On his first day as an intern with the investment banking firm Sandler O”™Neill and Partners, Welles Remy Crowther of Upper Nyack was already getting himself into trouble.
It wasn”™t that he showed up late or was rude to any of his coworkers.
It was because he wore suspenders.
Unknown to Welles, there was an unwritten rule among associates of the firm that specified exactly when one was allowed to wear suspenders to work ”“ a rule he learned when a partner strode up his desk and tapped him on the shoulder.
“The partner said, ”˜So I see you”™ve already made your first million-dollar deal,”™” Welles Crowther”™s father, Jefferson Crowther, recounted.
When Welles graduated from Boston College in 1999, he went to work for Sandler O”™Neill full-time in the sell-side equities research division and later for the equities trading division, after having interned with the company the summer between his sophomore and junior years.
Two years later, his life, the life of the partner who had chided him that first day, and the lives of 64 other Sandler O”™Neill employees were lost when the South Tower of the World Trade Center came crashing down on Sept. 11.
It wasn”™t until years later that it was discovered that Welles, in his last moments of life, had ceased to be an equities trader. As his parents tell it, he took off his trader”™s hat and went to work as a firefighter ”“ he went back into the burning tower to lead as many trapped survivors to safety as he could.
“To make that choice, to be the one who”™s going to put your life on the line for others,” said Welles”™ mother, Alison Crowther, trailing off. “Once we found out his story it was really a gift to the family. He had the opportunity to live out his life as fully as he could.”
Welles”™ remains were recovered on March 19, 2002, among the debris from the 78th floor Sky Lobby of Two World Trade Center and alongside the remains of firefighters and emergency workers who had been trying to evacuate survivors trapped in the lobby.
It was several more months until the full story was unearthed. Survivors who had been rescued from the Sky Lobby reported in a New York Times article that they were helped out of the South Tower by a mysterious man identified only by the red bandana he carried.
The same red bandana Welles had always kept close at hand since he was a child.
Welles, the mystery man in the red bandana, was reported by multiple survivors to have calmly coordinated the evacuation of those who were trapped in the Sky Lobby. Just before the tower collapsed, witnesses reported, he was heading back up to the 78th floor from a fire department command post that had been set up on the 61st floor.
That day, Welles is thought to have helped lead at least 18 people to safety.
As a child, Welles idolized his father, who then worked in financial services. At one point, Jefferson Crowther arrived home from work to find his son playing with a new version of the video game system that he had owned. Welles proudly reported that he had traded his old system and some other items to a friend for the newer model.
“When Welles was 8, 9, 10 years old he had a trader”™s mentality,” Crowther said.
Welles loved working as an equities trader and he loved working on the 104th floor of the South Tower, Alison Crowther said.
But there was one thing Welles loved more: being a firefighter.
As a 16-year-old, he joined Empire Hook and Ladder Co., No. 1, in Upper Nyack, as a junior volunteer firefighter, and when he turned 18 he took the New York state training program and was made a full member of the company.
Years later, in August 2001, he made a confession to his father.
“He said, ”˜If I sit in front of the computer for the rest of my life, I”™ll go crazy,”™” Crowther said. Welles had decided he would apply to become a New York City firefighter.
Crowther, himself a volunteer firefighter at Empire Hook and Ladder Co., which can be found just a mile from the family”™s home, said he wasn”™t surprised by his son”™s decision. All he cautioned was there would be a significant pay cut.
“Welles said, ”˜Money”™s not everything. My life was meant for something much more important,”™” Crowther said.
In December 2006, Welles became the first person in the history of the Fire Department of New York to be posthumously named an honorary New York City firefighter. His legacy lives on today, from Boston College to Upper Nyack to Lower Manhattan and even to the White House, where President Obama keeps a red bandana he was given by Jefferson and Allison Crowther in their son”™s memory.
“In the last hour of his life he was doing what his heart of hearts really wanted to be doing,” Jefferson Crowther said. “In that last hour, he took off his equity trader”™s hat and left it on his desk, picked up his firefighter”™s helmet and did his job, did his duty.”
