Episode 384: The Best of The Bravest: Captain Nick Gaudiosi (Volume 78)

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
You're listening to the Mike to You Even podcast hosted
by media personality and consultant Mike Glow. You're listening to

(01:02):
the best of the bravest interviews with the ft and
ys Elite. Now, before anyone says anything, as you see
me with these shades on tonight, I already briefed my
guest to introduce momentarily on it. You know, you probably
look at me right now saying, Mike, what the hell
are you doing? Why do you have that on? So
for those of you, as you already know if you

(01:23):
are watching the episode on Monday with another retired FDNY
Captain Steve Elliott, as you guys know, I suffer from
on occasion flare ups of an eye condition called uv ititis,
which is related to my alternative colitis. And you never
know when these flare ups are gonna happen. They happen
at random, and it's kind of been going on since Monday.
Feeling a little bit better. I'd like to thank everybody
for their well wishes. But one of the things that

(01:45):
you deal with with uv ititis, which is, like I said,
just inflammation of your left eye, is it gets very watery,
can get very irritated because of a sensitivity to light.
So for Tonight's episode, even though I look very goofy,
I have these shades on for a good reason. That's
just to help with the light sensitivity. And we're going
to have him on throughout, so I apologize in the advance,
but it's for a medical reason that I have these

(02:05):
shades on. God Idbprofo by my side tissues too, just
in case. So we're ready to go because I am
not going to cancel on tonight's guest. And hey, it's
a chill look anyways, it's Chris evdit and I appreciate
the sentiment. I really do. But like I said, even
though I was battling this condition, smack dab in the
middle of the show. We had a really good show
last time on Monday with a retired FTY Captain Steve

(02:25):
Elliott thirty three years on the job from nineteen ninety
one until last year. He recently retired last year twenty
twenty four. A lot of truck work in his career,
A lot of truck working. Tonight's his career, which we'll
talk about momentarily, but first there's always a couple of
ads and we're going to start off with none other
than mister Billy Ryan. The Mike Thing New Haven Podcast

(02:46):
is proudly sponsored and supported by the Ryan Investigative Group.
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(03:06):
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if you need a PI, look no further than Bill
Ryan and the Ryan Investigative Through a proud supporter and
sponsor of the Mike and new Haven Podcast. And of

(03:27):
course word two from mister Brett King and our friends
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(04:11):
innovation and we're firemen at the company. Of course, you'll
hear from our friends over at Armour Tough a little
bit later when we get to the rapid fire segment.
All right, My next guest is a respected fire officer
who's four decade career in fire and life safety has
left in a doulible mark both inside and outside the FDNY.
From his early days riding rigs in the Bronx as

(04:31):
well as Brooklyn to leading Ladder Company seven in the
Big Bad Borough of Manhattan, he's answered the call in
some of New York City's busiest neighborhoods and brought that
operational experience to bear as an educator as well project
manager and subject matter expert I in high rise life
safety and emergency management. He's a pioneer in FT and
Wise training, modernization, and a driving force between behind I

(04:52):
should say the current Randalls Island Academy setup. So look
forward to hearing his stories tonight. He's worn a lot
of hats. He's also an author too as well. This
US and that for this volume seventy eight of the
best of the bravest interviews with You with the Ft
and Wise Elite is retired FT ANDOLI Captain of nearly
a quarter century on the job nineteen seventy nine two
thousand and three. To be exact, Nick Caudiossi cab welcome,

(05:12):
How are you good to see you?

Speaker 2 (05:14):
Hi, Mike, how are you good?

Speaker 1 (05:16):
Good? Yeah, I'm glad to have you so again, as
you guys know in the audience by now, if you
want to ask any questions to the Captain, fire away.
I'll make sure I highlighted the appropriate time and we'll
have a good conversation tonight. So before I get into
getting on the job, first again, a two part question,
as I always ask every guest, where'd you grow up
and did you always know, even if you didn't know
you wanted to be a fireman right away, that you
wanted to be involved in some type of civil service.

Speaker 2 (05:39):
I grew up in the Bronx in the I was
in the fifties and sixties and early seventies did sorrow
out of fires. The Bronx was pretty busy back then.
But never thought of joining the fire service till I
was in the in college when I got into it

(06:02):
through other people, but no, really had no idea what
I wanted to do, even when I first went to college.

Speaker 1 (06:11):
And okay, so we'll jump into that. Then going to college,
those other people who were.

Speaker 2 (06:16):
There that brought me into the fire service. Yeah, when
I was in college taking accounting courses and really by
my second year realized I did not want to be
an accountant. It really, although I could do it, it

(06:37):
held no interest for me. My cousin and my brother
had joined the volunteer fire department in Long Beach. We
had moved to Long Beach in nineteen seventy four, and
they being in the volunteer fire department, we're talking about it,
and still I wasn't interested until and this is strange,

(07:01):
there was a girl I was looking to date, and
the volunteer fire department has a annual dinner dance, and
my cousins said, well, why don't you join the fire
department invite her to the dinner dance as a way
of going out with her, right, And I did, and
we went to the dinner dance, and that relationship didn't

(07:22):
pan out. But once I got in the fire department,
I found out I really liked the job. I was
in a company with my brother and a couple of friends.
All of us were around the same age, like twenty
years old, and it was pretty busy in Long Beach.
Back then, Long Beach was about the busiest fire department

(07:44):
on Long Island. So we were catching some work and
I liked it. It was being part of a team.
I had always played hockey. I was part of a
team and this was another team. And I guess I'm
a little bit of an adrenaline junkie. So it really
took hold. And then around nineteen seventy seven, the Fight

(08:06):
Department in New York was giving a test, a new test,
and one of the guys in the company was he
always wanted to be a fireman, so he was getting
everybody ramped up to take the written test, and even
at that time, I wasn't thinking of being and doing
it as a career. But I took the test, I
did well, and as time went on, I was like, yeah,

(08:29):
I think this is what I want to do. So
before I graduated, the list had come out and I
saw her I did very well, and I made up
my mind I wanted to pursue a fight department. And
then I was hired in nineteen seventy nine.

Speaker 1 (08:46):
Yeah, I mean the waiting time even back then was
a little bit longer because a lot of people were
clamoring to take the exam. I mean you're talking about
thousands of people, tens of thousands some cases, across the city.

Speaker 2 (08:57):
So I did well. I was hired the first year.

Speaker 1 (09:00):
And that's impressive because it's member. It's not just the
written score. You could do very well in the race. Yeah,
you still got to do good in the physical too.

Speaker 2 (09:07):
At that time, Yeah, it was the physical and the
sun narmery, all these different events standing, broad jump, dummy
carry ledge, war climbing over an eight foot wall. Well,
one of the things we did in the Volunteer firehouse
was in the second floor meeting hall. We built the
obstacle course that the fight department was used, so we

(09:29):
were we were practicing like every day because you have
to be in good shape. But there's also some technique involved,
oh for sure, So we were doing that. The most
disheartening thing in the physical test was you had to finish.
The last event was a mile run and I ran

(09:51):
a six minute mile, which I thought was pretty good.
A guy lapped me twice. You know, and you don't
know what your talk t is until you finish, so
I found out it was a six minute mile and
he went past me twice. So this guy was like
on record time.

Speaker 1 (10:10):
Yeah, probably a runner in this downtime.

Speaker 2 (10:11):
Oh yeah, nothing too little thing guy.

Speaker 1 (10:14):
Yeah yeah, now, and listen, I hear you. I'm a
smaller guy myself. I'm only about one thirty five, so
technique is everything. I can move a hose line, I
could throw a ladder. But you know again, sometimes if
especially if it's a roof ladder, it's a matter of
where you're taking your leg locks. The little nooks like that.
It can really help you to where strength is important.
If you have it, you have it, but you don't
necessarily have to be a bodybuilder to be effective, you know.

(10:36):
So as we'll talk about tonight. So getting out a
seventy nine, I mean, I know from talking with guys
for a while up until recently academy now for the
Ft and wise eighteen weeks. Back then it was only
like seven or eight, you knowlew six in your case. Wow,
it flew by like that. You were in the firehouse.

Speaker 2 (10:50):
You you got on the first few weeks with just
getting settled in, and then you really just learn the basics,
you know, using an air mask, stretching a line, basically
forcing the door, raising a ladder. Didn't spend a lot
of time on anything else, you know, so you really

(11:13):
learned once you got into the firehouse. And it was
pretty busy in seventy nine. So I went to the
South Bronx and you learned pretty quick. It didn't take
too long to have your first fire. What helped me
a lot was being a volunteer. I had been a
volunteer three years before I got on the job. Best

(11:34):
advice I ever got was from a friend of mine,
Jack Theobald. He ended up retiring out of rescue one
and he said, when you go to the fire academy.
If you know something, never say I know the worst
two words you can never say. Just nod your head
and look smart, you know, But don't tell them you

(11:56):
know how to do it. Don't tell him you were
a volunteer. Just take it all in. And it was good.
But I had been in smoke, I had been in fires,
so it took away some of the jitters. But still,
this is the New York City's fire department. This is
the major leagues.

Speaker 1 (12:15):
Right, No, and and those jitters are definitely there for
somebody who's never gone through it. But at the same time,
and listen, they know you're volunteer. They did their background
on you, so they know your background and where you're
coming from.

Speaker 2 (12:26):
I didn't know they did. Now you were in there.
Everybody's the same. A lot of time was spent on
building teamwork, you know, tell you're not an individual, you're
a part of a team. You know. You know, if
there was any discipline, it was done on a team level,

(12:47):
squad level. So yeah, it broke you down.

Speaker 1 (12:53):
Yeah, break you down to build you up. It's kind
of like that old military philosophy, and it applies to
a paramilitary organization, especially when like the FD and why.
And the interesting part about it too, I mean to
your point is, you know, even if you know how
to do it, or you have a good knowledge and
how to do it, there's the FD and Y way.
You may have done it the volunteer way. All right,
here's how you're gonna learn how to do it in

(13:13):
New York City. So taking a hydrant, you know, of course, uh,
pump and all. It's it's all different in the.

Speaker 2 (13:19):
Ft, how you carry your tools, everything, everything, this is
this is the way you're doing it. They don't care
where you were before. And you would still see guys
come into Proby School with their volunteer FIAT chiefs, caw
and and I just shook my head, and you say,
don't they have any friends to tell them don't do that?

(13:41):
You know.

Speaker 1 (13:42):
Yeah, that's a bad idea, it's a bad.

Speaker 2 (13:44):
Pay Yeah, you're setting yourself up for ridicule. Yeah. You know.
One of the best things, or one of the things
they told us that really hit home is if you
graduate Prob School and nobody knows your name, you did
pretty good. Yep.

Speaker 1 (13:58):
Invisible man or woman has the best to be We're
talking with I retired f to why Captain Nick GAUDIOSI
here in the Mike and Newavement podcast. This is volume
seventy eight of the best of the Bravest Interviews with
the f and Wys. The lead shout out to our
friends tuning in tonight in the chat before I continued,
John Costello, Chris Evden, who I mentioned earlier, James fifty
twenty two. Good to see you, buddy, Billy Meyer tuning
in via Facebook. Pat Pogan, retired emergency service cop out

(14:21):
of New York City, worked in Truck two for twelve years.
It was also a volley out in the island. You know,
it's good to see you, my friend. I hope you're
feeling better these days. And I think that's Brian Keller
in the chat. If it ain't Brian Keller, it's Brian Cowndry,
it's one of you guys. YouTube changed up to user name,
so it's hard to tell. So it's interesting mentioning going
to the Bronx oute of the Academy because the first
five years before you get transferred over to Brooklyn eighty
four were spent there. And I called this the Dennis

(14:44):
Smith era because he really brought the South Bronx to
not only nationwide, but worldwide attention with report from mentioned
company eighty two and during that time, the South Bronx,
out of all the neighborhoods in the city that was
burning the most, it was that section of the city
that was going up and smoked. Maybe Brooklyn would a
close second, but the South Bronx and no offense to
Brooklyn had him beat my country mile back then, So

(15:05):
forty five engine for the first couple of years before
you were strictly truck work the rest of the way. Yeah,
those two years and forty five how common How many
runs were we talking to tour.

Speaker 2 (15:15):
We did well over five thousand runs a year, wow,
which was nothing, because the guys that were there told me, oh,
I should have been here, you missed a kid, you
should have been here a few years ago. One year
they did ten thousand runs.

Speaker 1 (15:28):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (15:29):
They were like they never got off the rig. It
was good. It was good. Going back to the Bronx.
I was close to the neighborhood. I grew up in
close to the area we ran in with eighty two engine.
And actually my first lieutenant, Jack Mayne, is in the book,

(15:50):
is in because he worked in thirty one truck as
a firefighter. I had read report from Engine eighty two.
Oh he when it first came out, I think I
was maybe still in high school and still didn't make
me think about becoming a fireman. Gave me a respect
for what the New York City firefighters did. And living

(16:11):
in the Bronx, I had a chance to see a
few fires. You mentioned that, Yeah, I could watch it.
I would go up on the roof of the building
we lived in, and there was a row of buildings
across the street, and it seemed like every few months
there was a fire in one of the buildings, and
I would go up on the roof and watch the show.

Speaker 1 (16:28):
And back then we're talking vacants, we're talking.

Speaker 2 (16:31):
Squad Now those were occupied buildings.

Speaker 1 (16:33):
Arson for profit too.

Speaker 2 (16:34):
I was gonna say, yeah, a lot behind forty five engine.
You open up the back door of the kitchen and
all you saw were vacant five story apartment houses. We
called it the land of vacant Buildings.

