Giordano, Jeffrey

Jeffrey Giordano, Lad.3 His wife’s beloved stepfather, clinging to life in the burn center at New York Hospital, made Jeffrey Giordano promise to become a firefighter. And so he spent 14 years at Ladder Company 3 in the East Village, where he was decorated for bravery last spring after rescuing a woman from a burning apartment. Firefighter Giordano, 45, also became a devoted friend of the burn center, where adults and children go to heal and where his wife, Marie, worked. He took ice cream to the children there, and endlessly raised money for the New York Firefighters Burn Center Foundation, which buys equipment and contributed $700,000 this year. On weekends, Firefighter Giordano loaded his van with T-shirts to sell at firefighting conferences, often taking his children — Victoria, 12; Nick, 9; and Alexandra, 6 — with him. That was for the foundation, too. He and his wife met when he was 15 and she was 13. “I miss his arms around me,” Mrs. Giordano said. “I thought we would grow old together.” On Jan. 22, the hospital will open a children’s playroom in the burn center. It will be named for Firefighter Giordano, who sped to the World Trade Center in the battalion chief’s car on Sept. 11, even though it was his day off. Profile published in THE NEW YORK TIMES on December 23, 2001.