Longtime community board leader and 9/11 first responder dies at 70
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Eugene Kelty, Jr., the longtime leader of Queens’ Community Board 7 and a firefighter who served on 9/11, died over the weekend after a long battle with cancer. Photo via Chuck Apelian
By Jacob Kaye
Eugene Kelty, Jr., a former firefighter who helped lead the evacuation of downtown Manhattan on 9/11 and who served as the longtime chair of Queens’ Community Board 7, died over the weekend after a battle with cancer. He was 70 years old.
Kelty, who retired from the FDNY as a battalion chief, was a major figure in Northeastern Queens, serving on the local community board for 40 years. After joining the board in 1984, Kelty was elected a decade later to run it. He held the chairperson position on the board that covers Flushing, Willets Point, College Point, Bay Terrace, Malba and Whitestone for three decades.
Kelty spent years serving at the first-rung of city government, pushing six different mayoral administrations and countless private developers to deliver benefits to his section of Queens.
A Queens native, Kelty was one of the longest serving community board members in city history. His experience and no-nonsense attitude was key to his leadership, according to those who worked with him.
“His big passion in life was to represent our community,” Chuck Apelian, the current chair of Community Board 7, who served as Kelty’s vice chair for decades. “He was a fireman, and firemen go into burning buildings when everybody’s running away. That’s the kind of guy you want to have your back. That undying loyalty to the job, undying loyalty to the people.”
“That’s what Gene was,” Apelian added.
Kelty was born in Horace Harding Hospital in Elmhurst on Aug. 28, 1954.
His father, Eugene T. Kelty Sr., was a district superintendent for the New York City Sanitation Department and his mother, Helen C. Kelty, was a business manager for O'Brien Bros. Oil Burner and Fuel Oil Supply Company, in Flushing.
Kelty was raised alongside his two brothers in Whitestone.
He studied elementary education at York College, where he graduated with honors in 1977.
Not long after graduating, Kelty began his career in the FDNY, starting as a probationary firefighter with Engine 257 in Long Island City. Kelty went on to serve in firehouses in Elmhurst, Brooklyn Heights and Manhattan.
In 1996, the then-captain was assigned to serve with Engine 10 at the World Trade Center.
Though he technically had an off-day on Sept. 11, 2001, he rushed into Manhattan from his home in Queens shortly after the first plane crashed into the World Trade Center. He was in the firehouse when the first tower fell.
Kelty helped evacuate the area and rescue people that day, and continued to help work through the rubble at Ground Zero in the weeks that followed.
Promoted to battalion chief in 2003, Kelty served in firehouses in the Upper West Side and on the Upper East side until his retirement in 2018.
His retirement came four years after he was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer, which he developed as a result of his work during 9/11.
During his decades with the FDNY and in the years that followed, Kelty continued to serve on Community Board 7.
Speaking with the Eagle in 2024, Kelty said that one of his proudest accomplishments in his decades of service on the board came recently when the city finally settled on a plan to develop Willets Point after decades of trying.
CB7 approved the project, which they had been working with the city on for years, on the condition that the city look into building a new precinct in the area as a result of the increased population from the Willets Point development.
Even prior to the Willets Point project, residents and members of the board had been asking for a new precinct to take pressure off the overburdened 109th Precinct.
“That’s going to be a marker for me,” Kelty said last year. “A milestone.”
Kelty was remembered by officials from around the borough on Monday.
“It’s been an honor to work with Gene the last few years on projects from Willets Point to infrastructure upgrades in College Point and beyond,” Queens Borough President Donovan Richards said. “I know his legacy will live on across North Queens, both in the projects he pushed and the people he cherished.”
Tom Grech, the CEO and president of the Queens Chamber of Commerce, said he would always be grateful for Kelty’s “kindness, patience, and deep commitment to Queens.”
“As a new face to the borough at the time, Gene took the time to educate me on the needs and priorities of Community Board 7,” Grech said. “His leadership, generosity, and passion for public service made a lasting impact on so many.”
A funeral mass will be held for Kelty at St. Mel’s Church, located at 26-15 154th St. in Flushing, at 10:45 a.m. on Friday, March 21.