Speaker 1 (16:45):
Yeah, that's what it was back then. And it was
burning down left and right. And even though it was
decay financially and aesthetically for the city at the time,
the silver lining to it is if you were a
firefighter during that era. It was a lot of experience.
You were learning on the fly. I mean I always
quote this because Bobby Galleon and Rescued two talked about
this in this program a number of years ago. You
could have and this was true. Like I said of

(17:06):
Brooklyn too, you could have had a fire at six
thirty at night where you screwed something up. You could
have and you said to yourself, Ah, dang it, I
wish I would have done this instead of that. By
eight point fifteen of the same night, you would have
corrected that mistake. The calls were such coming in during
that especially where you were working, you had a chance
to learn and correct anything on the fly, and you
didn't have to wait right right.

Speaker 2 (17:27):
You got a lot of practice. You know, a lot
of the men I worked with when I first got
on were Vietnam vets, and which was they took you
on their wing, and they looked out for you, and
they told you what was important and what wasn't important.
You know, the shirt you wore not important. Doing your job,

(17:51):
having your tools that's important, you know.

Speaker 1 (17:55):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (17:55):
So they looked out for us, and they had a
poise about them, you know, I mean This is what
I used to say. When I graduated high school, I
went to college. These men, when they graduated high school,
they went to Vietnam. Yeah, they spent you know, maybe
a year or a couple of years at Vietnam. Then
they got out of Vietnam and they were lucky enough

(18:16):
to get on the New York City Fire Department during
the war years, and like, you know, when it was
crazy and now I'm coming in after that and they're like, ah, relaxed, kid,
we got it. So they had this poise about them
that you couldn't help. But after a while, you know,

(18:37):
it made you very comfortable with them around you going
into a fire.

Speaker 1 (18:42):
Yeah, I mean that others back exactly. They had seen
so many things go down between overseas and combat, and
obviously in New York City. I mean, even though obviously
they understood the dangers of their job as New York
City firefighters during that era, compared to Vietnam, it must
have felt like a cakewalk to those guys.

Speaker 2 (18:59):
Yeah, you know, when they first got on, they were
fighting vacant building fires like every other building. Yeah, when
I got on, it was no, it's a vacant building.
We got the X on the outside. You know, we're
putting up the tower ladder and unless it's a small fire,
we're not going in there. You know, only if it
was war and we did forty five engines. We had

(19:22):
a lot of fires, and I think it was a
while before I had a fire and an occupied building.
Most of it was using the Clorox bottle of rope
to go up, haul the line up, put it out,
and get out of there. If it was any size,
then we would, you know, let the towel ladders go
to work, because they had lost a lot of men

(19:44):
during the early seventies, Yes, and it was like it's
not worth it. What do we save them? So you
know it took us. We're still you know, doing an
aggressive interior attack, but they know enough to back off,
like there was that risk will Ward, you know.

Speaker 1 (20:02):
Right, I mean, if we're talking a place that we
know is a residential occupied you got families in there,
a whole different ball game if it's a vacant, and
you know, somebody probably said it rather have been one
of the junkies at squatting in there, rather have been
arson for profit, but you know nobody's there. Yeah, why
lose a guy and it's not even the guys losing
you that we're lost in the buildings. You know how

(20:22):
many guys got killed or seriously injured and had their
careers ended malicious pulls in the alarm box around the
way to the call. They get into a wreck on
the way, guy falls.

Speaker 2 (20:31):
In bad shape. I mean a lot of the plumbing
had been ripped out. The stairs are gone. You know,
you're walking up on the springers of the stairs, You're
looking out for holes in the floor. You know, what
it did provide was a good training ground. I want
to trim a window, you go win, tear the window out.

(20:53):
You want to pull ceilings, pull ceilings. I learned to
cut a roof by cutting a roof in a vacant building,
you know, on drill we go out, there's a building,
let's cut it up. Yeah, so you got to really practice,
which that doesn't exist anymore.

Speaker 1 (21:08):
Yeah, no, I mean, and even taking vacant cars in
the street, you know, and using them for extrication training.
You can't so much as do that anymore either.

Speaker 2 (21:15):
When we first got hursh tools were driving down the
street and so an adv we'd stop and rip it apart,
and then the dot sid you can't do that because
when they come to take it away, it falls.

Speaker 1 (21:28):
Apart, right, Yeah, yeah, now that is yeah, that it's
the drawback to it.

Speaker 2 (21:32):
Practice wherever you can, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (21:34):
Get your reps in, stay sharp, you know. And I
will say I mean again, especially on an engine company
where you're stretching that nozzle in. You were doing a
lot of that, and you were doing a lot of
that not only in your own first two area, but
you were also doing plenty of it. Of course, like
you said, running in with other companies on these boxes
where even as a second d or a third do
you're gonna see a lot. Now when you went to
thirty seven truck, were you going across the floor in

(21:55):
eighty one?

Speaker 2 (21:56):
No, no different. Seven truck was in another alien still
in the Bronx, still in the same division, thirty seven
truck at the time. It's on Briggs Avenue and Bedford Park. Okay,
that area fully occupied area, like really no vacant buildings,
and the work was starting to pick up. And a

(22:17):
friend of mine from the hockey team was in the company.
And when I was looking for a truck, I didn't
want to move across the floor because a lot of
guys had done it, and sometimes there was some hard
feelings about moving over. But I didn't want to stay
in an area that was predominantly vacant buildings. So thirty

(22:40):
seven truck was occupied, so I went over there and
it was great, great job, put some work and my
first captain in thirty seven it was Bernie Cassidy, who
was also a firefighter in thirty one truck and also
in report from Engine eighty two Report from Engine A
they call him Barney. Okay, so you know, a lot

(23:08):
of the beginning of my career I was learning from
the guys that were in Dennis's book.

Speaker 1 (23:15):
Realize Superheroes a lot. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean again,
that was the Bronx was burning back then. I always
go back, and I didn't live through it, but it's
on YouTube, and YouTube might as well be a time
capsule these days. It's either the nineteen seventy seven or
seventy eight World Series. I think it's seventy eight Game
three or four. Oh yeah, yeah, you can see you

(23:39):
can see the smoke, so they pan out. The series
is on ABC. It's the Dodgers against the Yankees. It's
one of those two years because they played each other
back to back, and you hear how are co Sell
and that distinctive co Sell voices. I get ready to
do my terrible co Cell impression. Would you look at that, folks,
The Bronx is burning and that kind of was a
encapsulation of what the borough and really have been there

(24:01):
five years earlier.

Speaker 2 (24:02):
Yeah, I mean that was an every day occurrence. You know.
You always heard the fire sirens, you always saw smoke.
You know, it was not uncommon to you know, see
that going on the neighborhood I lived in, we didn't
have We saw some fires, but not too many except
for that one row of buildings across the street for me.

(24:25):
But it was every day occurrence.

Speaker 1 (24:28):
Yeah, yeah, I mean it may sound messed up to say,
but for guys like yourself that lived through it as
a firefighter and guys that, you know, guys that were
living in the neighborhood during that time, you didn't look
at it really in the moment is decay. It was
just Tuesday, you know. For as messed up as that
may sound, it was just another day.

Speaker 2 (24:44):
I had an uncle who lived on the second floor
of a building and somebody on the top floor set
fire to the apartment, however, burned through the roof collapsed
water destroyer's apartment. So I saw that firsthand the apartment
house I lived in. There was a fire in an apartment.

(25:07):
We didn't get any damage in my apartment, but we
got filled up with smoke and I had This was
when I was still in high school, and so I
was late getting to high school, which was Cardenalhayes High
School down by Yankee Stadium. YEP. So I get to
school late and I had to go to the dean's
office because I was late. And I walk in and

(25:30):
he wants to know why I was late, and I said, well,
there was a fire in my building, and he didn't
believe me. I stunk like smoke smelled my clothes, like
I didn't make this up. But yeah, you know, you
deal with it.

Speaker 1 (25:45):
Yeah, I mean again, that's just how it was back then.
Now a little bit of a compare and contrast here,
because forty five engine you're either making the hydrant or
you're humping the line in there with your lieutenant and
your hydrant guy. Once he's all set to go. Pump operators,
of course, it's nine times out of ten depending on
who you're a officer is going to usually stay with
the piece unless it gets really bad, then he goes in.
But when you went to thirty seven truck, if you

(26:06):
remember from all the boxes in forty five, what was
your first box like in the Bronx thirty seven where
now you're on the other side of operations and you're
doing the truck work.

Speaker 2 (26:16):
It wasn't that much different because when I was in
forty five, I had a mutual partner. We did mutuals
and then he transferred over to fifty eight truck across
the floor, and when I had a year on the job,
the captain of the truck let me still work mutuals

(26:36):
with him, so I would work. I know, I don't
know why he did that, and I don't know it
worked out, but I worked like one tour in the
engine and one tour in the truck. Like my second
year in forty five engine, nobody seemed to mind, and
so I was doing truck work before I went to

(26:57):
thirty seven. So going over there, the only difference was
fifty eight truck was a towel ladder and thirty seven
was a reamount with the telephone booth.

Speaker 1 (27:07):
Yeah, I mean that's that's so go ahead.

Speaker 2 (27:10):
Well that's an experienced riding it. When you first get
in the truck and you have the canned position, you're
riding the telephone boove, you buy yourself on the side
of the truck. You know, a little different doesn't exist anymore.

Speaker 1 (27:23):
Yeah, that's another bygone part of a bygone era. And
that's that's so. You know, listen, that's the thing when
you went then, and I didn't know that. I'm glad
you added that. When you went to thirty seven, truck
work wasn't unfamiliar to you, much like going into fires
and being in those type of situations wasn't unfamiliar to you.
When you went to the academy, this wasn't unfamiliar to
you either, because you were doing those mutuals.

Speaker 2 (27:42):
Yeah. I had to be there.

Speaker 1 (27:44):
Yeah, yeah, thanks to that captain letting you do those
mutuals in the truck. It sets you up for success.
So maybe that's the reason, you know, if you ever
wanted to go to the truck one day, he didn't
want you to feel left out. Maybe one of.

Speaker 2 (27:54):
The biggest uh things they you know, first things they
told me when I was in thirty seven truck and
I worked a lot with the Captain Bernie Cassidy was
They said, when you work with the captain, you better
wear sneakers. He said, because when he's off the rig,
he's gone, and you better be right behind him. Yeah,
you know, so you learn pretty quick that jump boy,

(28:18):
you're not There's no easing into the response, which is
the way it should.

Speaker 1 (28:24):
Be exactly, not at all. I mean, it's it's fast,
it's pedal to the metal, and that's any era. It
doesn't matter if it's the warriors, doesn't matter when it's
always pedal to the metal. When there's a legit work
and fire going on right now.

Speaker 2 (28:36):
Like to go back to Jack Maine and Bernie Cassidy
coming out of thirty one truck, you would think these
guys had so much experience, maybe they wouldn't spend a
lot of time on training. They would most training focused officers.
I might have ever worked with they and it wasn't
so much as having a formal drill, but we talked

(28:58):
about stuff all the time. We're in the kitchen having coffee,
we're talking about things. We're asking about this, what would
you do here? And so it was just constantly part
of your day. You get up to the you know,
the apartment door. Okay, what floor are we on? With exposure?
One with exposure too. You know, it's like you're thinking

(29:21):
all the time. That's what they taught us to do
in the truck, think all the time, Know where you are,
how are you getting out? It really, as you know,
a new guy on the job. My first four and
a half years in the Bronx, it was really a
great way to break into the It's the right way.

(29:42):
It makes it, you know, not taking anything easy, not
taking anything for granted. And they did that to everybody,
not just me, so it doesn't matter. You know, if
you transferred in from a company and had six years
on the job, they were treating you the same.

Speaker 1 (29:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (30:00):
Good.

Speaker 1 (30:00):
It's it's levels the playing field, which ultimately is fair
for everyone and allows for that humbling. Not that somebody
walks in arrogant per se, but at least it lets
you know where you stand off the rip and working
your way up from there. Now, you know, not to
gloss over them because I'm gonna get to one twenty
four truck and going to Brooklyn in a moment. But
you mentioned the drill is informal or formal or otherwise.

(30:21):
How much of that did you take with you when
you ended up making lieutenant originally in eighty eight.

Speaker 2 (30:26):
Oh, a lot of it. When I was in thirty seven,
Bernie asked me, because I could draw to make up
on oak teg like draw out buildings like an apartment house,
a tax payer private house, things like that, and we
would use that for drill. Because if you're sitting in
the kitchen talking about a drill in an apartment house,

(30:49):
everybody's got a different picture in their head. But if
we're all looking at the same picture and it was
behind plexiglass and you can mark it up with a
grease pencil, where the fire is way, you would put
a ladder. I thought it was a great idea. So
after I made a set for him, I had, you know,
when I was in the Bronx started thinking about studying

(31:12):
for promotion, So I made a second set for myself,
and when I was covering lieutenant, I would carry that
around with me and give a drill. So, yeah, you
learn to take from everybody, you know.

Speaker 1 (31:25):
Yeah, you know, it's bits and pieces that ultimately add
to the puzzle will make you as well rounded as
he can be. Even if you never move up in
the ranks, even if you just stay a firefighter, it's
gonna make you a heck of a senior guy. Fo
people coming into the firehouse to be able to learn from,
because again, your a dept. You're keeping your ears out,
you're keeping your eyes out, you're picking up as you go.
You never stop learning, as you well know.

Speaker 2 (31:43):
Well, I had that those different building drawings, would you know,
in a frame with the plexiglass, and I always had
it with me when I was covering, and then when
I got my permanent assignments, and I took it with
me to Ladder seven. And this past September I was
at the firehouse and those drawings are still in the

(32:04):
firehouse kitchen. I don't know if they use them anymore,
but they're still in the kitchen. And oh jeezus, they've
got to be uh forty years old.

