David L.W. Fodor

Rescuer of Animals
The accountant was also a mountain man. David Lawrence William Fodor had moved from his native Staten Island to the hills of Putnam County, but the plan was to keep on heading north. He and his wife, Claudia Petrone, had started scouting possibilities in the Adirondacks last summer. For the time being they had their rocky two and a half acres in Garrison with the vegetable garden in front — tomatoes, corn, lettuces, scallions and the beginnings of an herb garden.

It all went to good use in the kitchen. Mr. Fodor's father was a restaurateur and his mother a caterer, and he was so avid a chef that he did the cooking at his own wedding, held at a friend's farm in the Catskills, using all locally grown produce and New York State wines.

His home being a long way from the city — he was a corporate tax accountant at Fiduciary Trust as well as a volunteer fire warden for his floor at 2 World Trade Center — made possible space for an ever-changing assortment of animals: three dogs and two cats at the moment. Most came from shelters, but some came from a Rottweiler kennel in New Jersey where Mr. Fodor, 38, helped out to learn about breeding and showing. (One of his Rottweilers won a national championship.)

"He was one of the most fully alive people I've ever met," his wife said. "He laughed fully, saw the humor and responded fully to life."

Profile published in THE NEW YORK TIMES on December 22, 2001.


DAVID FODOR, 38, of Garrison, N.Y., an accountant at Fiduciary Trust International and a volunteer fire marshal for the company, worked on the 90th floor of one of the World Trade Center towers. His wife, Claudia Petrone, said a friend, who worked on the same floor but was able to escape the building, saw Fodor trying to get people away from elevators and into a stairwell. "He had the heart the size of the state of New York," Petrone said. "If anyone ever needed something, he was right there."