Top city officials, past and present, remembered Nicholas Scoppetta at a memorial at the former fire commissioner's children's center in Manhattan.
Officials remembered him as an instrumental force in rebuilding the fire department in the years following September 11th.
Scoppetta was also the first commissioner of the Administration for Children's Services.
He himself spent eight years in foster care as a child.
"He saw all children as his children, all children as his children. That's what his own challenges allowed him to feel. Out of his own pain, he created love," said Mayor Bill de Blasio.
"He made the world's greatest city a better place in so many ways, and he saved so many people's lives," said former Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
Scoppetta died last week of cancer.
His public record spanned decades, under the administrations of four different mayors.
He was 83 years old.