Speaker 1 (32:16):
Yeah, I mean, listen again, that speaks the tradition. That
speaks to the tradition, and there's nothing like it, especially
in the New York City Fire Department. The bigger the agency,
the bigger the mission, it is to keep those tradition safeguarded.
Now you know again, New York City the history of
its interesting overall, where we're talking five cities that were
essentially merged into one. Brooklyn, for example, is the fourth

(32:37):
on its own, not even counting the largest city it's
part of. If you just take Brooklyn itself, it's the
fourth largest city in America population wise, and Bird to Borough,
the approach is different. How you fight fires in Manhattan
is different than how it is in the Bronx is
different to how it is in Brooklyn and Queens of
Staten Island. To that point in your career, all you
knew was the Bronx, I mean again, and even though
you were going to another trunk cup truck company I

(32:58):
should say in one to twenty four, more in eighty four.
So the work is pretty much the same. Maybe the
approach is a little bit different in Brooklyn. So if
it was, tell me about again the change or was
there minimal change when you went to one twenty four.

Speaker 2 (33:10):
No, it's different. In the Bronx. It was you know,
originally baked bacont buildings, apartment houses, you know, some taxpayer fires,
thirty seven truck occupied apartment houses, a few private dwellings
and some tax payers Brooklyn different story row frames, Bushwick

(33:34):
was blocks and blocks of row frames. Fires burned through
them pretty quick, so you had a move, you know,
in the in the Bronx, you know, unless it was
the top floor fire, you didn't really have to cut
the roof. In Brooklyn it was four story rowframes. You're

(33:55):
getting up there and you're cutting the roof. Just about
every fire you had to move, and sometimes you had
to give up a building and go down a couple
in the road. So a lot a lot different. And
we had a lot of factories in Bushwick too, so
those were no fun because big open floor plans, you

(34:18):
could easily get lost in them. So it was different.
And one twenty four was a towerl ladder, so it
was back to being in a tower ladder.

Speaker 1 (34:28):
Yeah, not so much a tiller, you know which, Again,
a tiller is is not any particularly easy assignment either.
I've had guys on the show who have driven those.
So if you're in the back of the tiller driving
that thing, it's a science, it's an art form. But
the tower ladder again, the tower ladder, when it comes
to were you guys operating deck guns back then or
was that a little bit later on the game.

Speaker 2 (34:48):
In the tower ladder. Yeah, oh yeah, you know sunrise
over Bushwick. You had the bucket up in the air
overnight and you know some building burned to the ground
and you're up in the bucket pouring water on some
building and you know, watching the sunrise.

Speaker 1 (35:04):
Yeah, listen, what could be better? What could be better? So,
I mean in a line with that, with the change over,
And I'm glad I asked that question even though the
concept stayed the same, because you were a truck guy
for a while by this point, having done it for
a couple of years and thirty seven in the Bronx Brooklyn. Wise,
with what you just mentioned, how long would you say
that it takes to get adjusted to the Brooklyn way

(35:25):
of doing truck work?

Speaker 3 (35:27):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (35:28):
I don't think it took too long because we were
catching a lot of work of one twenty four again,
over five thousand runs a year, one of the busiest companies,
a lot of occupied structural work. And the guys there
were pretty good teachers too. Again, they took you on
the wing. They taught you they don't leave anything to chance. Again,

(35:50):
we sat around the kitchen and we talked fires, you know,
we talked about different buildings. We talked about fires that
they had on a previous tour, so they taught you
how to do things. You picked up pretty quick. Road
frames are a lot different than apartment houses, you know,

(36:10):
so you have to treat them differently. But even while
you were in the fire and doing overhaul, you know
they would be teaching. So I really during all my time,
I was a firefighter before I was promoted lieutenant for
nine years and I basically just kept my mouth shut,
my ears open, and took it in from these five

(36:32):
in one four. They were guys that had twenty twenty
five years in one twenty four working in Bushwick, went
through all those war years, gained a ton of experience,
saw a lot of you know, friends get hurt, and
passed on that knowledge to us. So it was part
of like a second wave of guys coming through.

Speaker 1 (36:55):
Yeah, and that sets you up for success in your
own right, because where you are in nineteen eighty eight
when you make lieutenant is an interesting spot. You're still
young on the job, but you're approaching a decade on it,
so it's not like by now you I mean, you
haven't seen everything, but you've been around the block a
couple times. At this point in your career. So it's
a sweet spot for you making lieutenant. You were covering
for a while in Queens before I get to you

(37:17):
being permanent for even though it's just a year. In
one thirty six, were you bouncing around specifically as a
UFO in truck companies or do you do a little
bit of engine working?

Speaker 2 (37:25):
You do a little bit of everything. Uh, never really
bounced too long, you know, a few months and then
a spot opened up in one thirty six long term
medical and the chief of the firehouse in the four
to six battalion, Marty Hughes, was a hockey fan. Actually

(37:48):
the three youths brothers in the NHL.

Speaker 1 (37:51):
Yeah, his grandson's Yeah, I heard about that. I'm trying
to get is Chief Hughes still with us? Yes, I'm
trying to get him on the show. I've been trying
to look back for that game.

Speaker 2 (37:59):
Yea, that his grandsons. But he was a hockey fan.
I was on the hockey team, and I guess he
took a liking to me and asked me if I
wanted to and also I came from a busy out
of company would want the spot and to cover in
one thirty six UFO, So that was great. It was

(38:19):
catching some good work, good group of guys, just to
start off. When I got promoted lieutenant, I didn't go
to lieutenant school at that time. They put you right
in the field. So I got promoted on Thursday. On Saturday,
I'm working in one fifty four truck in Queens. You know, basically,

(38:42):
I changed my shirt and I'm a lieutenant. And the
only thing really helped me was I had been an
officer in the Long Beach Volunteer Fight Department, so I had, like,
you know, that little experience on a smaller scale of
leading guys into fires. But I was an officer in

(39:03):
an engine company in Long Beach. But so you know,
I had, I studied, and the biggest thing you fall
back on is the offices you worked with before lieutenants
and the captains that I worked under, you know, about
how you handle yourself. Because Queen's was a different animal.

(39:25):
Also that area apartment houses, private houses, taxpayers, so things
I had been used to because in Long Beaches or
private homes.

Speaker 1 (39:37):
I'll say, it's kind of the same way.

Speaker 2 (39:38):
A few apartment houses. Yeah, so I had had fires
in all those places, so there's nothing out of the ordinary.

Speaker 1 (39:46):
And it wasn't long. But what even though you weren't
in Queens, you know, for too long before you ended
up going back to the Bronx in ninety you took
a little bit of that too to where you went
to next, and it all kind of added together. And
I imagine, I'm not going to jump ahead too far
because we'll hit it a little bit late. I do
want to get back to going to the Bronx at
the moment. But you took that with you when you
were down at the Academy from ninety six to ninety seven,
even though it was again a little stick compared to

(40:08):
the longer, since you had all that was in your
mind during that period of time down at the Academy
and kind of crafting things down there.

Speaker 2 (40:15):
Yeah. Well, we were asked at the time Eddie Garrity
was asked to take over Proby School head on Proby School.
The head of Proby School had just retired around ninety six.
We had lost a few guys and they started a
back to basics program because we were losing guys in

(40:37):
you know, not trust construction, not new construction, the bread
and butter buildings that are in new York City, So
they started a back to basics training program. Then Eddie
was running that. Then he was asked to take over
Proby School and the mandate was make it better. And
he did make it better, and he asked me to

(40:58):
be his executive officer. And we sat down and just
looked at the curriculum and said, what could we do
to make it better? And at the time, they were
getting a lot of a lot of stuff that had
nothing to do with putting out fires, fire prevention stuff,
building inspection stuff. That's stuff you can learn in the firehouse, right,

(41:23):
The hands on stuff in the PROB School was lacking.
There wasn't enough of it. So we changed the whole
curriculum actually added I think it was like sixty three
hours of Proby School was longer than six weeks sixty
three hours of hands on training and didn't add one

(41:46):
day to the program by cutting out some of the
bs and repeating classes. Just one thing comes to mind,
the class prior to us changing it, did the mass
confidence course once they basically got through it, you know,

(42:07):
we implemented it three times because the first time they
went through it, maybe half of them failed. The second
time they went through it. Everybody passed. It was a
little harder the third time through. Everybody breathed through, and
one of the probe's actually said to us, why are
we doing this? It's too easy point mistakes. Wow, Yeah,

(42:31):
But our point was the course didn't get easier, you
got smarter, you got more experience. The whole point of
the mass confidence course is to instill confidence in them
that they can handle a mask emergency, aware, getting hung
up on something, crawling through a tight space. So if

(42:51):
you put them through it once and they're just happy
to get through, we felt they didn't have the confidence
by the third time. If it's too easy, then it
served all purpose.

Speaker 1 (43:04):
That's a good way. That's a good way to look
at it. And I smile when you mentioned Chief Garretty,
and both him and his brother aren't with us anymore.

Speaker 2 (43:10):
So.

Speaker 1 (43:10):
His brother died a couple of years ago in nine
to eleven cancer. Chief Garretty Ed Garretty, that is they
were both chiefs, was killed on nine to eleven, and
I remember reading in his obituary and this is why
I smile, and it kind of speaks volumes of the
kind of guy he was. One day, the proby's come
in around this time he took over and he talks
to them. He gives him a nice, little, short, to
the point speech about his expectations. You know, he's very

(43:31):
easy going. He just tells him, all right, we're gonna
get after it. This is what I expect to view.
And the Proby's kind of smile all right. And they
walk out of the room and the guys that are
in the room with him as the instructors, are looking
at Chief Garrity, like, what's wrong with you? And he goes,
what what I do? He's like, You're supposed to scare
the hell out of them?

Speaker 2 (43:47):
Oh? He did, he did. Eddie was a tall guy
and had an imposing, you know, post stature, and if
it Proby needed to be tightened up, we would send
him to see Captain Garretty and Eddie would stand up
his full height and scowl at the kid and call

(44:07):
him on the carpet. No, Eddie could do that too.

Speaker 1 (44:10):
Yeah. He wore both hats.

Speaker 2 (44:11):
Ipano Eddie and Stevie very well. Stevie and I got
a promoter lieutenant together the same day. Oh nice.

Speaker 1 (44:18):
Yeah, And they both had very distinguished careers in the
FT one very distinguished careers.

Speaker 2 (44:23):
Really put that fingerprints all over the fire Academy.

Speaker 1 (44:26):
M hmm, still being felt this day, still being felt
to say from both guys. Billy Gross, hello to you,
my friend, and the chat. He was on the show
a little while ago, a couple of months ago, and
he says he Billy worked on the ft and Yams side,
and he says Ed was a good man rip he was.
Both him and his brother Steve, like I said, both
fortunately and they're in different ways. Nine to eleven took
both from us, sadly, but their legacy certainly lives on.

(44:47):
So not that you didn't enjoy Queens. You certainly grew
to enjoy Queens, even though it was brief, brief. You
enjoyed Brooklyn too for the five years you were in
one twenty four. But was there part of you when
you got to thirty eight and ninety that said, ah,
I'm back home.

Speaker 2 (45:00):
Yeah? I would have been very happy in one thirty
six truck, But when the order came up, I had
the endorsements of the captain and the chief, and then
a lieutenant who was getting promoted captain in six months
outpointed me and he took the spot in one thirty six.
So I would have been very happy staying there. But

(45:22):
when I didn't get it and I was going to
be bouncing again, there weren't as many companies I wanted
to work in in the fourteenth division, and I had
wanted to go to the Bronx when I first got
promoted anyway, I mean, I originally ran out to Brooklyn
so I could get promoted and go back to the Bronx,

(45:43):
and then it didn't work out that way. This had
me to Queens. So I figured, well, I didn't get
the spot in one thirty six, let me go back
to the Bronx the seventh division. A lot of good companies,
be very happy even bouncing there for a while. And
then again after just a few months, spot opened up
in thirty eight truck and I was asked to take

(46:05):
that spot long term. And that was actually in the
neighborhood I grew up in, No so.

Speaker 1 (46:11):
It was really it really was a homecoming, Oh it was.

Speaker 2 (46:14):
I mean I lived when I was a little kid,
I lived just a few blocks away. And this is
even going back. My brother always wanted to go to
who's a couple of years older than me, always wanted
to go to the firehouse. See the fire trucks and
I'd be the kid tagging along with them. The fight
department didn't have a draw from me until I got

(46:35):
into volunteers. So literally was like my neighborhood firehouse, thirty
eight truck. So it was fun working there. And when
I went back there was a lieutenant. There were a
handful of firefighters in thirty eight who were firefighters in
forty five engine. We roll probes together in forty five engine.

(46:56):
So it was very comfortable going there. And thirty eight
was a very senior house. So again, new lieutenant, you know,
even though I had a couple of years under my belt,
knew the area. But senior firefighters who they knew me.
They were senior firefighters when I was a probe so

(47:19):
and I had worked in that firehouse, so they knew
me from there and they but they treated me like
a lieutenant and they gave me the respect and yeah,
and then you do your best to earn it.

Speaker 1 (47:33):
Yeah, I mean, because that can go And that's nice
that you said that, because that can go either way.
I mean, it depends on how you carry yourself, right.
It could either walk. It could see you walk and
be like, really, this guy okay, yeah, but don't worry.
We'll do what he says, you know, in theory, but
behind his back, we'll do X, Y and Z instead.
Or it could go the way you said where you
know what, Hey, we're gonna treat him as such until
he gives us a valid reason not to he's ear lieutenant,

(47:53):
or we're going to give him due respect. You never
gave him a valid reason. They respected you, and that's great.

Speaker 2 (47:58):
There were firefighters there and they, like I said, they
respected the rank. But if I screwed something up, they
would have no problem walking over privately and saying, hey,
don't do that again. Or that may not have been
the best thing. It never happened, but there was no

(48:19):
doubt in my mind that you know, they would let
you know.

Speaker 1 (48:22):
Yeah, and you need that. It keeps you honest, It
keeps accountable.

