Photo Courtesy of Punishers LE/MC, The Forum, FHVAC
By Michael V. Cusenza
A phalanx of hundreds of motorcycles rumbled from South Ozone Park to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, on Sunday in honor of Richard Allen Pearlman, the Howard Beach resident and Forest Hills Volunteer Ambulance Corps EMT who sacrificed his life at the World Trade Center during the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
Organized by the FHVAC and the Punishers Law Enforcement Motorcycle Club, the second annual 9/11 Run for Richie was a rousing success, raising thousands of dollars for the Corps.
“I’m extremely proud. I don’t know who runs into a burning building to save somebody when everybody else runs away,” Lisa Pearlman-Mason, Richie’s sister, told Spectrum News New York 1. She led the ride that took nearly 1,000 hogs from the Resorts World Casino parking lot to the Freedom Tower in Lower Manhattan, culminating at Indian Larry Motorcycles on North 15th Street.
The Run for Richie recalls the heroism of Pearlman, 18, the youngest first responder to perish on that Tuesday morning 16 years ago. According to the Punishers, Pearlman “headed to the WTC on foot from his job at a law firm and was ordered back to his job by his employer for safety reasons, but remained at the WTC site. A picture on pages 16-17 in Newsweek’s Extra Edition of America Under Attack shows Richie aiding the injured.”
