On Friday morning, 25 years ago, the Ladder 3 crew sat at the maple table, having breakfast. They had less than two hours to live. Eight in the morning is a hectic time, with the night tour crew clocking off and the morning tour unit already arrived. Officially, the tour, or shift, hours are 9am-6pm and 6pm-9am, but Ladder 3 had an inherited tradition where the morning crew would arrive a few hours before the shift officially started. On 9/11, that mattered. The table is quite something. It’s made from wood retrieved from a bowling alley, is scuff-marked and polished and it’s the centrepiece of the fire house.The table fashioned from a bowling alley floor at New York Fire Department's Ladder 3 company. Photograph: Keith Duggan “Usually, we would have two or three guys swapping out,” Luke Allen, the present-day captain, explains when we sit around on a midafternoon. “But that morning it was an entirely new crew, and they were in the kitchen that morning. So, when the call came, they all piled on. Usually, you would only have six on there. But they all left.”This is the thing. Six were clocking on. But the night crew had their shift completed when the siren went and immediately volunteered to stay on. They travelled “heavy”, doubling up in the six-berth fire truck and accompanying fire ambulance, sirens on, rushing towards the enormous cloud of black smoke billowing from the north tower of New York’s World Trade Center. Ladder Company 3 is on East 13th street, about a five-minute walk from Union Square, the gathering point for the all-day chess players and craft sellers, free-rappers and hangers-out. It’s not the biggest fire house, but it covers a demanding part of the Manhattan’s terrain and, within the department, it’s a coveted spot. A destroyed Ladder 3 fire truck at the National September 11 Memorial Museum in New York City. Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty As it happens, it’s less than a mile to the World Trade Center. The fire truck was there by nine that morning. That day’s company was led by captain Paddy Brown, who by the age of 47 was the most decorated firefighter in the FDNY. He led his unit up stairwell B of the north tower. By 9.21am, they had reached the 35th floor, where Brown picked up a wall phone, found it operational and put a call through to dispatch which was recorded. The voice, through a crackling reception and conveying the broad vowels of a boisterous 1960s Queens childhood, was urgent and calm as he communicated a recorded message that became famous. “Just relay to the command post: we are trying to get up. Numerous civilians in all stairwells ... numerous burn injuries are coming down; I’m trying to send them down first ... Three truck, and we’re still heading up. Arr right.”No goodbye.They’d made it to the 44th floor when an order came through to evacuate after the south tower collapse. By then, Ladder 3 had apparently encountered more civilians, many too injured or exhausted to go any further. To exit; to abandon the stricken: it went against every instinct Brown and the other men held sacrosanct.“I refuse the order. I am not leaving them,” Brown reportedly told the command post. They were still inside when the north tower collapsed at 10.28am and all perished. Their names – captain Patrick Brown, lieutenant Kevin Donnelly, Michael Carroll, James Coyle, Gerard Dewan, Jeffrey Giordano, Joseph Maloney, John Kevin McAvoy, Timothy McSweeney, Joseph Ogren and Steven Olsen – reflect the overwhelmingly Irish and Italian tradition of firefighting in New York.Today, only about 700 firefighters who were active on September 11th, 2001, remain on active duty. One of the many complexities of 9/11 is that the scale of the atrocity, and the vividness and collective memory of the day, has distorted time. Today’s firefighters in Ladder 3 pass by the plaque honouring their predecessors on the front of the building, every single tour. They can recite the names of that crew and meet family members and loved ones at commemoration events every year. “We strive to keep the standards that were set for us,” Mike McNamara says.