Speaker 2 (48:26):
Right, hold you accountable and as it should be. Yeah, No,
the fire department doesn't have a sergeant's rank. But going
back to thirty seven truck. When I first got there,
the chauffers wore kylepins that were sergeants bars and I
wondered what and they said, well, they're a senior man.
They're like they're like a non com and and you

(48:51):
listen to them, and you know what, the best firehouses
I worked in, the Chauffers, the senior men kind of
they were at first line of supervision before you even
got to the lieutenant that they A lot of those guys,
they would they were like as saug They would keep
guys in line. And because a lot of officers, you know,

(49:13):
you transfer, you come and go, you get promoted. You
get those firefighters that are in a company twenty twenty five,
thirty years. That's the stability of the company and you
need that. And I think it's a little lacking today.

Speaker 1 (49:27):
Yeah, because well the job has gotten a lot younger too.
And it's not to say that the young guys don't care.
I'm not. We're not saying that at all. It's just
with you know, the change and age and you're seenior guy,
you know, having maybe ten years in the job, but
also being thirty two years old because he got on
the job so young himself. Maybe a little bit of
those traditions. I mean, I don't want to go as
far as to say they've been forgotten, because I think

(49:48):
that's too far, but they've been altered a bit, and
that's something where you gotta he.

Speaker 2 (49:52):
Yeah, you know that those those senior men with twenty
five years you know, had kids the ages of the
proby's coming on the job, right, you know, they didn't
treat you like a baby, but they treat you like
one or their kids. Right. They treated you like a
father would treat you. And I think that's the best

(50:13):
tradition of.

Speaker 1 (50:14):
The fire Yeah, you know, And there's something that was
said in another program, Mickey Farrell shout out to him
top Floor Tactics. He's currently still on the job as
a lieutenant at a truck company in the Bronx where
he said, you know, pulling up because he started his
career right after nine to eleven in two thousand and one,
but even before that, as a volunteer in New Jersey,
you go into the firehouse, you see certain cars in

(50:34):
the parking lot, and that tells you, ah, crap, Okay,
I I got to make sure I'm on my best
behavior today because this guy's working. I don't want to
let him down. You know, there's still that in the
fire service, but I feel like it's kind of it's
drawn back a bit, which is which is dangerous.

Speaker 2 (50:48):
I feel it'll even out over time.

Speaker 1 (50:51):
I hope.

Speaker 2 (50:51):
So, yeah, I hope.

Speaker 1 (50:53):
So the pendulum always swings.

Speaker 2 (50:54):
Well, just you know, nine to eleven, you lost almost
a generation of guys, Yeah, in a short period of times,
from the guys who died, the guys who got sick,
but also guys who were retired earlier because maybe the
pension was good that they couldn't give up the overtime
and maybe were tired sooner than they wanted to. So

(51:15):
you lost a lot of guys that would have flowed
down promotions of people getting on the job. It would
have lengthened out the careers, right.

Speaker 1 (51:25):
Yeah. In two thousand and one to two thousand and three,
same thing with the NYPD around this time frame two
a lot of guys who had really been there and
done that for both departments. Poor authority. Police can speak
to the same thing given their losses that day too,
so many valuable guys. It wasn't just the guys that
got killed to your point, it was the guys that
left because of emotional strain. Of what you said. With
the pensions looking good, a lot of time got added

(51:47):
to the pension and they felt you know what, you know,
I listen. One guy told me straight up. You know,
I'll never forget him saying this in the program, I
didn't die in this one. Do I really want to
hang around and get killed in the next one. That
was part of it too. That's another reason why guys
left them. We'll get that in a little bit as
we'll talk about some of the guys that didn't come
back that day from seven truck. But that being said,
of course, you know, and I'll get to making captain

(52:08):
in ninety four brief spell two and thirty two truck
allowed the same work you were steeing thirty eight or
was a little bit different.

Speaker 2 (52:14):
Yeah, well, in thirty eight I kind of ran up
against the same thing. Spot opened up. I had everybody's
endorsement from Captain of Borough commander and somebody else had
the first deputy fire commissioner's endorsement. So they pumped me
out and I was bouncing again. And Jack Mayne, my

(52:35):
old lieutenant from forty five Engine, was now Captain. Jack
mane up in thirty two truck, and I knew if
he was up there, it was going to be a
squared away company and they had an opening, and I
spoke to him and I put in for it. Good
group of young guys occupied area, work was picking up.
Area was projects, apartment houses, tax payers, private dwellings, so

(53:02):
a good mix of buildings and good work. Thirty two
truck was a reamount again, And yeah, I enjoyed my
time up there. And actually, of the three places that
I was worked long term as a lieutenant, thirty two
Truck was the shortest. It was fifteen months. Yeah, yeah,

(53:23):
I got promoted.

Speaker 1 (53:24):
So, I mean, given the fact that you were enjoying it, listen,
obviously you were able to do some great stuff. When
you made captain, it opened up some more doors as
were about to hit on. But given the amount of
time you'd been in the Bronx overall to that point
in your career and you were having a nice time
in thirty two, was there part of you that wanted
to decline the promotion, say you know what, I'm good
here or were you just you know, were you happy
to move forward? No?

Speaker 2 (53:45):
I wanted to move forward. Okay, nice to held company.
I had been a lieutenant for six years. It seemed
longer back then, six years not seemed pretty short. Yeah,
but no, I felt I was ready for it, you know,
as you think you are as ready as you could be,

(54:05):
you know, going from a lieutenant and basically basically being
in charge of your shift and not being in charge
of the firehouse.

Speaker 1 (54:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (54:14):
Company. But and that was another thing. When I got promoted.
I had been teaching at John Jay to fire safety
Director's course, and I figured, you know, high rise fire safety.
I said, well, I should go to Manhattan and get
some high rise experience if I'm going to teach this course.
So I put in for the third Division in Manhattan.

(54:37):
So in the wisdom of the fire department, they sent
me to Brooklyn, the fifteenth Division, which is great busy,
it's a big division, a lot of good companies. Again,
it's like wherever I put in for, they sent me
somewhere else, right.

Speaker 1 (54:52):
And it had a way, I guess, of evening out,
you know after a while to where at the end
of it it made sense. But originally they had to
be saying each time. So I didn't I want to go,
not that you didn't you know, like the assylum.

Speaker 2 (55:02):
Baby, I didn't hate going to the fifteenth division. Yeah. Yeah,
of course, great companies. You know, a lot of work.
So even bouncing around the fifteenth division was interesting.

Speaker 1 (55:16):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely absolutely, So even if it wasn't what
you had in mind, after a while you look around, say,
you know what, that worked out pretty good. I ended
up here.

Speaker 2 (55:24):
Yeah. I worked there for just about almost two years,
and then I did transfer the Manhattan. And then while
I was like right after I transferred the Manhattan, is
when Eddie Garritty asked me to come out to the
Fire Academy in ninety six. And then also in ninety

(55:47):
six is when the Fire Department started the Master's program
in Fire Protection Management. I was just about to ask
about that, yeah, at the Fire Academy. So it was
good timing.

Speaker 1 (55:58):
So i'll you know, let's that now because you end
up graduating that in nineteen ninety eight. What was the
reasoning and the motivation behind starting that?

Speaker 2 (56:09):
I think the fire was never done before. And it
was twenty five fire officers excuse me, one day a week,
Wednesday nights from six to ten taught at the Fire Academy.
So we're all in one group for four hours together
for two years. So I think part of it was

(56:33):
to have us all go through and get the degree,
but also as a good networking tool, bring us all
together and we had someone from every rank. We had
a couple of lieutenants. Mike Galla, who is an assistant
chief now, was a lieutenant. Richie Tobin, who was a
deputy chief of fire prevention was I think he was

(56:55):
a lieutenant at the time there. Eddie Gerritty was a captain.
I was a captain. Eddie Moore are a lot of
guys that went on. We had Mike Cronin assistant chief,
Charlie Blache battalion chief, a couple of deputy chiefs. So
we had somebody in, a few people in every rank
among that twenty five guys. Sometimes I think we learned

(57:17):
as much from the other students as the instructors, who
were great. But we had some fire offses with a
lot of experience in that room, so we could debate
things and learn, and we touched on all topics. It
wasn't just fire safety. It was also some security in there,
human resource management, some other topics in there. So a

(57:42):
good learning experience but also a great networking experience that
a lot of us carried through even after we graduated.

Speaker 1 (57:52):
Absolutely, I mean it's something that kind of created the
template for what you see now. Well, again, it's not
to say, I mean, you got guys are getting job
with just a GED and an associates degree and they
become great firefighters. But really, if you want to move
forward in the FI, this is no knock on them.
Having that degree doesn't define you per se. You still
have to implement the skills in the street, but it

(58:12):
doesn't hurt you either. And I think it's a good
opportunity for a lot of guys, especially with John Jay's
history of really kind of being a breeding ground for
cops and for firefighters. It's links to public safety or
very well known. That was a good stepping stone for
guys because it was yet another opportunity. The job was
able to provide for guys that wanted to advance themselves,
not only in their careers, but even after they retired.

(58:32):
Right if they wanted to do something in the privy sector,
that was the ticket to do it.

Speaker 2 (58:36):
One of them, well, yeah to me working afterwards, But
when we were in that course, one of the early
courses was human resource management and it was all about
affecting change in an organization. And then it was like
right after we finished that class, the next semester was
when Eddie was asked to take over Proby School. So

(58:57):
we sat down and coming from the same and we said, okay,
we got out our book, a textbook for the human
resource management class, and we said, let's use this, and
we use that as a basis for a lot of
the changes we made in Probi School. I mean when
we got there, aside from the hands on classes and everything,

(59:19):
they would get two exams. They got a midterm and
a final that was it failed the final, it set
them back. We implemented weekly tests, weekly quizes. That way
we could gauge their progress before they even got to
a midterm. But it also let us know what they
were learning and what they had a problem with. And

(59:40):
we kept some classes unassigned so we could say, okay,
if they're having a problem with this topic, whatever it is,
we can repeat it. We had an open class, we
could plug it in, so we treated it more like
a school. You know. It was a little more work
for us and instructors. But and it also by taking

(01:00:04):
those quizzes, we could look at who was teaching those courses,
so it was a gauge on how the instructors with
teaching too.

Speaker 1 (01:00:14):
Yeah, I mean, listen, you can't and you see this
a lot with bigger cities, because again you have the
city kind of breathing down your neck and budget wise,
and that can happen, you know, anywhere, any large enough city.
You can't rush it either. It's important for them, obviously,
they're gonna learn a lot of this stuff in the
firehouse too, kind of to your point earlier, But a
lot of this academic stuff is stuff they're gonna carry

(01:00:34):
with them throughout their careers too. It's not like you know,
regular school, where I can tell you this is yet
another day cap where I have not used the Pythagorean
theorem for anything. So that's how far that gets.

Speaker 2 (01:00:45):
This is different.

Speaker 1 (01:00:46):
I mean I always repeat this line, and Chief Tom
Brennan once said it, former FDNY Chief Department. You can
never know enough about a job that can kill you, you know.
So this stuff is important to learn. And if instructors
aren't able to convey it, you know, which is just
as important as recruits being able to retain it. At least,
that was the barometer, that was the measuring stick to say, Okay,

(01:01:06):
this instructor needs to improve, or he's doing really well,
this recruiter is struggling with this or this man these
recruits are really getting it right.

Speaker 2 (01:01:13):
Also, we had at the time Lieutenant John Hughes and
back to basics. Then move over to prob school. John
took the PROB manual which they used to give you
just a box of procedures procedural manuals, right, and half
the stuff the proby's didn't even need, but they would

(01:01:34):
have to read it. We went through it and he
computerized it and cut it down to what they need
to know in prob school. They'll need all of it
if they decide to study for lieutenant or they get
into a truck company, but what do they need for
prob school. So he made it easier that we could
do that. Plus a lot of different things. I mean

(01:01:58):
they were using overhead projectors and slides that were like
one hundred years old, and he started using power points.
So a lot of different people had their hands in it.
And you know, it's not like one guy made everything
so much better, right, A lot of teams if one
was in the master's degree program with us, So another

(01:02:20):
graduate moving to make the job a little bit better,
you know, pushing that rock uphill, move it a little
bit and everybody. Then the next guy moved a little more.
And we all were kind of coming from the same place,
so we understood one another and cool work with one another.

Speaker 1 (01:02:38):
And to your point about you know, the evolution of
tactics and teaching, you can't use this is the mid
nineties when you were down there. You can't use slides
from the sixties and the seventies to apply to the nineties.
The games changed. That would have worked at the sixties
and the seventies. But where the city was built, and
I talked about this in the last episode with Captain Elliott.
Where the city was, we're building construction, where the city

(01:02:58):
was in terms of code, what type of fires you
were seeing during that period. You had to make it
relevant too. When you were there nineteen ninety six, nineteen
ninety seven, nineteen ninety eight. You can't use anything from
nineteen sixty six, nineteen sixty seven, nineteen sixty eight. No,
not gonna work, Not gonna work. So very good point there.
You know that moves us ahead into latter seven. To
this point in your career, I mean, I'm sure you'd

(01:03:19):
done a detailer two. Yeah, maybe gone in there, depending
on the severity of an alarm for a fire. But
being in Manhattan by this point eighteen years in the job.
You've been a lieutenant for six, a captain for three.
You made captain of ninety four and covered around in
Brooklyn for a little bit, which was familiar territory for you,
and give me time. Previously a one to twenty four
again we talked about the differences in Burrows earlier. Same

(01:03:39):
type of company. Right, you're still doing truck work to Yeah,
do with owl ladder? Okay, go ahead, Well.

Speaker 2 (01:03:46):
That's towel ladder. So I was familiar with the truck. Yeah,
but you rarely used ladders in Manhattan. Yeah, mostly all
high rise building. A few times you would get an
apartment house fire where it was within reach of the bucket,
but most of the time we weren't using the rig.
One of the first, you know, and it's totally different.

