They will never forget the hero in the red bandanna.
In a moving speech, President Obama recounted how Welles Crowther, 24, had rescued others from the burning south tower before he died in its collapse.
“They didn’t know his name. They didn’t know where he came from. But they knew their lives had been saved by the man in the red bandanna,” the president said Thursday of the Upper Nyack man.
Crowther, a volunteer firefighter who worked as a equity trader on the 104th floor, helped at least 10 people get to safety by racing them down the stairs, while covering his face with a red bandanna to shield himself from dust and smoke.
The former lacrosse and ice-hockey athlete had trekked up and down the stairs three times and was in the lobby about to go up again when the south tower fell.
Now one of the red bandannas he always carried — a nod to dad Jeff who gave him his first one at age 8 — is featured at the new museum among other Ground Zero artifacts.
Jeff Crowther saw his son’s bandanna on display.
“It always brings back memories,” he said. “We were getting dressed for church. He said, ‘Daddy, can I have one of those?’ I went in my bureau and got out a nice, fresh handkerchief, folded it nicely and slipped it in his pocket.”
The father said the young man planned on changing careers to become a full-time city firefighter.
“That last hour of his life, he was a self-actuated man. He made those trips up and down the stairwell. He took as many people as he could,” Jeff said.
“He took off his equity hat . . . and put on his fireman’s helmet and went to work.”
Crowther was posthumously named an honorary FDNY firefighter in 2006.
Crowther’s mother, Alison, told the crowd at the dedication ceremony that she hoped the museum would remind visitors how people helped one another that fateful day.
“That is the true legacy of Sept. 11,” she said.
Also present at the dedication was Ling Young, one of the people Crowther saved.
“It was very hard for me to come here today,” said Young, who thanked his family.
The museum, whose artifacts include steel beams from the towers and mangled firetrucks, opens to the public next Wednesday.
“When they see that bandanna, we just hope they see in it the kind of care our son showed for the strangers around him,” said Jeff Crowther. “We hope it inspires them.”
He said the family supports the museum despite recent outrage from 9/11 families over the site’s underground repository containing unidentified remains.
“I think what they’ve done has been remarkably consistent and significantly considerate,” Jeff said.