Staten Island Honors Fallen 9/11 Hero Charles Margiotta With New Field
NEW YORK (WCBS 880) - With the ribbon cutting at I.S. 27 on Staten Island, the new plush turf field has been named for FDNY Lt. Charles Margiotta.
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Margiotta was off duty on 9/11 when he raced to the World Trade Center, where he was killed at age 44.
He called his mom and said, "This is big. I love you."
His father Charles says seeing this field makes him smile, not cry "because his entire life with our family was always happy and the way I look at it, he died happy."
Margiotta 's daughter Norma Jean, who is celebrating her 23rd birthday, is proud.
"It makes me feel better that my father will never been forgotten," she says. "He lived every moment to the fullest and that's how he would have wanted us to live."
Margiotta's brother Mike teaches at I.S. 27. Mike says, to him, his brother was larger than life.
"If you didn't know him, you'd be scared to death of him. But once you got to know him, he was... definitely somebody you would want on your team all the time," he said.
Margiotta was an Ivy League graduate who left the corporate world for the excitement of the fire department.
LINK: Chuck Margiotta - A Living Tribute
His father says he was also a substitute teacher, stuntman, and gardener.
"Think of the toughest guy that you know and the smartest guy you know. He was in one body," he said.
