King said. "Whenever I tried to thank him for it, he
wanted to hear none of it.
"Michael died in just the way he lived," King said. "In his final moments he was calling his family to tell them he was
okay and that he was going to work on a political campaign. But when duty called, he responded.
"So the last moments of his life kind of summed up what his life had been all about, love of family, love of politics, and
love of his job."
It was a job that gave him his red badge of courage the very first time he responded to a fire - a facial burn that was
evident there for years after he began fighting the Red Devil in 1996.
Both Boyle and Arce, 36, who joined the force a year later, will be celebrated together at a memorial Mass in St.
Patrick's Cathedral Monday morning.
Joseph Zwilling, a spokesman for the archdiocese, said yesterday that "it's rare to have a Mass said for two unrelated
people but we have asked all our parishes to be as flexible as possible because of the extraordinary event. We want to
be as pastorally sensitive as possible to the wishes of the families."
Jimmy Boyle recalled just how close the two men were, saying that Michael was planning to marry Rosemary Kenny
and that David would often join the romantic pair at one event or another.
"I think it had to be this way, them being celebrated at Mass together," Boyle said yesterday. "They were together in
everything else they did including death."
Arce's mother agrees. She has been going through her son's possessions in his $1,000-a-month Stuyvesant Town
apartment in Manhattan.
"The boys took to each other quickly. My son was a quiet fellow, Michael was outgoing, and they made a great team,"
she said.
She said David had planned to take the lieutenant's exam this month and she noted that the two worked at the same
engine companies all through their careers.
She says she still hasn't given up hope that some part or all of her son's body will be found in the ruins.
But, she adds, "if not, then I think they're up there raising hell in heaven together." -- Dennis Duggan
When Jimmy Boyle, retired city firefighter, first heard on Tuesday morning that a plane had hit the World Trade
Center, he knew his son, Michael, a city firefighter, was supposed to be off-duty.
Michael, 37, loved politics almost as much as the fire department, and he was planning to go out to Queens from
Manhattan to work on a City Council primary campaign.
But his father also knew that many firefighters look on their occupation as more than a job, and he remembered what
happened when Michael fought his first fire six years ago.
He stayed at his post in the fur vault of a burning department store even though the heat got so intense it left burns
all around his face mask. "He came out exhausted, beaten," said his father, who lives in Westbury. "He said, 'It was
hot, but I couldn't leave, Dad, because I wasn't supposed to.' I said, 'Mike, you did a great job.'"
Jimmy Boyle, head of the firefighters' union during the 1980s and '90s, was in Brooklyn on Tuesday, and what he knew
about his son and his son's colleagues made him very worried. He set off on foot across the Brooklyn Bridge toward
the World Trade Center, hoping not to find Michael.
He was right to be worried. Michael Boyle was among the 300 New York City firefighters still missing yesterday.
Among them were two other firefighters - and probably many others - who also didn't really have to be there, but
wound up inside the doomed towers because of their sense of duty.
One of them was David Arce, 36, who grew up in Westbury with Michael Boyle. The two had been best friends since
childhood, served in the same fire company and worked together on political campaigns. Arce, also off-duty on
Tuesday, had planned to go to Queens with Michael.
Marjorie Ginobbi, who lives next door to the Arce family and watched the two boys grow up, wasn't surprised David
wound up in a job that involves helping people.
"Anything I needed help with, he was always there. Cutting the grass, painting, anything that needed to be carried - he
was just a wonderful kid."
When he grew up, she said, "It was like he had been born to be a firefighter. He loved the work - always smiling."
Arce's father, Dr. A.G. Arce, died of diabetes in February. His mother, Margaret, a geriatric nurse, said her son and
Michael Boyle "were like twin brothers."
"David grew up playing with fire engines, and the desire to be a firefighter never went away," she said. "It's a typical
fireman story. It was the love of his life. There's such a closeness with firefighters, a beautiful thing to watch, and the
families have to accept whatever is dealt."
Perhaps the best-known firefighter who didn't have to be in the World Trade Center was Capt. Timothy Stackpole of
Brooklyn. He was fighting a fire in a city-owned building in 1998 when the floor collapsed, dropping him and two
firemen 10 feet into a roaring blaze. The flames burned more than 30 percent of his body.
The city agreed to pay the three $4.2 million after their lawyers argued that the city hadn't heeded warnings about the
building's structural flaws. Court records don't specify the individual payments, but it was clear Stackpole could have
retired with a large nest egg and a lucrative disability pension.
Instead, after two months in a hospital, he spent many painful hours in the gym rebuilding his body and went back to
work as soon as he could pass a physical.
"He came back when someone else would have retired happily," Msgr. Thomas Brady, a former fire department
chaplain, said. At his church, Good Shepherd Roman Catholic Church in Marine Park, Brooklyn, Stackpole taught
children and counseled couples about to marry. "He was a very religious man in the best sense," Brady said.
So far this week, the monsignor said, he has heard of about eight or 10 missing firefighters whose fathers were also
firefighters. "Every day I hear of more - it's in the blood."
As Jimmy Boyle searched for his son on Tuesday, he reached the World Trade Center just as one of the towers
collapsed, showering the street with debris and temporarily blinding him with dust. He narrowly escaped injury by
groping his way into a doorway. Finding out nothing at the scene, he went to his son's firehouse nearby and opened
Michael's locker.
He found what he hoped wouldn't be there - Michael's car keys and wallet.
Later, he learned that Michael and David had jumped on a fire engine at the last minute in their civilian clothes. "If
they had to die, it was fitting that they died together," Boyle's father said yesterday.
As Michael Boyle and his friend rode toward the World Trade Center on Tuesday, the burn marks from Michael's first
fire six years ago were still visible on his face. -- Brian Donovan