“It is hard. They gave everything. Those guys were off that morning and free to go home. We have family members who come by still. Captain Brown’s sister will come around. We have a picture of him involved in a Times Square rescue there. He is one of the reasons I wanted to come here. Rescue workers sift through the wreckage two days after the September 11th terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers in 2001. Photograph: Mario Tama/Getty “I read about a book about Paddy Brown. Kevin Donnelly, too. This is a coveted spot within the division. Guys are requesting to come here. And a lot of that is based on their reputation.”Of the three men sitting at the table, McNamara has served in Ladder 3 for the longest. Although born in New York, much of his adolescence was spent in Graiguenamanagh, Co Kilkenny, which he loved but not enough to disregard the siren call of his native city when he finished school. He tended bar in McSorley’s, the renowned East Village bar – which on each 9/11 holds a ceremony in honour of the fallen members of the FDNY at precisely 3.43pm to denote the number of members lost that day. Luke Allen arrived here a year ago after being promoted to captain. Matt Carthy is just out of the FDNY academy and says that having Ladder 3 as his first station is like a lottery win: of the 200-odd houses scattered across the boroughs, it was the one he wanted most. This week, the company will balance the official ceremonies with the ongoing, instant responses of call-outs, all the while dealing with the fact that his year’s commemoration, 25 years out from the worst day, feels like a crossing point. “Clearly it is a point in time,” Luke Allen says carefully. “And it has obviously had huge ramifications for this city. Thirty years ago, we are talking about the Waldbaum’s fire. The passage of time is really weird to try and capture. Everything was very different before.”Waldbaum’s was a supermarket fire that broke out in Sheepshead Bay, on the outer edges of Brooklyn, in 1978. Six firefighters died that day. These are the reference points that shoot through the minds of fire department members. The 23rd Street fire, in 1966, took the lives of 12 of their department. The Father’s Day fire, in June of 2001, cost three men their lives. Not long after Mike McNamara joined Ladder 3, in 2016, they got a call out to a gas explosion on Seventh Street. They were in or on the roof of the buildings when a mayday was given for an imminent collapse. Firefighters had to evacuate through windows. Two civilians died after three of the buildings collapsed.Ladder 3 territory spans the island north as far as 23rd and from East to Hudson rivers. Call-outs are less frequent than at other houses, but because many of the now-gentrified streets are a combination of former tenement and high society homes the fires they encounter are often technically demanding.Michael Dewan holds a replica hat that belonged to his uncle, New York firefighter Gerard Dewan of Ladder 3, which was recovered from the rubble of the World Trade Center. Photograph: David Goldman/Getty “What we have to deal with is more challenging fires and situations, because we are dealing with all kinds of buildings,” says Allen.“You look at a brownstone, and you think it’s a standard home and then you go inside and find it is chopped up in all kinds of different ways. Then the sheer number of people in this area. You have major transportation hubs. Electric lines. Steam lines. You are dealing with whatever this city can throw at you.”To do that requires a certain mindset. Matt Carthy was a chef before he passed the academy exams (no easy feat: 136,000 applications were submitted for the most recent open entrance exam). That makes him a popular choice for the shared cooking assignments. Firefighters cooking and eating together is at once a cinematic cliche and a daily tradition. Meal expenses aren’t covered: everyone pitches whatever into a kitty and whoever is on cooking that night heads to the nearest supermarkets for ingredients. Matt Carthy knew he wanted to be a firefighter from when he was still a boy. “I think it was because I never met a firefighter who didn’t love his job. There’s just a sense of fulfilment and achievement. It’s such a good feeling to be sitting here right now.”For Mike McNamara, reading a memoir on the life of Paddy Brown was a vocational experience. There was an epic dimension to Brown’s life, which was defined by an adrenaline lust and a desire to spend his life helping others. He voluntarily enlisted for the Marines during the height of the Vietnam War at the age of 17, when he requested frontline deployment – and was granted it. While there, he volunteered for one of the most challenging roles: a “tunnel rat”, crawling through the warren of narrow underground tunnels deep into Viet Cong territory. He served two tours, was promoted to sergeant, returned home, lost his way, and fell into an alcoholic fugue before entering Gleeson’s gym in boxing and becoming a Golden Glove calibre boxer. Then came the second grand chapter of his life with the FDNY when he popped up in a series of audacious fire rescues. There’s grainy television news footage of a Times Square rope rescue he organised in 1991. He kept getting promoted and arrived at Ladder 3, as captain, in 2000. He turned 48 the following year. Long before Mike McNamara turned on to the last page, it had become a pilot light for him.Although Luke