9/11 In Memoriam — Jimmy Quinn

To mark the 20th Anniversary of 9/11, Village Preservation has assembled about 900 donated images documenting the World Trade Center, the terrorist attacks of 9/11, and the days and weeks following September 11, 2001. See all the images here.

Many of the 9/11 image donors provided us with dozens or hundreds of images. A few, however, had only one or two images, but the stories behind those few images were just as touching, personal, and powerful as those in the larger collections.

Patrick Sullivan immigrated from Ireland in the 1820s to Orange Street in Five Points, a notorious slum on the Lower East Side. He worked as a rag picker on Mulberry Street. Moving uptown to the Village in the 1850s was a step up in life for Patrick. As a grocer, he resided at 15 E. 12th between 5th Avenue and University Place. One hundred and fifty years later, Patrick’s great-great-grandson Jimmy moved up in life to a new job at the equities desk at Cantor Fitzgerald on the 104th-floor of Tower One of the World Trade Center, just one week before 9/11. 

Jimmy Quinn lost his life on 9/11. He was 23 years old. On what would have been his 24th birthday, November 6th, 2001, his brother Michael Quinn posted the birthday greeting and photo below on the gate of St. Paul’s Chapel.

In the days and weeks after 9/11, St. Pauls Chapel became a sanctuary for the exhausted and weary rescue workers who spent hours searching the debris. In the year following 9/11, messages of love and support were received from around the world, all of which were displayed throughout the chapel for the workers to read. The fence around St. Paul’s was filled with flowers, photos, banners, posters, flags, and letters as a makeshift memorial.

Jimmy’s brothers Michael and Joe became entrepreneurs who resurrected the Feltman’s hotdog legacy in 2015. Jimmy continues to be Michael and Joe’s inspiration and provides perspective, as Joe stated, “As far as the hot dog company is concerned, Michael and I made a pact to do this in honor of our brother. Other companies have greater reach and resources, but because of that pact — because of Jimmy — we’ll never stop. Jimmy drives us. He’s our competitive advantage.”

Click here to see this image and others on our historic image archive.