(01:04:07):
I had no experience in Manhattan and high rise buildings,
even though in ninety seven, by the time I got there,
I had been teaching the fire safety Director's course for
four years. You know, I was doing a good job
of faking it teaching the fire Director's course. So I
had some knowledge about the buildings, but never had you know,

(01:04:30):
really been in them. One of the first things I
did was sit down with the guys in the kitchen
and said, listen, you're the experts here, not me, you know, right.
You know these buildings, you know how we do things.
You know what's the company policies. But you know, if
you see me doing something and you don't think it's

(01:04:52):
going to work, let.

Speaker 1 (01:04:53):
Me know, tell me. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:04:55):
Just of course, I'm you know, wearing two bars on
my cower. Don't think you can't talk me, you know,
let me know if I'm making a mistake. I'm not
looking to get somebody hurt. So it worked out, and then,
you know, over time, you gained some experience and things happen.
Good company, a lot of young guys. We weren't going

(01:05:16):
to as many fires as we were in the Bronx
and Brooklyn, but a lot of emergencies, you know, different
things like subway emergencies, a ton of elevator emergencies, a
lot of car crashes, and there's always a cab involved,

(01:05:36):
you know, really, and UH responded to a seaplane flipped
over in the river. We had stuff that you know,
never had experience before, but got to be ready for
everything exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:05:52):
And that's that's the beauty of it. In Manhattan, you
don't know what you're going to get. You know, I'm
not I'm not going to sit here and say that
isn't the same for you know, the other boroughs too,
But it's kind of for the pretty, I don't want
to say formulaic, but cut and dry. Most of the time.
You can throw a curveball here and there. In the Bronx,
you know what you're going to nine times out of ten. Brooklyn,
you know what you're going to nine times out of ten.

(01:06:12):
Because of what we have in Manhattan and the differences
in buildings. You know, how Midtown is compared to sky Town,
for example, or Inwood is a little bit different. You
can go to just about anything, different types of fires different.

Speaker 2 (01:06:26):
In this office building five times. Yeah, now you're on
a different floor and it's totally different exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:06:32):
You just don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:06:34):
The difference between the Bronx and Brooklyn and even Queens
and Manhattan is in those burrows. You could rush in there.
You could do things a little differently Manhattan because of
the way the buildings are, you fight fires a little more.
By the book, you have to double up companies ankle

(01:06:57):
freelancing because you can't just jump out a window. Yep.
It's very easy to get lost. Every time we went
in with bringing a search rope with us. You know,
you get these floors there, huge floors of cubicles. Very
easy to get turned around and not know where you are.
So a little flow of pace. But you know you

(01:07:21):
fight him more by the book.

Speaker 1 (01:07:23):
Yeah, I mean there's president too. As you were saying, now,
I was thinking about the Macy's fire in seventy nine
where a guy got killed in line of duty that
day after His name is.

Speaker 2 (01:07:33):
Smith from last seven. He was from last seven.

Speaker 1 (01:07:36):
Yeah, and again he got disoriented and lost in the store.
You know, I'm not saying he did anything wrong. I'm
just saying a lot went wrong that day.

Speaker 2 (01:07:43):
Unfortunately the sprinkles system and didn't turn the valve back on,
and of different things.

Speaker 1 (01:07:51):
I think his name was Walter Smith. If if I
recall correctly, I'll look I'll look it up here and
figure out where his name was stand by to find. Yeah,
it was Walter Smith.

Speaker 2 (01:08:01):
Walter Smith.

Speaker 1 (01:08:02):
It was Smith, says here Walter. Yeah, I remember hearing
that name in a chief. Jonas has a great newsletter.
He revisited that fire as part of this newsletter. So
that's where I remember.

Speaker 2 (01:08:13):
Seeing the name.

Speaker 1 (01:08:14):
And again, anything can go wrong in those buildings. So
in the fire load too, I remember talking about this
with Ray McCormick because Ray worked for a long time
in twenty four and you know in midtown where you
don't know what's in these buildings. It can be a
record company, it could be an office building. It could
just be a factory. Right, you got your warehouse in Manhattan.

Speaker 2 (01:08:30):
Yeah, you have a lot of mixed use. It could
be storage, it could be you know, like you said,
a factory. You could go into a building it's an
office building and there's a jewelry factory, you know, and
they have gar studio. Right, You really never know, so
you played a little. The one good thing is these

(01:08:53):
buildings have sprinklers, and you know, you get a little,
they rarely get out of control. Not that it hasn't happened.

Speaker 1 (01:09:01):
But right keeps in check for the most part.

Speaker 2 (01:09:03):
Right right, it's a little different, which.

Speaker 1 (01:09:06):
Is a big, big help. Hi to Billy Cooney in
the chat I did and say hi to earlier, my friend.
Good to see your brother tuning in from Wisconsin now,
oem and I want to hit on this with you too.
OEM was really one of the Guliani Juliani administration's great triumphs.
And one of my regrets, because he died of cancer
a couple of years ago, is not getting Jerry Hower
on the show he was. He was such a visionary.

(01:09:28):
He did a hell of a job with OEM. What
was nice about OEM is that it blended the best
of both badges, blended guys from the NYPD, blended guys
from the FD and y Timmy Round, for example, from
Rescue three went to OEM and did some great work there.
Steve Kerr on the FD and y ems side went
there too and worked there for a while. So I
believe Billy Gross had a little bit of a hand
in that too, for a period of time in the chat.

(01:09:48):
So again, brilliant invention kind of you know, was able
to streamline operations between p D and f D when
Giuliani brought into effect in ninety six. And it seems
silly now, but nineteen ninety nine to two thousand, you know,
people didn't know what was going to happen. When the
clock struck on December thirty first, nineteen ninety nine, nobody
had lived through a millennium before. Unless a magic potion

(01:10:10):
comes out, we're not going to live through one again.
So tell me about the coordination that went on with
OEM during that time.

Speaker 2 (01:10:16):
Well, at that time, John Hughes had left Proby School
and taken the detail to OEM. He was a deputy
commissioner at OEM under Jerry Hower, and John was put
in charge of citywide contingency planning for Y two K.

(01:10:38):
So again John was in the class with us. One
of the classes we took in the master's program was
emergency management, and John was looking for somebody to come
over and give him a hand at OEM. And one
day I'm in latter seven and a call pulls up
on the street and it's John Hughes and Jerry Hower,

(01:10:59):
and Jerry's recruiting me to go work for him at OEM.
So I really wasn't looking to leave the company. So
I told him, I'll give you six months. I'll give
you till like February of two thousand and I'll come
and work with John. And that's what it was all about.

(01:11:20):
And to tell you the truth, I never thought Y
two K was going to be the end of the world.
You know, they were talking about no electricity planes falling
out of the sky, And even back then, I thought
like they didn't know what was going to happen when
the computers had to roll over to two thousand and

(01:11:42):
even back then, I was thinking, why don't they just
take a computer, changed the date like in March of
nineteen ninety nine to make it December, and let's see
what happens when it's two thousand.

Speaker 1 (01:11:54):
Yeah, but I.

Speaker 2 (01:11:57):
Don't think anybody was doing that. So there were two
things going on. One was getting Y two K compliant
computers in the city. The other was under julianni and
Jerry Howard, where the city has to function no matter
what happens. So we were working with all the city
agencies to put contingency plans together. And it wasn't only

(01:12:22):
Y two K focused. It was like a lot of
other things happened in New York City. Strikes, hurricanes, snowstorms,
water main brakes, you name it. Stuff happens and we
got to be ready to deal with it. So that's
what we were focusing on. And we had a team
of IBM consultants who are helping us work through the

(01:12:43):
process of getting these plans together. So we had to
do it. And we had a hard end date. You know,
it's December thirty first, either where radio or not. So
we're going through this and I had been given I
was the assistant under John, and we had Pete Petrillo
who was a sergeant in the PD. He was the

(01:13:03):
other assistant under John. And we were overseeing the other
trainers doing the work of getting these plans together. And
I had five agencies who were the most reluctant to comply,
and they just weren't buying into the whole white two
K you know, bs of course, but we would go

(01:13:28):
to we would have a meeting every couple of weeks
a month with Deputy Mayor Joe Loda and Juliani and
he wanted to know, is anybody being you know, resistant,
and we would say yeah, and they would get a
phone call and then we get a little more cooperation.
But I sat down with each commissioner in the individually,

(01:13:52):
I said, and they were like, I'm not buying it,
blah blah blah, and I'm like, you know what, I
agree with you. I don't think that's happening. But we
got to be ready for other stuff. So you know,
it was things like if the waterman breaks outside your
building and you can't get into your offices, what are
you going to do? Send everybody home? Or are you
going to work from somewhere else? And what do you
need to work from somewhere else? Do you need computers?

(01:14:15):
Do you need files? Do you need things? Right? Where
can you go? Do you have an agreement with another
agency to work from their office? If you had a
fire in your building and you can't get it, what
are you going to do if there's a strike? So
it wasn't only Y two K focused. And one of
the good things about it like Y two K came

(01:14:35):
and went and nothing happened. And I'll tell you a
story about that night a couple in a second. But
the benefit of that exercise of putting those plans together
for Y two K was a year later when they
were used for nine to eleven because a lot of
city agencies were displaced from Lower Manhattan and they had

(01:14:58):
those plans to fall back on. So that was good
to see. But at O M. Jerry was a great boss.
But Jerry was a big fire buff. He certainly was
live in Riverdale and we would have a meeting every Monday, morning,
and if Jerry wasn't there, it was usually because it
was buffing a fire in the Bronx somewhere, you know.

(01:15:20):
But he was great boss to work with, really supported us,
very knowledgeable. But for Y two K we activated, and
we had other things going on at the same time,
transit strike, the avian flew, the you know, West Nile virus,

(01:15:41):
we deal it was a couple of snowstorms, So there
was other things going on in the middle of all
of that. But we activated the EOC three days prior
to Y two K, prior to New Year's just to
get everybody in the habit of working twelve hour shifts
and and being there, you know, representative of every city

(01:16:03):
agency and the EOC at several World Trade Center looked
like you would think it would work. Screens everywhere, access
to all the cameras in the city. You know, you
needed to talk to the PD, you just walked over
to the other side of the room, government agencies, everybody
was there, so you could get a lot done. Yeah,

(01:16:26):
and then you know we're all gearing up. Funny story
the night before New Year's So December thirtieth, we're activated.
We're in the EOC A police officer comes up to
the podium and says, listen, don't say anything. We don't
want to scare anybody. But attractor trailer just pulled up
in front of the building and the driver walked away.

(01:16:49):
And now we're thinking, like Oklahoma City, yep, Like oh
my god, somebody's going to blow up the EOC, Like
what the hell is going on? So, you know, we
didn't say anything. It was a tense few minutes. They
had to get the bomb squad and then he came
back I think it was about half an hour later,
and he tells us don't worry. It was a truckload

(01:17:11):
of furniture. The driver was driving it up from South Carolina,
he got lost somewhere and just pulls up in front
of seven World Trade Centers, Like what are the chances?
Made sure? The next night the whole area was shut down.
Nobody could get close to the building. And then another
funny thing happened on December thirty. First we would you know,

(01:17:36):
I mean, why two K happened the other side of
the globe twenty four hours earlier, So really happened? Right,
We're tracking around the world, we're watching is anything going on?
You know? And we're seeing as midnight is hitting different
time zones, and nothing really seemed to be happening, you know,

(01:17:56):
minor little things, nothing of any consequence. But then like
New Year's happens in New York and like seconds after
the ball dropped, the lights in the EOC go out.
Everything the whole place went black. There was an audible
gas in the EOC. It was like, oh my god,

(01:18:17):
this is real. Something happened. No, what really happened was
Phil Pauw, who was a batalion You know.

Speaker 1 (01:18:25):
Phil, he's been on the show, on the show.

Speaker 2 (01:18:28):
Have him on again and ask him if he tells
this story. He leaned the The EOC had light set,
so instead of turning lights on and off, you know
you hit one one setting two, three four, he leans
against the switch and shorts out the switch and that
would cause every left. Did he tell you that story

(01:18:49):
when he didn't?

Speaker 1 (01:18:50):
Should have thought because I know he was he was
another oh yeah guy for a while.

Speaker 2 (01:18:54):
Yeah he was. So he shorts out the EOC. There
was this gas. Ray Lynch, who was also a firefighter
work and there knew where roll the switches were, so
he reset these circuit breakers and the lights went back on.
But it was like we didn't think anything was happening,
and then what timing Phil had and I'm sure it

(01:19:14):
wasn't on purpose. He shorted out all the lights at
one point and then nothing happened and we all went
home the next day.

Speaker 1 (01:19:23):
And it's worth noting as if it's not chaotic enough.
December thirty first, nineteen ninety nine. It's a Friday, So
it's a Friday night in New York City. You know,
everybody's out partying because of this event on top of that,
you know, so that's another I mean, it's going to
be crowded regardless, but especially know in the next day, Saturday,
and nobody really has to go to work, right, Yeah,
it was.

Speaker 2 (01:19:44):
Yeah, it was an interesting detail being in OEM, you know,
being I knew to fight apartment, but seeing how other
city agencies interacted, what OEM could do, what it couldn't do. Yep,
everybody wanted a gener They thought, you know, the Toro
generator would power that building. You know, wasn't happened.

Speaker 1 (01:20:08):
No, it wasn't happening indeed, And I don't blame you
for the truck thing, because think about it, it's not
just Oklahoma City. What happened across the street ninety three,
you know, so what are you thinking? You're thinking ninety
three too, and what Ramsey Yu Saif and his crew did. God,
I you know again, I love these stories. I've often said,
you know, if time machines were real, the place I'd
left to time travel back to if it were possible to,
like you see in the science movies nineties New York City,

(01:20:30):
just for this stuff alone, the vibe was so different.
I mean, events like.