Allen comes from a family laden with firemen, he was convinced it was not for him. “I was on my way to becoming a high school English teacher. Then I realised running into burning buildings might be easier,” he says, laughing. “I figured I’d give this five years. But after a couple of years, I realised, ‘Yeah, this is where it’s at’.”They reckon the interior decor of the mess room has changed little in 25 years. “Doesn’t look like it,” Allen says, laughing. The fire pole, leading from the bunk room upstairs, is still operational. “A lieutenant showed me how to use it after I got here,” Carthy says. “It can be a little dangerous if you don’t know what you’re at.” There is no pattern to the seasons or the number of call-outs, although high summer, when the New York University dorms are empty, can be quieter. Their down hours are spent training and going through scenarios. All three men are upbeat, quick to laugh and, in the tradition of the department, modest to a fault. As they see it, there is no more rewarding way to live. The life can be gruelling and unpredictable. Carthy describes the four-month training process in the academy. Early on, recruits are introduced to a simulated fire smoke. “It’s nothing toxic,” Allen says by way of clarification. “Just hay. But right then, with the face mask on, is when some people realise this is not for them.” The call-outs and lugging gear takes a physical toll. You have to endure decades of broken sleep. “Getting up at 4am to be here for six,” Matt Carthy says, with a laugh, when asked about the biggest adjustment to his lifestyle since joining. Firefighter Gerard McGibbon, of Engine 283 in Brownsville, Brooklyn, after the World Trade Center buildings were attacked. Photograph: Mario Tama/Getty They speak about the life as a kind of brotherhood. Some call-outs are dangerous. Many are routine and plenty are offbeat. Just the other day, they were called out to attend to a chihuahua dog whose paw somehow got caught in the escalator at Union Station. A big crowd gathered. Camera phones were raised. The completed mission was greeted with applause. The goodwill of the city towards its firefighters has not abated in the 25 years since.The events of 9/11 remain both the great exception to the normal requirements asked of a firefighter and a baseline standard. We talk for a bit about what happened that morning: hundreds of firefighters plodding up those claustrophobic stairwells, weighted down by equipment and gear. The smoke, the falling debris, those ominous bass note fire alarms. Apart from anything else, the presence of those firefighters must have been an inestimably reassuring sight for the towers’ employees making their way down in that terrifying error. “If you take a standard human they are – naturally – like, ‘I am not running into a burning building’,” Allen says.“It’s what we are trained to do. We thrive on it in a way. We are doing it as a team. Trained to execute. And it is an adrenaline rush. Like a month ago, there was a call for smoke on the tracks at Canal [Street]. But when we pulled up, it was an actual train fire with billowing smoke coming out of the grates. And when we walk down those stairs you don’t know what you are walking into. Do I think the guys were trying to muster courage? No. They just act. I don’t think anyone consciously thinks, ‘I am being brave here’. You just do what you do.”So, 25 years after the worst day for this Ladder, the worst day in the 161-year history of the FDNY and the city itself, some of the family members of those who rushed to the towers that day will return to the fire house. “We are taking care of those families and reminding them that their loved ones will never be forgotten. They are still family.”Not long after 9/11, a letter was found in Paddy Brown’s locker. He had requested that in the event of his death, his ashes be scattered along a running path he loved in Central Park. A few years later, Steve McCarthy, a CBS and CNN producer and a friend of Brown’s, made a powerful documentary about him, Finding Paddy. The haunting opening frames contain an implement that was entirely of its turn-of-the-millennium era: the home answering machine. That morning, the machine in Brown’s apartment was quickly filled with the voice messages of friends, some in tears, all offering love. Brown never married and lived quietly and alone. When interviewed a number of years ago, his sister Carole gave a reason for his relative solitude. “He had felt so much loss. He didn’t want anyone close to him to feel the pain of losing someone.”[ Keith Duggan: 25 years later - 'A couple of days before every 9/11 you get that sick feeling in your stomach'Opens in new window ][ Keith Duggan: New York grapples with 9/11's toxic air legacyOpens in new window ]