NEW YORK — The son of a hero firefighter who died on Sept. 11 says in a lawsuit that the city’s archaic age restrictions have kept him from following in his dad’s footsteps — because a last-minute delay to the FDNY test meant he turned 29 by the time he was able to apply for the job.

Skylar Mercado says the FDNY is violating the state’s constitution, which was amended in Nov. 2024 to include a “new and sweeping prohibition on, among other forms of discrimination by the government, age discrimination,” according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Manhattan Supreme Court.

Mercado is the son of Steve Mercado, a firefighter with Engine Co. 40 on Manhattan’s West Side, who died along with 342 other members of the FDNY in the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center.

“I’m not in this for money. The last thing I want is money. The FDNY has done a lot for my family and I. The city has done a lot for my family and I,” Mercado told the Daily News Wednesday.

“I just want the opportunity to pursue this job,” he said.

Growing up, the Bronx native had two dreams — to play major league baseball and to become an FDNY firefighter.

He got as far as playing independent minor league ball, including for teams like the New York Brave and the New Jersey Jackals, but realized in 2022 he wouldn’t make it to the MLB. So he focused on his second dream: joining the FDNY.

But he had to wait for the application process to open up.

The FDNY typically holds its open competitive exams every four or five years and calls candidates to the academy in the ensuing months and years based on how well they do.

Mercado took the last test in 2017, ranking around the 14,000 range of roughly 46,000 applicants, he said.

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the FDNY didn’t hold its next test until 2024, and the application process was initially scheduled to start March 6, 2024, when he was still 28 years old.

The day came, and Mercado tried to sign up, only to learn that the test had been pushed back until June 24 — the FDNY rescheduled it to plan a new recruiting push, the Chief Leader reported at the time.

Mercado turned 29 on April 28.

“Honestly, I didn’t know what to think. I had a lot of people who were in the department tell me, ‘Keep going,'” Mercado said.

The city extended the cutoff age to 35, for one year only, in 2011, to account for a judge’s decision to invalidate the entrance exam a year earlier. Military veterans are allowed to apply up until age 37.

And citing COVID delays, the city in 2023 allowed FDNY EMS workers to get an age waiver to take the promotion test to become a firefighter.

Despite putting in his age and date of birth as part of the application process, he was able to take the written test, which he aced, ranking 208 out of more than 20,000 applicants, and the physical test, which put him in the top 1% of all applicants, he said.

He got fingerprinted, but 10 minutes into his intake interview, his interviewer told him he was disqualified, solely because his 29th birthday had passed.

“In all other respects, he was deemed by the interviewer to be fully qualified to follow in his father’s footsteps and take up the mantle that he had laid down on September 11, 2024, in the ashes of the World Trade Center,” reads the lawsuit, filed by attorney Mitchell Epner of Kudman Trachten Aloe Posner LLP.

He tried to get the FDNY to reconsider, but the department shot down his request, and he received a “final notice of disqualification” on Tuesday, according to the lawsuit.

Mercado was just six years old when his father died in the South Tower alongside 10 other members of his engine company.

“I wasn’t old enough to understand the severity of it,” he said. “As I got older, I started to understand his thought process and the whole thing.”

His father’s firehouse became a second home growing up. “I know what the job entails probably more than most,” he said. “And it’s something that I would love to do every day of my life until I’m pushed out.”

The lawsuit calls the FDNY’s 29-year-old rule “irrational and discriminatory.” And in November 2024, voters passed the New York Equal Rights Amendment, which prohibits age discrimination, the suit argues.

“Times have changed since the 29 Year-old (ban) was promulgated. Improvements in training and nutrition allow individuals to remain physically fit far later into life, And fitness for service can be assessed without the sledgehammer of an age limit,” the lawsuit reads, adding, “Moreover, the 29 Year-old Ban has been riddled with exceptions over the past twenty-five years.”

Neither the FDNY nor the city Law Department could be immediately reached for comment on the lawsuit.

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