FDNY Staten Island Retirees

Flashback Friday - In 1853 the New York City Fire Department installed its first Communications Office in the basement of City Hall. There, wires came in fro...m the various lookout towers around the city (comprised only of Manhattan at that time,) from which signals would be sent out to the sixty-eight fire companies below 14th Street. When the FDNY took over from the paid Metropolitan Fire Department in 1870, this function was moved to the headquarters at 155 Mercer Street. An image in a 19th Century newspaper shows that alarm room. In the image you can see one device that was part of the system, a Moses Crane Alarm Register. This piece dates to 1870 and was therefore undoubtedly part of the relocation of the office to Mercer Street from City Hall. The NYC Fire Museum is fortunate to have that very register still in its collection. Though not presently on display, it will be part of a future exhibition on FDNY Communications history.

The true Horse Drawn Tiller, where the firefighter was truly part of the apparatus . The tillerman had to really crank on the tiller steering wheel while at the same time straddling over the ground ladders

On the afternoon of March 17, 1899 thousands of people crowded Fifth Avenue as the annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade filed past the Windsor Hotel. Around 3:00 a ...guest lit a cigar in an upstairs hallway and tossed the still-lit match which caught a curtain ablaze. Panicking, the man rushed out of the hotel without summoning help. The fire intensified with unbelievable speed, roaring up stairways and trapping guests in their rooms. The New-York Tribune the following day said But the fact remains that the fire could scarcely have burned with more rapidity had the building been constructed with an eye to making one grand bonfire out of it. The street below, moments before the scene of carefree celebration, was suddenly one of terror. The first of the firefighters arrived around 3:20 and by now guests were throwing themselves from their windows to their deaths amid the horrified St. Patrick’s Day revelers. The firemen got as many guests and employees as possible out before the heat made it impossible to be inside. The Times reported that the heads of panic-stricken people protruded from the hotel windows, turning now toward the flames and now toward the sidewalk, and calling for help in tones that made the hearers sick. Two more alarms were sounded. Firefighters, many of them still wearing their parade dress uniforms, hosed down the surrounding mansions to keep the fire from spreading. Around 4:00, just one hour after the fire began, the central section of the hotel fell in, and twenty minutes later the 46th Street wall collapsed. It would be days before the ruins were cool enough to dig for human remains. In the end at least 90 people were dead and for over a year the block-long plot of scarred groundcalled by The New York Times the dreary voidwas a reminder to the surrounding wealthy residents of the horrific catastrophe of St. Patrick’s Day 1899.

In honor of Women’s History Month, today’s Flashback Friday takes us back to June 25th, 2003. On this day, Captain Rochelle Rocky Jones became the first woma...n to be promoted to Battalion Chief, assigned to Battalion 33. Chief Jones had previously been the first woman promoted to Captain (June 1999), and Lieutenant (May 1994), and was part of the first group of women firefighters hired by the FDNY. The New York City Fire Museum salutes Chief Jones, and all of the women of the FDNY who protect our city and its residents on a daily basis. See more

Flashback Friday The Department has a long history of inclusion of members with many different ethnic heritages; some represented in large numbers and some in... very small. On December 16, 1942, Joji Furuya, born in New York of Japanese parents, was sworn into the FDNY becoming its first Asian-American member of the uniformed force. He was assigned to Engine Company 67. He went on Military Leave from September 16, 1946 to March 6, 1946, while he served his country in the U.S. Army. There he was a Sergeant with the 1203rd Engineers firefighting platoon in the Rhineland and Rome-Arno. In the latter, he was wounded in combat and was awarded the Purple Heart. After returning to the Department, Firefighter Furuya went on to be promoted to Lieutenant in 1950 and was assigned to Engine 80. From there he moved around to several other units including Ladder 36, Engine 95 and the FDNY Buildings Unit, from which he retired on October 17, 1980. He passed away on August 30, 1996. In 2013 the FDNY Phoenix Society was formed as one of the Department’s affinity groups. Its membership consists of FDNY employees of Asian and Pacific Island descent. The NYC Fire Museum salutes all members of the FDNY, regardless of race, creed or gender, and are proud to help preserve, celebrate and educate their diverse histories. #StopAsianHate

At 12:25 am on February 27, 1975, a fire alarm box was pulled from outside The New York Telephone Company switching center at 204 2nd Avenue at 13th Street. Th...e fire broke out in the basement cable vault, where underground cables entered the building. Upon arrival, firefighters found the entire building filled with smoke,as the fire spread vertically through cable access points. The incident quickly escalated to 5 alarms, bringing approximately 700 firefighters from 72 units, and was finally declared under control at 4:46 pm. The fire caused a massive disruption in phone service in the city, with 175,000 customers affected, including the 911 system, three hospitals, and three police precincts. Service was completely restored in 23 days. While 5 alarm blazes are rare, this incident receives special consideration. Although no firefighters were killed at the scene, they were exposed to a wide range of toxins when the insulation coating the cables burned. Many developed cancer, and the department placed a red stamp on their medical record to show their presence at the fire. By the 1990s the City of New York considered cancer in firefighters to be job-related, and compensated them by paying a 75% pension rather than the standard 50%