Speaker 2 (01:20:34):
The bombing in ninety three.

Speaker 1 (01:20:35):
Also, yeah, so again being down there, did you get
down there on the immediate dispatcher a little bit later
on in the day.

Speaker 2 (01:20:42):
No, we went down there the next day. I was
working in thirty three truck okay, and you know, everybody
was going through, so we had to go down and
they wanted a secondary search of the building. So we're
walking up and then I was at the command post
with the Italian chief, Larry Burns, who was in the
first battalion and knew the building like the back of

(01:21:02):
his hand.

Speaker 1 (01:21:03):
Yes he did.

Speaker 2 (01:21:04):
Larry was the chief in the movie that the two
French brothers did.

Speaker 1 (01:21:08):
Yep, yep, he came out of retirement. He so little
context for the audio. Most of you guys know this,
but for those of you who may not, Larry retired
in nineteen ninety eight. He retired five years after this, when,
like a lot of retired guys from PD and the FD,
he came back. He got down to Battalion one and
that day and joined up with then rookie who's a
lieutenant now and has met I believe Tony Benettato's. They

(01:21:29):
went down to the building where there right, Garry.

Speaker 2 (01:21:31):
Was instrumental in what was actually being done with that Proby.
We were out at Proby School. Larry was out there
when I was out there, and they came and they want,
these two French brothers wanted to do a movie about
the life of somebody becoming a fireman who had no
background in the Fire department at all. So Larry, they

(01:21:54):
met Larry and he brought them in and this whole
thing came about. So they knew Larry of any probe
was assigned to the first Battalion, and then they followed
Larry around. Larry since passed away.

Speaker 1 (01:22:10):
Yeah, he got a nine to eleven cancer.

Speaker 2 (01:22:12):
Yeah, Larry's we're related. His daughter is my wife's best
friend and his daughter and son in law and my
sons godparents and my wife and godparents to her daughter.
So we're very joined at the hip.

Speaker 1 (01:22:34):
Small world indeed, And you know, I'll never forget what
he said in that documentary where he said, again, this
is the guy who retired three years ago. Could have
just watched it from a distance, but he went right
down there and almost lost his life because, like I said,
him and Tony were underneath Tower one when it started
to go. He said in that documentary, they're my firefighters,
that's my building, that's my city. You could take the
man out of the ft and WYF, you can never

(01:22:55):
take the.

Speaker 2 (01:22:56):
Nobody more than than Warry. So he was invaluable.

Speaker 1 (01:23:01):
Yeah, he he was one of the few guys on
the either side of the aisle, law enforcement or firewise,
that really knew the World Trade Center quite quite well.
I'm going to hit on nine to eleven and the
guys from latter seven that made the ultimate sacrifice that day. Momentarily,
but you went back to the academy in two thousand
after y two K died down in two thousand proved
to be just another year. You were down there really

(01:23:22):
until the end of your career. Helping build I mean
in between, of course being down at seven truck new
buildings down of the academy. You go down to the academy.
Now it's like a city in and of itself. It's
an amazing ryeh So tell me about being involved in that.

Speaker 2 (01:23:37):
Around I went going back to the firehouse. In February
of two thousand and then the fight Department was getting
plans together to build a new fire academy at four Tounton.
They had gotten four Tonton from the military and they
wanted to build the fire academy there, and they had
money appropriated, and they weren't getting clear title to for

(01:24:03):
Totten and they didn't want to spend the money and
then be told okay, get out. So the decision was
made to add to the fire Academy at Randall's Island.
So at that time they had a lot of different
fire officers on a committee going in and out, but
nobody wanted to commit to like being a day to

(01:24:25):
day person. Around August of two thousand, Commissioner von Nessen
called me down to his office and said, listen, we
need one person to be the point person for this,
and I'd like you to do it. I wasn't really
looking to leave the firehouse in twenty fours, you know,

(01:24:46):
and go back to work in day shifts. But it
was an interesting project to have far reaching implications, so
I said yes, And I asked, you know, how much
input am I going to have? And he said, I'm
going to have my fingerprints in everything part of the design.

(01:25:08):
Oversee the construction coordinate with the training going on at
the fire Academy, because we're going to be building the
new buildings right in the middle of the existing fire Academy.
So that that interested me. I called it building Disney
World for Fireman.

Speaker 1 (01:25:27):
And it is. It really is, especially now, a lot of.

Speaker 2 (01:25:29):
Innovative things there. Yep. One of the drawbacks of the
old fire Academy was that. And it wasn't that old
when I went. I mean, the fire Academy was built
in like the early seventies, so by seventy nine when
I went, was fairly new. But it was static. You
couldn't change anything. To do fire training, you had to

(01:25:51):
burn pallettes and tires in a building and then drag
them out and drive things out and try to light
it again, you know. So we said we need to
get through guys through more quickly, so we looked into
propane burn buildings, which was you could light the fire,

(01:26:11):
put it out, and started up again, but it was
also safer. You could hit a button and shut it down.
The burn building is one of the most innovative things.
You can have fire with smoke, fire with no smoke, smoke,
no fire. You could have a flash over roll over
their heads. We could play sound into the building, so

(01:26:32):
if you were making a search, we could play a
recording of somebody coughing or a baby crying, or just
fire ground noises like sores and breaking glass. So it
made it more realistic. Plus you could change the layout
of the building. So just because you went there and
went through it as a seasoned firefighter, today, next year

(01:26:55):
or six months you come back, how you go through
the building could be different. So you had it was
a challenge.

Speaker 1 (01:27:03):
You had to think absolutely. I mean, you go down there.
Now there's even a simulator for subway emergencies. They have
a whole train car and building, and thank you for
doing that, because that's one of the coolest things I've
seen when I went down there a couple of years ago.
There's also a simulator for responding to a plane crash,
which is dedicated to the memory of the WTF Downey.

Speaker 2 (01:27:23):
Yeah. Yeah. And then the other innovative part was the
field house, which is like a covered street or story
buildings on one side, three story buildings on the other,
typical buildings in New York with a roof over it.
You could raise a ladder in there, or a towel ladder.

(01:27:43):
The only thing you can't do in that building is
use water, but you can use water in plenty of
other buildings. Similated right for searches for operating in different buildings.
We put a net over the one story taxpayer in
that building so that an inclement weather you could still
do rope training instead of canceling it for the day

(01:28:04):
because it's two degrees outside or raining and you lose
that day of training. So there's radiant floor heating in
the street so that you could do a graduation ceremony
in there, or the proby's do pt in the winter
instead of you know, out in the rain or the cold.
So very flexible, and that was what we were looking for.

(01:28:29):
The genesis for the subway building was the MTA has
a building where they do training in Coney Island, and
you can't send all the units like from the Bronx
and Northern Manhattan Staten Island to Coney Island. You can't
take them out of service for that, so you can
only send local close units. But the Fight Department needs

(01:28:52):
to train on that. Plus there were also things you
couldn't do in Coney Island. You couldn't move the car
away from the platform with because you would crush that platform.
So when we built the one in the Rock, we
built for that. We built so that they could do that.
We built, We brought the rescue companies in and said

(01:29:14):
what do you need to do, and we made sure
that the building would, you know, withstand the abuse.

Speaker 1 (01:29:21):
And it can. It can to this day. And I
mean listen, if if imagine telling guys, I mean when
you were going through the Academy in seventy nine, that's
what the facility would look like today. I mean, they
would shake their head. It's so modern to the point
where you get departments from you know, from nearby areas Stanford,
I know, I mean, and then again Chief Morris of
course has a big can in that, but Stanford will
send guys down there to train. You know. It's a

(01:29:42):
great training ground, not just for New York City guys,
but even guys around the country or in nearby areas Jersey,
Connecticut to come down and learn. That's that's a testament
to how well the facility has been rebuilt. Yeah, yeah,
very good work. And again, Commissi von Essen, who's been
on the show as well as you know, he wasn't
lying when he said you were gonna have your fingerprints
on it, you know. So we'll hit on September eleventh

(01:30:04):
real quick before I get to a couple of other
things before the rapid fire quite a number of guys,
and I have the list in front of me, and
one guy I want to talk to you about in
particular because he was a fellow captain of course. That's seven.
You had Captain Richard, who has a school named after
him in Brooklyn.

Speaker 2 (01:30:17):
Yes, nice Larry Burns, his grandson actually teaches there. Nice.

Speaker 1 (01:30:22):
Yes, And that's that's the lasting testament to Captain Richard's legacy,
because that man loved the FC and y he loved
the Fire Service. And you see the footage of him
that morning getting ready to go in and kind of
doing a size of before he enters, and he looks
very calm.

Speaker 2 (01:30:34):
He doesn't look the whole crew in that picture. Is
the whole crew moved?

Speaker 1 (01:30:37):
And I have that picture. I'm going to display it momentarily.
George Kane, Rob Fody, Charles Mendez, Rich Maldowney and Vinnie Princiata,
some of these guys. You see a video of them
walking in behind Squad two eighty eight about to make
entry in that picture here, and let me just share
the screen real quick, and I for those of you you've prought,
most of you in the audience have seen this photo,
but I want, you know, to really display it here,

(01:30:59):
which is these are the guys, you know, and you
see them in that top photo. You see the rig
in the bottom photo. In the aftermath, I'm sure so
much was going through their mind. They knew what they
were going into, and they knew there was a good
chance they weren't going to come back out, but they
didn't hesitate. You know, they did a little size of it.
You could see quite a few of them looking up
in that photo, including Captain Richard. They knew it was bad,
they still went in and unfortunately, you know, they didn't

(01:31:21):
come back out tragically enough, but their legacy lives on
and again just we could talk about all of them
all night. And I don't mean to single out one
guy over the other, but just you had the distinction
of serving alongside Captain Richard, and even if you guys
were on opposing shifts, you still had a hand in
the layout of the culture of the company. So what
do you remember most about him?

Speaker 2 (01:31:39):
Well, vern was promoted captain after posthumously.

Speaker 1 (01:31:42):
After Okay, so he was a lieutenant.

Speaker 2 (01:31:44):
He was one of my might see you lieutenant and
last seven gotcha. So you know, being a first time
captain in LATA seven working in Manhattan, I relied on
my lieutenants. Now, Vernon was a firefighter in the Bronx
like I was a firefighter in seventeen truck in the
South Bronx. So of came from the same places. But

(01:32:07):
a lot of what I wanted to do as a
captain I bounced off and first I would sit down
and say, hey, I want to do this. What do
you think? Because senior man had a lot of time
on the job, more time than I had, and I
valued his input. So you know, he knew the guys
and he he wasn't a pushover, but he looked out

(01:32:31):
for the guys, yep out for the best thing, you know,
and a couple of times if I thought I wanted
to do something and he didn't think it was a
good idea, he would say. So we came up with
dues and don'ts, right because we were getting a few
probi's and we said, you know what, I'm not going
to take it for granted that they know what to

(01:32:52):
do the first day they walk in the firehouse. So
we came up with you know, like five dues and
five don'ts, and just when they came in, welcomed them
to the company and said, if nothing else.

Speaker 1 (01:33:05):
Learned these, you know, good guiding point, you.

Speaker 2 (01:33:08):
Don't want to because we saw a couple of guys
that started off on the wrong foot, you know, like
if nobody told them, you know, be the first one
up after dinner and cleared a table, getting in the
sink and clean the pots, if nobody told them, they
could start off on the wrong foot.

Speaker 1 (01:33:27):
So we think, and that's not their fault.

Speaker 2 (01:33:28):
Nobody told them no, so we're telling you.

Speaker 1 (01:33:33):
Yeah, you know, and again yeah, he was one of
the posthumous promotions. Afterwards, Like I said, he's got the
school named after him in Brooklyn, which is spawned the
new generation of people that wanted to be firefighters in
half partially because of his legacy. I don't know how
well you knew the other guys in the company, but
if you did, share some recollections about them if you can.

Speaker 2 (01:33:51):
Uh. Richie Muldowney just loved being a fireman. Was a
volunteer fireman in Free Court. Richie also was a master carpenter,
did great finish work, but just a pleasure to be around.
George Kine, real big skier, would make some mutuals take

(01:34:13):
time off in the winter and go out to I
believe it was Veil, and I think he was a
ski instructor out there. George the dude was always looking
to transfer out of seven truck and go uptown to Harlem.

Speaker 3 (01:34:31):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:34:33):
Chucky Mendez, great guy, big Ranger fan. Love that Vinny
Princiata grew up in the Bronx like me. Actually went
to school with one of my cousins in the Bronx.
Great guy used to do something totally on his own,

(01:34:54):
go to one of the hospitals and bring the kids
like stuffed toys and stuff. You know, just not no publicity,
just did it for the right reason. Really good guy.
And Bob Fody always on his phone. I used to
have to tell him we'd be responded and he'd be
on a call. But again, all the guys wanted to

(01:35:17):
be fine, happy to be there. Never have any issues
with the guys. Well, really good guys and really missed
really in the fire house.

Speaker 1 (01:35:30):
Yeah, and like I said, the defining besides that photo,
which is very poignant considering the fact that none of
those guys in that photo made it, and obviously the
video of them walking in with two eighty eight and
none of the guys from two eighty eight made it.
It's just there's a video, and it's just a compilation
of the various emergency vehicles that responded that morning. You
see a lot of guys from the Portatry Police side,
the NYPD side, the ft and Y side, who you're

(01:35:51):
seeing in that video for the last time. And Captain
Richards is on the sidewalk. Lieutenant Richard at the time,
I was on the side walk and again I see
his face in you know, in my head right now
he's looking up like this. He doesn't look flustered, he
doesn't look scared, I'm sure a lot was going through
his mind, but he's just very calmly, kind of getting
the picture of what's going on. You see the police

(01:36:13):
directing traffic, people, civilians fleeing the building frantically, and he
kind of just has this look on his face like okay,
and he starts to walk.

