Sergio Villanueva, 33, was engaged to be married. A transplant from Argentina, Villanueva was an ardent soccer fan and a member of the FDNY’s soccer team. Friends said he would be hoarse for days after watching an Argentinian soccer match because he shouted so much.
Villanueva spent eight years in the NYPD before the opportunity arose to join the FDNY.
Raised in his father’s restaurant in Bayside, he was so good in the kitchen everyone at Ladder 132 was glad when he was in charge of dinner. He not only remembered all the recipes, (and cooked them well), he apparently also remembered the words to every Barry Manilow song ever recorded.