President Obama Visits FDNY "Pride of Midtown"

President Obama made a pilgrimage to a Manhattan firehouse Thursday that lost more than a dozen men on 9/11 - just five days after he green-lighted the execution of their killer, Osama Bin Laden.

It was the first stop on a triumphal-but-solemn tour of the city that will take Obama to Ground Zero for the first time as President.

Obama was expected to break bread with the city's Bravest at the "Pride of Midtown" firehouse, where the names of the 15 firefighters who perished in the ruins of the World Trade Center are immortalized on a plaque.

By noon, Obama should be at Ground Zero.

There will be no triumphal speech about dispatching Navy SEALs to slay the dragon who brought down the twin towers.

This visit, White House spokesman Jay Carney said, is "to help New Yorkers and Americans everywhere to achieve a sense of closure."

"The president believes it's appropriate and fitting to travel to New York this week in the wake of the successful mission to bring Osama Bin Laden to justice," Carney said.

Obama is here to "recognize the terrible loss that New York suffered on 9/11, and to acknowledge the burden that families of the victims and the loved ones of the victims have been carrying with them since 9/11," he said.

So rather than speak, Obama will solemnly lay a wreath in memory of the thousands who died in the Sept. 11 attacks - with most TV networks carrying the ceremony live.

Obama will then meet privately with still-grieving mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and spouses gathered in the crucible of America's pain.

"This visit is about thanking and I just want to thank him," Charles Wolf, whose wife Katherine was killed in the terror attack, and who will be meeting Obama for the first time, told MSNBC.

"This was a really gutsy decision that he did. I think it was the turning point of his presidency."

Obama has carved out three hours at Ground Zero. He will be joined there by New York Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, and Mayor Bloomberg and Gov. Cuomo.

He has also invited Rudy Giuliani and George Pataki, who were the mayor and governor during those dark days, sources said

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