Speaker 2 (01:36:20):
Yeah, you know, it was serious, but we're going to work.
And I think when you look at the movie the
two French Brothers, yeah, you see a lot of guys
in there. You don't see fear.

Speaker 1 (01:36:33):
No, I guess chills talking about it. You know, guys
were Yeah, guys were ready to go and they knew
they knew it.

Speaker 2 (01:36:38):
You know. Listen the judge in that movie. You see
Terry Hatton, who's the captain of Rescue one. Yep.

Speaker 1 (01:36:44):
Dave Weiss in there from Rescue one as well, and
the part for me, Chief Jonas talked about this, and
I've had the good fortune of having the Chief on
this program where he's in the lobby and I forget
who else he's with him, you know, by the way,
you see Chief Palmer in there, you see Chief Burns,
you see Chief Fronty in there too. But there's one
point where yep, VHI and you see they're getting ready

(01:37:06):
to go up. And this part isn't shown, but now
you know Chief Jonas talks about he's a captain that day.
Jerry Nevins from Rescue one is in that circle. So
after the it's about six guys including uh then Captain Jonas.
After the second plane, it's Jerry Nevins kind of turns
to the guys. He's like, oh my god, we might
not live through this, very calmly said it, just the
way I just said it. And gradually, as Captain Jonas describes,

(01:37:28):
each man looks at each other and says, fellas, if
we don't make it through this, it's been an hodder
to know you They shake hands, you know, they kind
of make their peace with it. They head on up.
Of that group of six, the only one that's still
with us today is Chief Jonas. All those the guys
kind of made their peace with the situation. And we
throw the word around guts a lot. He heard a lot
of sports, Oh what guts to take that shot? Oh man,

(01:37:50):
that was a gutsy move on his part. Maybe it
was that, Yeah, I agree, that is guts and that
is Those are just several stories that live on. You know.
I did want to ask you too, and we kind
of talked about it with guys that retired around this timeframe,
you know, because of what was going on pension wise,
being exhausted mentally from losing so many friends and digging

(01:38:12):
through the pile. Had this not happened, would you have
still left in two thousand and three or were you
one of those guys that kind of had it in
your mind, you know what I want to do twenty
five thirty years and then get out.

Speaker 2 (01:38:22):
I planned on doing thirty five. I retired. Be course,
in two thousand and two, I fell down a flight
of stairs and tore up my shoulder. Ooh, and they
told me you're never going back to the firehouse. Yeah,
And that made up my mind that if I can't
go back to the firehouse. I had done Oiah and
I had done the rock, I finished the construction. We

(01:38:46):
were just winding up at the time I retired, and
I was like, I'm done working off the line. I'll
go do something else. And because of those other things
I did, especially working at OIE again with John Hughes.
John Hughes had retired and was working for a company

(01:39:06):
MPRI and said, come and work for me. We're doing
full scale drilled. There was a lot of Homeland security
money around and that started me off on a whole
nother career, the.

Speaker 1 (01:39:22):
One that's still going strong.

Speaker 2 (01:39:24):
Yeah. Yeah. That led to working with them, led to
working at Lehman Brothers and then Barkley's and Morgan Stanley.
So it's like everything in my career like, and we're
totally not being planned. Didn't plan any of that out,
just kind of fell into place where did something and

(01:39:44):
somebody came to me and asked me to do something else,
so doin Yeah, it's like you try it out. Like
even when I went to work for Lehman Brothers, I
was not looking to put a suit on him. Work
five days a week. My wife said do it for
six months. If you hate it, you quit, go back
to consulting. And then it kind of worked out.

Speaker 1 (01:40:08):
Yeah, and lie with that and then I want to
hit on your book too. I don't want this interview
to pass us by without talking about that. As a consultant.
You know, building constructions through the roof right now, Manhattan,
no pun intended. You got a lot of high rises
going on. Really everything across the city is going up
these days. So as far as someone listening, you did
a lot of bi in your career. You respond to
a lot of different types of fires in your career

(01:40:28):
for different types of buildings. As we talked about tonight,
what do you like about what you're seeing in the
modern day codes and modern day construction? What is the
source of your greatest concerns about modern day construction? New
York City.

Speaker 2 (01:40:41):
Firefighters still have to go up in the building, you know,
once you get out of the reach your ladders, it's
a different you know, and they're not going to build
ten story buildings anymore. Everything's going to be high. You
have to factor in that a firefighter at some point
has to go up into the building. They're building these
buildings now that are likes liver buildings. They're you know,

(01:41:05):
very small footprint, but sixty stories tall. I'm not a
fan of that.

Speaker 1 (01:41:14):
I creep.

Speaker 2 (01:41:15):
I'm not a fan of that. They those buildings have
to sway, and when all the systems they build in
don't work, a firefighter still has to put it out,
you know. I think the fire department has to treat
things differently. Say, you could do whatever you want, but
this is what we're going to do. At a certain point,

(01:41:37):
we're going to write it off. You know, most of
those buildings have sprinklers. Okay, so fire you shouldn't get
of any consequence. But if a plane runs into a building,
firefighters still have to go upstairs and take care of
the mess. You know. I've done fire drilled in the

(01:41:58):
new Freedom Tower, and it's huge, and it's you know,
it's built differently, but it's designed. No buildings designed to
take the hit of a seven forty seven, right it's
now and with the resulting fire, but it's it's built
to be more substantial. There's a lot, a lot of

(01:42:19):
redundancy that's built in that wasn't built in to the
original trade center, so they're safer. But now they want
to build wood high rise buildings. Okay, when they're new maybe, Okay,
let's see what happens as they start aging, you know,
and we're not going to know for a long time.
But you know, no matter what they do, it's still

(01:42:42):
a firefighter, you know, that has to deal with the mess.
And at the very I don't know if you remember this,
but at the very end of the movie Towering Inferno,
they asked Steve McQueen about what could be done. The
architect Paul Newman asked Steve McQueen, the fire chief, you know,

(01:43:02):
how can we make them better? And I think paraphrasing,
but he basically says, start asking us how to build them,
Start asking firefighters how to make them safe.

Speaker 1 (01:43:13):
And how not to build them too. Because the thing
the thing to remember with the original trade center, as
has been brought up Heindstein's twenty twenty, but it was
built outside the building code rules weren't a stringent in
the seventies. And I'm not saying this was the case.

Speaker 2 (01:43:26):
They were. They were Local five came about in nineteen
seventy three, but that was a Port authority building, so
it didn't have to answer to even you know, to
New York.

Speaker 1 (01:43:36):
Yeah, so that was kind of created problem.

Speaker 2 (01:43:38):
That's the case today.

Speaker 1 (01:43:40):
It's yeah, it's still under port authority jurisdiction. Because here's
the thing too to remember is when you say, okay,
plane hitting the building, we think of, of course, mostly
in this in the post nine to eleven era, that day,
you know, or if you're a history buff, you may
think back to nineteen forty five when a bee fifty
two mistakenly hit the Empire State Building even just a
smaller plane. Five years after this, I was talking about

(01:44:01):
in the last episode when Corey Little, two days after
you know, the Yankees got eliminated, was taking flying lessons
with this pilot instructor hit a building in Manhattan. Was
it the size of a seven forty seven? No, But
again you have to worry about is if something like
that happens. Are these apartment buildings, forget just the high
rises for businesses, is it built to take that? And
like you said, imagine and you see it, and I

(01:44:23):
would never want to work on the upper floors of
these buildings. A skinny it looks like almost like a
giant Lego. Yep, you know, I don't know what they're doing.

Speaker 2 (01:44:33):
Yeah, And just a few years ago, we had a
helicopter land on.

Speaker 1 (01:44:36):
The roof, on the roof and the pilot was killed.

Speaker 2 (01:44:38):
Out in midtown Manhattan on fifteenth seventh Avenue.

Speaker 1 (01:44:43):
Yeah, and it wasn't intentional, neither was Corey Litle. It's
just something went terribly wrong. Corey Litle didn't mean to
do it. That pilot that ended up unfortunately dying, didn't
mean to do it. But stuff can go wrong, and
you never know. You just never know. Even fires on
top of the building, we see something on top of
the roof catch fire. You know, even if nothing hit it, it
creates a problem because, as you said, regardless, firefighters are

(01:45:03):
going to have to go up. So I know that
keeps you busy in the consulting world. The thing that
I want to hit on with you before we get
to the rapid fire. And we've been talking for almost
two hours, but this conversation has been very enjoyable. It's
been flying by. I been doing great a fireman's life
for me, my time in the FDNY nineteen seventy nine
to two thousand and three. I'll link in the description.
I'll share the screen here so the audience can see
it and get it on Amazon. You know, it's not

(01:45:24):
easy because you did a lot, you saw a lot,
and there's the book there for you, those of you
watching on either YouTube, exce LinkedIn or Facebook to kind
of compress these stories and figure out what's going to
fit in the book and what's going to be left out.
I can't imagine this, and I can relate to it
because I wrote a book myself. You know how hard
that must have been for you? What prompted you to

(01:45:44):
write the book? Take me through your process, and you know,
when you look at the end result, how satisfied are
you with it?

Speaker 2 (01:45:51):
Well? Very satisfied and nice to have something actual in
my hand. And the genesis of all this was about
ten years ago. Go My father in law said to me,
you know, over the years, you've told us a lot
of stories, funny stories and different stories of things in
the firehouse, he said, but nobody's ever going to remember this,

(01:46:12):
my kids, grandchildren, this and that. She says, you got
to write them down. Yep, said, you know what, that's
not a bad idea. So I just took a couple
of notebooks and started writing and wrote it. It actually
wasn't harm. I wrote it chronologically. I started from the
beginning and wrote a free hand. And then when I
had like eight or ten marble notebooks and I let

(01:46:36):
it sto a while, I took my time and put
it into a word document and then let it and
printed a draft and showed it to my kids. And
that was you know, a couple of people, and that
was about it. And then during COVID had time on
my hand. So I went back and went through it again,
dusted it off, added a few stories, tied it up,

(01:47:00):
put some pictures in there, and then just went to
Kinkos and printed two copies, one for each of my kids.
And it got passed around the family a little bit
and got some good reviews, you know, and that was it.
I wasn't going to do anything with it. We have
a friend who's actually a best selling author, she writes

(01:47:23):
like murder mysteries, and she read it and she gave
me a lot of positive feedback and said, if you
want to sell it, like as a novel, go in
and take like five characters and like build stories around them.
But I didn't want it to be that. I wanted
it to be my story, my memoir, so I didn't
do that. And then a couple of years ago, my

(01:47:47):
son's girlfriend read it and she said, you know, you
should print it on get it printed on Amazon. I
was like, I don't know how to do that. I
don't know anything about it. And she had three books
printed on it published on Amazon, so she said, I'll
do it for you. So I said, okay, go ahead,
and she kind of walked it through the process and

(01:48:08):
went to an editor in a for matter and came
out on September eighth. Yeah, and it was nice to
have a copy in our hands that you know, it's
like a real thing.

Speaker 1 (01:48:22):
Yeah, it's And I felt the same way when I
when I wrote Minds. It's you know, to see and
it has your byline on it. It's a special feld.

Speaker 2 (01:48:29):
Yeah. And you know, I wrote it as my story,
and it's my story and a lot of other firefighters
in New York are going to have similar stories. And
that's I wrote it for the family. And I gave
it to a friend of mine in Seattle. I gave
him a copy and he's reading it and he texted

(01:48:52):
me and said, as I'm reading the book, he says,
I hear your voice in my head. It's like you're
telling me the story. I'm not reading it. And I said, okay,
then then I come through. So that was.

Speaker 1 (01:49:04):
Yes, that's the biggest compliment any author, any rioter can get.
You know, they feel like they're right there. That's a
book I got to get my hands on. So I
know I'm gonna scoop it off off Amazon as soon
as I can, and I will make sure to read
it and I add it to my bass collection here
on the bookshelf. If you like to do a review, yeah,
I'll I certainly will do that too, So I'm glad
I could ask you about it. That brings us now

(01:49:25):
to the rapid fire, which is five hint run questions
for me, five hitt run answers to you before we
get to it, or word from our friends over at
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(01:49:48):
easy to clean, and tough enough to handle anything.

Speaker 2 (01:49:50):
The job throws at them.

Speaker 1 (01:49:52):
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(01:50:12):
products at dealer cost. Armor tough, built for firefighters, built
to last, built the last indeed. Of course, now we
get into the rapid fire. Like I said, so, the
first question is you know Latter seven was one of
your longer stints six years there, compared to stints in
other places. One twenty four was another long stint for you.

(01:50:33):
But focusing strictly on seven, what's your favorite memory from there?

Speaker 2 (01:50:38):
I gotta tell you it was the night of nine
to eleven. Like a lot of great things happen, they
funny stories, different things working with the guys. But the
one memory that sticks in my head is on nine
to eleven, after being down at ground zero, about eleven o'clock,
a group of us, close to a dozen went back

(01:50:59):
got back to the firehouse. Actually we were walking back
and someone in a van stopped and asked if we
needed a ride, and we were filthy dirty and said like,
you don't want to send your van. He was like, no,
pile in, I'll bring it back to the firehouse. So
he drove us and dropped us off in front of
the firehouse. And when we got out of the van

(01:51:20):
there was Latter seven apparatus in front of the firehouse,
covered in paper and dust and everything. It didn't get
hit with anything other than the paper and dust, but
it was filthy and covered in stuff. But there were
easily a dozen or more firefighters active and retired, sweeping

(01:51:43):
the rig off, cleaning it off, dusting it off, getting
everything ready to go. We had lost the whole crew.
All the companies around us were gone, ladder three, lad
of four, lad of two. Right, there was nobody else
around us. Their captains, they lost their crews, they lost

(01:52:07):
their rigs. Uh. Lieutenant Mike Catino, for mention sixteen, was
like duty at the mass service unit. He pulls up
in a pickup truck and he's got masks and radios,
some of them. We didn't look like anything New York
City had. I don't know where. We didn't ask, but

(01:52:30):
we got the We had masks on the rig, we
have radios, we had the tools, and we went back
in service at midnight. Called the dispatcher at midnight, told
him a lot of services in service, A lot of
seven is in service and ready to respond. So we
were like that whole Murray Hill, Eastern Manhattan area of Midtown.

