60 years later, officer honored for heroic death

See a comic strip depicting Patrolman Black's heroic deed.

By Vesna Jaksic
Staff Writer

August 25, 2005

NEW YORK -- Patrolman Albert Black was so neat, he used to polish his NYPD shoes two or three times before going to work. He was such a good ballroom dancer that his wife had a tough time keeping other women away from him on the dance floor. And he loved being a cop more than anything.

Sixty years after Black died while trying to rescue a woman from a burning building, his family keeps his memory alive. Three generations have told stories about the heroic death of the man behind shield No. 745. Yesterday, Black's daughter, granddaughter and great-granddaughter, who live in Stamford, honored the late patrolman along with other relatives and NYPD officials.

Marilyn Black Dussault was 22 months old when her father died. It was March 1, 1945, eight years to the day since Black had joined the force. He was directing traffic at the corner leading to the Queensboro Bridge.

He learned that a dry-cleaning store was burning on Second Avenue and rushed in to rescue a woman trapped inside. Neither one made it out alive.

"You never know when your time comes," Black Dussault, 62, said yesterday. "And the point is, there was nothing else for him to do. He was there and he went to the scene. He was truly a hero."

Black was one of 22 NYPD officers killed while working for the Traffic Control Division since it formed in the early 1900s. Most of the officers died in car accidents. One officer was killed while trying to evacuate the World Trace Center on Sept. 11, 2001. The officers were honored at a ceremony in the division's office on West 30th Street and a Memorial Wall was dedicated.

Black Dussault, an attorney who has lived in Stamford since 1985, is the only woman on Stamford's five-member Fire Commission. She was surprised when Mayor Dannel Malloy appointed her 10 years ago, she said, but has always had great respect for firefighters and police officers because of her father.

She was too young to remember him, but her mother often told her how much he liked being a cop. The two had been married for only three years when he died. He was the love of her life, Black Dussault's mother told her. She never married again and died in 1998.

Black Dussault's daughter, who also attended the ceremony, said she knows her grandfather only through family stories and newspaper articles written after his death. But Renee Page, 38, said she will teach her 26-month-old daughter, Madison, about him.

"We always knew he was a hero, but we never felt everyone else recognized him as a hero," said Page, a marketing director. "And I'm so happy we videotaped this whole thing so I'll be able to show it to my daughter. I want to continue to tell his story."

Page said her grandmother taught her the most about her grandfather.

"She said that he would tell her, 'The only way I'm going to marry you is if you can accept my job,' " she said. "Because he loved his job. He said that she had to be a cop's wife."

Page said she thought about following her grandfather's footsteps and becoming a police officer when she was 18, but her grandmother persuaded her not to.

"She said, 'I buried a husband, I can't bury a granddaughter,' " Page said.

Her husband, Mike Page, 47, who has worked in law enforcement, also attended the ceremony, as did Jim Black, the late patrolman's nephew. Black, 52, an information analyst from Ringwood, N.J., said he never met his uncle but has always been proud of him.

"There's no greater sacrifice that one can make than to try to save a life," Black said.

New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly was among the officials who spoke at the ceremony and thanked the families of the honorees.

"You represent generations of police officers who have served this city," he said. "You symbolize the living history of the department."

Kelly revealed the Memorial Wall, which is 134 inches long and 120 inches high. Funded by the New York Law Enforcement Foundation, the wall is made of black granite and has an old Manhattan map etched in the background, along with five pictures illustrating the traffic division's history. The memorial displays bronze NYPD shields and medallions with the 22 officers' names listed underneath.

Black Dussault ran her fingers over her father's name on the plaque before leaving a white rose on a shelf near the memorial.

Then she watched for a moment as her son-in-law played with his daughter. Madison is only four months older than Black Dussault was when her father died. She cannot help but think of him, she said.

"I see her, how she adores him and how he adores her," Black Dussault said of her granddaughter and son-in-law. "And I can't remember that I had that. But I know I had it."

Copyright © 2005, Southern Connecticut Newspapers, Inc.