Disclaimer. We'd like to know before the start of this interview that the opinions about to be expressed by the guest of tonight's Getting Salty Experience Podcast are that of the guest and do not directly or necessarily reflect the views of the host of the Getting Salty Experience Podcast.
We're listening to the Getting Salty Experience Podcast.
Hello, and away we go. Go with the old one, the old style, welcome back. It's wrong with old school now gets Old Experience podcast. It's the only one that brings the Flying House Kitchen table to you with me and my host voice Roofie gons Raad. Show you a good guy coming up? Another f d m Ony legend down. I'll say, right, Root, I still.
Don't know what we the way.
Sorry, you've gotta have a guy on from uh from Florida.
And then he just said, nah.
No, we weren't gonna do that. Did x A on the Florida actually.
Enjoy uh all that kind of guy?
He was good. He was Florida. He was from l A, l A.
No, I'm just saying outside of fd M.
I right, you know it was in Florida.
What's his name?
Uh? He got good hair too. I can't.
Yeah, oh, Gonzo, we'll have Gonzo on the show one day.
Gonzo. I'm not from Florida, I live here.
But right it looks.
A little sweaty down in that kubs.
Finally, it's good hundred degrees down there.
No, did you guys? How are you dealing with the flood up there by the way. I just saw the news. It was the city get freaking happenings, greens and what not.
Yeah, yeah, we had a lot of rain here by me too.
It's good to see guys like pro Kacchini and there hasn't signed up for the thing yet. A lot of guys without the green lettering. You know what I'm saying. Appreciate, appreciate the little help that you give us from the podcasts. Mike, and he's coming on the boat cruise too. You think you would throw to sign up for the freaking membership? Guy, Holy crap, you're good bunch from Johnny albert E's qc B.
Still avid fans, but nobody wants to do in the membership.
All right, I'm done plugging, I'm done. How much can you hurt my feelings?
I'm done? Moving on. Let's play some commercials really quick before I lose my voice.
And all right, we're gonna listen to Vince.
And Vince is coming on the cruise. He is, mister Vince will be on the cruise. You guys gonna collaborate on what you're supposed to be doing. And as the Northeast rip.
Yes.
To talk to him because I'll be there, because he'll be there.
There's only one guy here from the show is not gonna be that guy goes on cruises every fought in five days, but he can't come up to go on this cruise.
He's busy, you know.
I unfortunately I have some words for you.
Go fuck yourself.
I'm sorry kids.
If you're listening at home, I apologize, but I mean it in a most loving way.
A good good stuff.
All right, there we go, mister Vince.
That's awesome.
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Here's another guy who's going to be on the bulk. Jimmy, Jimmy. I'll talk to Jimmy about it.
Ahead.
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Yeah, we already got some chief boys fans in this saying we got a legend here. Yep, yep, yep.
I got to play the final one that I've been halping about, you know, like Froch just refuses to join.
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That voice is just smooth.
It's like.
This is beautiful. What is velvet?
Took a little delay them like damn.
Already. Yeah, let's do it man, bring him in.
F d n Y assistant cheap Robert Boyce.
You got the young girls screaming for you. That look at that?
Keep going.
The best Tom Jones rendition right now before we dive into Chief Voyces career. Though, we gotta get patriotic right.
Here we go, I pleague Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic, for which it stands, One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.
By the way, the girl m Jay's coming who sings the national anthem. I don't want to rub it any gowns anymore, but just it's gonna be so touching when we go around the statue of the Liberty.
And she's singing.
Are you just facetiming?
I'm getting over clemped over clem.
I had to. I had to weigh my option to take my dad. You know it was deteriorating.
Don't you don't have to explain it, nobody, I just want to I got I already got at the left on.
Next moving on.
All right, chief, all right, let's do this, get this, let's go.
We got a guy that's seventy six. We're talking rough. But before we get it to your fire service, tell us a little about the earl years of a Robert Boyce where you grew up home.
Uh, who's your audience, Like, who's listening?
A lot of guys Jimmy Graham just popped in.
Well, I mean like the young guys and young.
Variety, young guys, older guys.
Well, I'm going to share with you like pretty personal stuff because I think that people might see it and say, well, this guy can do it, I can do it, you know. So first I think you're scraping the bottom of a barrel by calling bob boys. But uh, you know, I had a pretty tough upbringing, and the Fire Department of Fire Service really I think saved my life. My parents were you know, uh married very young right out of high school. I came along. I lived with my paternal grandparents.
You know, we all lived together and my parents never owned a home, they didn't graduate high school. You know. My sister came along six years after me, and my parents got divorced when I was six and she was an infant. Wow, So you know, I was really raised by my mom and you know, welfare and food stamps and it was tough. And I moved to Malvern to Limbrog into the Malvern School district in nineteen sixty five.
During the race, they weren't riots, but they were bussing force bussing, and I just remember it being very very tough, you know. And I only share with that because there might be some people that you know, weren't born with a silver spoon in their mouth, and you know, so I just wanted to share with that. My father I loved. Obviously, they were both alcoholics, and my father was not easily aroused to activity. So in other words, I don't want to say he was lazy, but he you.
Know, but he was.