(01:52:55):
We were it that. What that showed me is what
these guys had in them. Nobody told them to come
into the firehouse nobody called anybody up and said get
in here. They just did it. Yeah, especially to retire guys.
You know, it just showed me like, no matter what happens,
they were fineming, they were going to get ready and

(01:53:17):
go to work. And it really helped I think all
recovery in that we are responding. Guys had a focus.
Like the other companies, guys came to the firehouse the
next day, they had no apparatus to respond with. They
couldn't do anything, sat around the firehouse, and I didn't
think that was good for us. Responding kind of got

(01:53:38):
us back, you know, on the horse, got us back
doing what we do, and I think that helped. Guys
were still going back and forth to the pile digging,
but I think being able to respond and seeing the guys,
you know, put the rig back in service. That's my
favorite memory.

Speaker 1 (01:53:56):
That's a great one. And here we are again, almost
a quarter century later. We're still learning stories about the day.
Never knew that, Yeah, never knew that. You know, I'm
hearing that for the first time. Thank you very much
for sharing that.

Speaker 2 (01:54:08):
Awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:54:08):
I don't know how we topped that, but we still
got to rest of the rabbit rapid fire to get through.
That was the heck of a way to start. You
played for the FD and Y hockey team for a decade,
so we had any Chachaman, We had John van Beistbrook,
we had Mike Richter, and we also had Henrik Lunquist.
And in between that we had Nick Cardeosski as the
goaltender primarily for the FD and Y hockey team. So
with that said, a lesson do you learned playing goalie

(01:54:28):
for the FD and Y hockey team that you think
applies to hockey overall? And the fire service too?

Speaker 2 (01:54:34):
Oh lot? You know what, you have the same number
of people on a lot of company, six officer and
five firefighters. You have a goalie and five skaters on
a hockey team, right, so there's a lot of synergy there.
But also being a goalie, there's all this chaos going
on around you, but you have to focus on you

(01:54:55):
a job and it's the same and the fire scene,
you know, whether it's in all hands or second alarm
or a third alarm, there's a lot going on and
it's just focus on your job. You know, if you're
the engine company and there's people jumping out windows, that's
not your job, somebody else take care of it. Do
your job, because if you're not doing your job, nobody's

(01:55:16):
doing your job. That's so and that's that's what I want.
It's like, learn to tune out the chaos and focus
on your job.

Speaker 1 (01:55:28):
And even if you do your job and it just
just implying at the hockey, you could make up for
any potential shortcoming. So I'm a diehard Ranger fan myself.
I'm on New York Yankees, Nicks, Giants, Rangers. Those years
with Henrik Lundquist, I call them the everything but the
Cup teams because they went pretty far. They just were
never able to get the Cup, got to a final,
but didn't win it. The defense in front of Henrick
was not particularly good, but he was able to really

(01:55:50):
carry them a lot at nights just by knowing his
job and doing his job and stealing some forget you know, games,
but playoff series even. I think about when they came
back from being three to one against Pittsburgh in fourteen
the next year, when they did it against the Capitols
in fifteen, A lot of that was because Henrick just
you know, decided we ain't losing another the greatest goaltender
I ever watched he did it in Buffalo, he did

(01:56:11):
it in Detroit, Dominic Kashik, same thing. We ain't losing
locked in did his job there, You go.

Speaker 2 (01:56:16):
Right ononquist is in the Hall of Fame and never
won a cup.

Speaker 1 (01:56:20):
Yeah, yeah, that good. Yeah, he was that good. And
that's no knocking Yeah, I mean not his fault. No,
And that's no knock on Mike Richter, who did win
a cup. Mike Richtor was the same way. You know,
he was just as integral to nineteen ninety four as
Brian Leech was or Mark Messier or Adam Graves. You know.
But again, a great goaltender goes a long way. And
even though I hate them as a Ranger fan, a
lot of people knock mar tan bro door. Oh he

(01:56:41):
had Ken Danago and Scottniedermeyer and Scott Stevens in front
of him. He did and those were fantastic defensemen. Marty
still had to stop the puck and he more times
often than not he did. He did, you know, so, uh,
glad you mentioned that there. Third question, the rapid fire
one innovation that you're most proud of from your training days, I.

Speaker 2 (01:57:00):
Think it's the burn building that we talked about earlier
be course and doing that fire academy that you know affected.
I wouldn't want to hazard a guess how many firefighters
have gone through the fire academy since two thousand and
three and well into the future. About every firefighter in

(01:57:23):
New York City, as you said beyond, has been trained
in that fire academy. So probably the burn building is
the biggest innovation to change the way we did some training.

Speaker 1 (01:57:38):
Absolutely. Fourth question, the Rabbit fire. You know, again, you
went to a lot of fires over the course of
your nearly twenty five years in the job. What's one
that from an educational standpoint, you feel if you could
single one out and you could say multiple if you
want to, that left the lasting impact in your career.

Speaker 2 (01:57:53):
It's one that happened when I was probably within my
first second year forty five engine. We had a fire
in the Bronx and an apartment house. We were second
due engine and we're moving the line up the stairs.
Fire on the top floor. Fifty eight truck was in
an apartment pulling ceilings and the apartment lit up. Somebody

(01:58:18):
had poured gasoline in the cockle oft and set fire
to the building. So Jimmy Spoll in the Canman in
fifty eight truck was pulling the ceiling and said to
the captain, there's something dripping on me, and the room
lit up. Kenny Kelledy was the irons man and Kenny
Kelledy was also the coach of the Fight Apartment hockey

(01:58:40):
team when I got on the job, and the captain
was Captain Nemcheck, And the last thing memory I have
is that Captain Nemcheck him diving out of the apartment.
He had no gloves on. His hands were burned to
be graphic. They looked like two lumps to chop me
and got the burns. Ended up putting them out of

(01:59:03):
the job. He had come to the firehouse like a
week or so later from the burn center and he
said to us, guys, wear your gloves. Always wear your gloves. Right.
That had a lasting impression on me. Now, the gloves
they the Fight Department was giving us at the time
with these, and they're still they're very heavy gloves. You

(01:59:25):
can't they're not very dexterous to do anything. You have
to take your glove off. To take your glove off
on the fire ground and you may never find it again.
And I was, and the fire in the Bronx always
stuck in my head. I never wore the fight apartment
gloves my whole career. I wore like cowboy gloves, leather gloves,
had to draw a string on him. I put them

(01:59:47):
on in the rig and I took them off in
the rig. I never went and I never had to
take them off to do anything put my mask on.
So it affected what I did the rest of my
career that I would never go in a fire without
my gloves on.

Speaker 1 (02:00:03):
Good lesson to no good. Lesson to keep PPE saves lives.
You know, listen, I'm learning that too. Is I go
through fire one and fire to always wear your PPE,
know your PPE, but also always dot it and do
off it too, but don it effectively before you go
in and doing livebrurns. That certainly came in handy. Thankfully
I didn't get hurt in the liburns, and that's part
of part of it, you know, dotting your PPE correctly.
Last question of the rapid fire, what it means to

(02:00:25):
have spent basically a lifetime, I mean between your consulting
work and obviously the twenty four years in the job
improving safety on the fire ground and beyond what's that
meaning you if you had to define.

Speaker 2 (02:00:33):
It very satisfying to you know, to know you had
some sort of an impact. You know, when you leave
the job, you leave the job and it's like you
turned it over to somebody else. But then the jobs
I had with the investment banks where you know, now
by job was not fire suppression, is fire prevention. So

(02:00:56):
to train people, and especially in the beginning, people really
you know, nine to eleven was fresh in everybody's mind.
People wanted training, they wanted to heal what to do.
So it was very easy. I had very supportive managers
that support the things we wanted to do to make

(02:01:18):
the building safer, to make the employees safer. We're starting
to get away from that. You know, we have a
lot of people in those buildings now who aren't born
on nine to eleven, and they don't take it as
seriously or we're babies. Well we're babies, and they don't
take it as seriously when we do fire drolls and

(02:01:41):
eap droves. So but to know that you're having an impact,
that's the most satisfying.

Speaker 1 (02:01:51):
Absolutely, this has been amazing. Stick around, we'll talk off here,
but before I say goodbye to the audience, if you
have any shoutouts that you'd like to give, Captain, the
floor is yours. If you want to shout out anybody,
friend's family, you had anything, I don't know if you
heard me. I was saying, if you had any shoutouts?

(02:02:13):
Is there anybody you want to shout out? Did I
lose him.

Speaker 2 (02:02:19):
Talk for me?

Speaker 1 (02:02:20):
Yeah? Yeah, if you had any shout No.

Speaker 2 (02:02:22):
I don't have. Oh, I'll say no, I didn't. I
didn't know if you were talking to somebody else. When
I was in Brooklyn, we formed a study group and
we studied for Lieutenant Kaptan and Chief together Vinnie Mavarro,
Rich Beinstein, John Rochi, Mike Sarrentino, and Bobby Albanie. We

(02:02:45):
carried each other through three tests and uh, it was great,
you know, great to be with those guys.

Speaker 1 (02:02:54):
Absolutely. I mean it paved the way for what you
were able to do. Yeah, should have clarified him. You
know that I was talking to you by bad that one.
Like I said, stick around. We'll talk off here. Coming
up next on the Mike din Newhaven Podcast. We may
have two shows on Monday, so we'll see how it
shakes out. I know one of them. I'm working to
confirm the other one that's definitely going to take place,
barring anything unforeseen. Started out in the Los Angeles Police Department,

(02:03:15):
made his way over to the NYPD. That's a career
you usually see in a movie, but he lived in.
It was real life. I'm talking about David Goldstein, who'll
be here to talk about his experiences in both places
before I also make mention of tonight's outro song. The
funeral services for Patrick Brady, the fd Andy firefighter who
died in the line of duty a couple days ago

(02:03:36):
operating ont of fire he went into cardiac arrest while
cutting a roof on a building are set so for
those of you who may be interested in attending. His
wake is going to be Thursday, Marine Park Funeral Home
at located on thirty twenty four Quenton Road in Brooklyn.
Visitations are going to be from two to four pm
and again from seven to nine pm, per the FD
and Y. The funerals for the next day eleven AM

(02:03:59):
at Church of Saint Answst. To Celis at one. I
hope I'm saying that right. I apologize if I'm not
one twenty nine to sixteen Rockaway Beach Boulevard and Belle
Harbor and Bell Harbor section the Queen So Again Wake
is a Friday, Green Park Funeral Home address is thirty
twenty four Quinton Road in Brooklyn two to four pm,
seven to nine pm. Visitation. Funeral mass per the Ft
and Y the next day, Saturday, eleven am. Church of

(02:04:21):
Saint Francis Elis one twenty nine to sixteen Rockaway Beach
Boulevard over in Belle Harbor. Queens. Keep his family and
your thoughts from prayers as they navigate this very difficult time,
both his family at home and his family at his
second home in the firehouse where he worked and was
certainly beloved. For those of you listening on the audio
side from their nineteen ninety one debut album, Mental Jewelry

(02:04:41):
Live returns to the Mike and Newaven podcast to play
us out with Operation Spirit. In the meantime, behalf a
retired FT and Y Captain Nick Gaudiosi on Mike Colone.
This has been volume seventy eight of the best the
bravest interviews with the Ft and Wise Elite and we
will see you next time. To care everyone, have a
great rescue the night.

Speaker 4 (02:05:00):
Gave it up, gave it up, give it up, leave
it up, eat it up up, beat it up.

Speaker 5 (02:05:10):
We're a lot of talk about your song. Yeah, we're
a lot of talk about the scene. Now, we're a
lot of talking about a lot of things, don't mean
that much to be We're a lot of talk about
the spiral. We're a lot of talk about that soul.

(02:05:32):
When I decided that in passing the paint with men
of friends, suddenly.

Speaker 4 (02:05:43):
Give an let end my friends. Let's get it back,
just get it back to get up.

Speaker 2 (02:05:56):
Yeah, let a.

Speaker 5 (02:06:03):
Long talk about all this cheese sous, amount of love,
amount of strength.

Speaker 4 (02:06:10):
What it man was a thousand years ago means nothing.

Speaker 3 (02:06:14):
Head on to me some dat what.

Speaker 5 (02:06:18):
I've been telling me about my higher self. We already
lived inside.

Speaker 3 (02:06:23):
My grim.

Speaker 4 (02:06:25):
So what it wants may have been beautiful. The pain
is bad an hour ride, then it goes.

Speaker 5 (02:06:36):
There.

Speaker 3 (02:06:36):
Go, let's get.

Speaker 4 (02:06:45):
It's getting back to their life.

Speaker 3 (02:06:47):
And got.

Speaker 4 (02:06:58):
Let's get it bad.

Speaker 1 (02:07:00):
Let's get it back to can.

Speaker 3 (02:07:07):
You it up? You up? You know, give it up,
give it up, give it up. You hear it up,
gar it up, hear it up, Do hear it up?
Hear it up, you hear it out. You hear it up.

Speaker 4 (02:07:23):
You give it up, you give it out. If you
gave it up, you're gave it up. If you gave
it up, you gave it up, gave it up.

Speaker 3 (02:07:32):
Gave it up.

Speaker 4 (02:07:33):
Then you gave it then you have it about, letting
go about. Let's get it back. Let's get it back
to gather on the go.

Speaker 3 (02:07:56):
And my friends.

Speaker 4 (02:08:03):
Let's get it back. Let's get it back together.

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