Wayside Fire Co.'s Proposed Sept. 11 Memorial to go Before TF Planning Board Wednesday

Tinton Falls' Wayside Fire Co. will be one step closer to breaking ground on its proposed Sept. 11 memorial if the borough's planning board ok's the project at its meeting Wednesday night.

According to Wayside Fire Captain Thomas Wieczerzak, the fire company has already chosen a contractor for the project and would be on target to complete the memorial in August, one month before the 10-year-anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attack.

The approximately $60,000 project will be funded through donations, said Wieczerzak, and will take the shape of a sundial behind the firehouse along Asbury Avenue.

Unlike plans for another Sept. 11 memorial  at Tinton Falls Fire Co. No. 1, just a few miles up the parkway, Wieczerzak said that the Wayside project will be dedicated to firefighters who lost their lives on the day of the attack.

"It's the firefighter end of it," he said in an interview with Patch in May.

The fire company, located and providing service to the southern end of the borough, has a display case inside its front entrance holding a number of items from a New York City firefighter who lost his life on Sept. 11, 2001 and whose gear was donated to them by his father who had lives in Seabrook Village in Tinton Falls.

Firefighters developed a relationship with Bert Barry whose son Arthur was a member of Ladder 15 on South Street in lower Manhattan. It was Barry who helped Wayside acquire steel beams from the fallen towers to be used in the memorial.

The display case also houses a NYFD helmet with “343” emblazoned on its front—signifying the number of firefighters killed on Sept. 11, 2001.