NYC Dad’s 9/11 ‘Angels’ Were a Godsend — Now, His Family Faces Eviction!
Keith De Cesare’s “Angel” series provided much needed comfort to scores of first responders in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. Today, he and his family are facing eviction in New York City. Photos courtesy of UFA.
By Bob Hennelly
Nothing says depression and anxiety like being New York City parents of three small children and having to deal with an eviction notice that’s effective between Christmas and New Year’s Day when the rest of the world is celebrating abundance.
Sadly, this holiday season, that’s the circumstance of Keith and Adrianna De Cesare as well as their three children: Angelinia, who is eight, Alison who is six, and Ariana who is four, but turns five Dec. 30 — the same day as her father’s birthday.
“We are at the last stop of the A train,” 46-year-old Adrianna texted Work-Bites. “We love this hidden gem in the very north tip of Manhattan, having Isham Park in the back of our building and Inwood Hill Park with its 192 acres of natural forest just a block away, it has been a blessing to live here.”
Keith, 63, is the photographer and graphic artist who created the iconic Angel Memorials, which commemorate 9/11 first responders who died in the line of duty. The images started appearing throughout Ground Zero — the World Trade Center site — in the immediate aftermath of 9/11.
At the time, Keith’s work was anonymous. He gave away reproductions for free that now hang in homes, firehouses, EMS stations and precinct houses throughout New York City. “When a hero falls — an angel rises,” one of the images reminds viewers.
One of Keith’s Angel Memorials.
Keith lived in the West Village at the time of the Sept. 11th attacks and became a volunteer at the St. Paul’s Chapel, which became a sanctuary for the massive army of people working to try and recover the remains of the well over 2,000 people who died that day, including hundreds of firefighters, police officers, and EMTs lost in the fire and collapse.
“I knew I needed to do something as an artist, as a human being,” Keith told Work-Bites. “The initial piece I did was for the FDNY — a beautiful red and blue angel with unfurled wings that said, ‘bravest of the brave.’ I just tried to do something that would immediately be beautiful and provide a sense of healing and solace. Beauty in of itself can be comforting and healing, and it just snowballed.”
Firefighter Andy Ansbro is the president of the Uniformed Firefighters Association.
“Every firefighter from that era remembers that iconic image — I personally received a helmet-sized sticker that I put on my helmet and that I wore throughout the first 13 years of my career,” Ansbro told Work-Bites. “It’s an absolutely wonderful image, and the first time I saw it, kind of impressed upon me the magnitude of what we were involved in and what happened that day. It’s something that has always brought peace to me as someone who spent his early life in the Catholic Church.”
Anne-Marie Principe is a 9/11 WTC health program participant who operated a talent agency in lower Manhattan and helped organize the lower Manhattan small business community that was decimated by the attack and by the subsequent…ahem…mischaracterization of the air quality as being “safe to breathe” by the EPA and the City of New York.
Principe told Work-Bites that after 9/11, Keith refused to take payment for the prints of his work that were in heavy demand.
“I asked him how much I owed him and he said, ‘No, no. I want to give you these because you are down here,’” she recalled, adding that Keith’s images meant so much more because they were created amidst a “horrific disaster site with dust and smoke — it was something hopeful — positive even as you looked upon twisted rubble and dead birds walking through ash.”
One of Keith De Cesare’s 9/11 Angels adorns this FDNY helmet.
Principe, along with Jaye Markwell, Freyda Markow, Deb Jackson, Beth Kapp and Susan Ryan have started a Go Fund Me page to help address the De Cesare’s housing crisis.
“He gave these to everyone – he’s done so many over the years,” said retired FDNY paramedic Gary Smiley, the 9/11 WTC ombudsman for DC 37’s Local 2507, which represents FDNY EMS. “As we close out this year, this is just another example of the ongoing medical and mental health crisis that effects every 9/11 survivor and responders — and it’s not something that’s going away as we enter 2024.”
In the years since, Keith has worked as a graphic artist for NYCHA in lower Manhattan. Like so many volunteers from 9/11, Keith is now disabled with multiple 9/11 World Trade Center health conditions, including diminished lung capacity as well as mental health issues. He is in the process of filing for Social Security disability, and has already borrowed against his municipal pension from working for NYCHA between 2009 and 2017.
“It’s been an increasing struggle for me over the years,” Keith says. "I have COPD and my lungs are giving out; it’s harder and harder for me to get my breath — along with the chronic mental health issues that have been impacting my life.”
He’s extremely gratified by the response he’s gotten from his local community and the 9/11 WTC survivor and responder network.
Keith’s family has lived in their one-bedroom Inwood apartment for eight years, and according to their New York State Senator Robert Jackson, “have been good tenants, who through no fault of their own” are being forced out by their landlord because New York State has yet to enact the Good Cause Eviction law that the deep-pocketed real estate industry has derailed in Albany.
After conducting his own fact finding, Jackson and his staff got the lawyers with the New York City’s Commission on Human Rights involved because the legislator believes the De Cesares have been targeted for eviction just because they pay their rent with a New York City rent voucher, which Jackson believes is a form of illegal discrimination.
“In my opinion, this is discrimination based on the fact that this family has a voucher from the City of New York, and some landlords don’t want to deal with individuals with vouchers because it’s not the same thing as having a credit card or a certified check for what’s necessary to rent the apartment,” he says. Jackson also says Keith’s 9/11 WTC certified health conditions he got from his time serving at Ground Zero also deserve consideration.
Work-Bites called and left a message with Alef Realty — the landlord — but has not yet gotten a response.
“It’s not like they were behind in the rent or anything like that, or that they caused a nuisance for the neighbors they live with,” Jackson tells Work-Bites. “They have three beautiful little girls and they are involved in the community outside of their building. People are very concerned.”
Jackson has also called the landlord to express his concerns.
“Hopefully, between my call and the call from the Commission on Human Rights, the owner will say ‘yes, you can stay and we are not going to pursue eviction proceedings against you,’” Jackson says. “But remember this is just one family that’s one of tens of thousands of individuals and families that are going through this same thing — this is the number one constituent issue my staff and I deal with.”
The De Cesares are also working with an attorney from Mobilization for Justice, a non-profit. They requested a two-bedroom apartment a while back, to no avail.
According to the Institute for Children, Poverty and Homelessness, there are currently well over 19,000 families with over 33,000 children in the city’s shelter system. And for the families with their own shelter, thousands upon thousands are living in cramped, overcrowded and sometimes unsafe units. Overall, ICPH reports 11 percent of households are living in overcrowded conditions with some neighborhoods having one in five households in cramped quarters. There are large swaths of the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens where these same families living in crowded conditions have to also pay 50 percent or more of their household income to avoid homelessness.