Correct. I loved him and involved with the fire service. He was a volunteer fireman from nineteen fifty six in Valley Stream, and like when I would go with him on the weekends, he would take me to the firehouse and hang out and blah blah blah, and I just, you know, I enjoyed it. And I was a junior fireman from like eight years old. And then they had an explorer post from I think there was fourteen to eighteen and I participated in that, and then I got
sworn in on my eighteenth birthday in the volunteers. That's kind of you know how. I and my father had really good friends that were for FDNY, And one guy that I really gravitated towards was this guy Baria McLaughlin who just recently passed, and he was a fireman in twenty eight truck. I'm guessing in the late sixties. Wow,
and he got severely burnt respiratory burns. I think he had a year on the job and he was in the hospital for months and he had you know, yet one lung has two lobes and one Hunt has three lobes, and he had a lobe move from both lungs with the burnswith But he just somebody I looked up to and I wanted to emulate. And he became a nurse after that, and you know, just a guy that I really admired. And then there was another guy, Tom Bosh that as a fireman, then forty truck and one oh
five and another guy, Tommy Hendrix. They were all in the volunteers together and I just looked up to them and I wanted to emulate them. So that's kind of why how I got involved. And then you know, they always seemed happy, and.
I just you know, did they push it to that or you were already push.
I wouldn't use the word pushed, but my father pushed me towards civil service, where Bobbie, you know, they were close friends in high school, pushed me to go to school. You know, so I did try college. I mean, I barely made it through high school. I was a poor student, and then I flunked out of National Community College after a year. I couldn't do it. So I had gone
to Bosi's for copping tree. So I for a year or so, and then I went to work for my uncle, and then I joined the volunteers on my eighteenth birthday. And one thing I wanted to mention about it was one thing I wanted to mention that I forgot to mention was I looked at the list of who has done this interviews before, and guys I really admired and looked up to and worked with worked for was Donny Haide, Dennis Murphy, Kevin Say, Bobby Sano, John O'Connell, fiming together
on one O two, Vincent Dunn. He recruited me to go to the third Division as a new lieutenant that he killed off. I worked for at headquarters. I looked up to and worked Tommy Richardson we were finding together in one O two and Jay Jonas we got promoted together,
and Tom Galvin and Di Dominico. And one other thing I wanted to mention was before I got too involved, was you know, I was a little apprehensive of doing this because of the twelve step recovery programs that have what you see here, what you hear here, what you do here, let it stay here when you leave here.
And you know, there was a I think a UFA poster in the firehouses over the year, and you know, I honestly believe in that, and I'm not going to share anything, you know, that's not beyond the statute of limitations, but I just wanted to share with that.
It was it Bobby Sono a volley in where you work too over in.
Yeah, we grew up together. He was much older than I.
Was, but.
I'll remind him of that when I see him still.
It still looks good.
I'm sure he's listening. I'm sure he's listening. No, we were like two or three years old. He's older than me, but we were in the explorers together and the volunteers together. And one of the fires that I wanted to talk to. As a matter of fact, I think it's picture number two his dad took and I wanted to share with you that fire.
It was his name is there source Robert Arnold.
Right, I'm sure his dad was a you know, I'm sure he was a big photographer and took the picture and babyat Bobby. I don't know where I got it from, but but that fire, you know, really shaped who I was. I mean, I really don't want to go back with the volunteers, but it shaped my whole career as a fireman.
And it was the ninety four Thanksgiving in nineteen seventy nine, and I had gone to the Ranger game earlier that evening with my cousin who was down from college upstate to spend Thanksgiving with my family, and my tones went off. The plectronum went off and it came over as the table temple gates of Zion. So I lived literally around the corner. You could see the building from my bedroom, so I looked out. I looked at the window and I couldn't see anything. So I had gear in my car.
I jump in a car. I go around the corner. I'm the first one there, and there was a one of the assistant chiefs lived a couple of blocks away. He got there. It's about four o'clock in the morning. There were some people milling around. I had turned out gear in my car. The first engine pulled up and I jumped on the back step. I took the first three folds to two and a half in the nozzle
and I pulled it off. And I really can't tell here, but there was a walkway to the main entrance to this synagogue, and we stretched the line, and obviously it wasn't looking like this at that time, but we got I got in the sanctuary and we had to make two turns to get towards the front of the building. And I turned around and my best friend Mike Moran was backing me up. So I didn't have a mask on. He didn't have a mask on. He had gear from
a borrowed from a company. And ye, all right, we're gonna, you know, do what we have to do put the fire out. So we're hitting what I think is a lot of fire, and we're moving in hitting fire, moving in hitting fire. But something really weird at this fire and never happened before. It never happened that. I think we were moving in too quick, too much, too fast. So I said to Mike, I'm gonna go out and
get a mask. I'll be back. So I go out to get a mask, and in the frontier there was windows that it was basically opposite of way we were hitting, so I kind of said like, oh, this would be a good place for horizontal ventilation, but I didn't take the windows, and before I got a mask on, I hear a whoosh, like a really loud whoosh, and I said,
what the fuck was that? So I go running in back to the door where I came from, and guys were burnt in the fouryer there, and I went back into the sanctuary to look for my friend Mike, and I got in little ways and he basically got himself out, but he was badly burnt, and so you know, I got help because there was about eleven guys burnt, and
I got my friend. Mike was pretty seriously burnt. So I got a stretcher and we got help for him, and there was an ambulance about a block away on Corona Avenue and Valley Stream, and wheeled him down to the to the ambulance. There was an e MT there, a m T and they were working on him in the back of the back of the bus and there was nobody around to drive the ambulance. So I was going to jump in and you know, drive the ambulance to the hospital. Then a cop came as Aga We're
going to NASA County Medical Center. So they take take take him off, take off.
And.
Now the fire is looking like it is. What happened was there was a cuckloft explosion so that the ceiling and the roof blew down onto the guys. That was the wish that I heard. So I couldn't participate in the fire anymore. So I had to go tell mister Moran. So he lived about six blocks away from the fire. And I drove to the man's house and you know, his my and Mike's two sisters were there and they were young, and I said, you know, it's your dad. I got, you know, I got to talk to your dad.
So he came to the doors that that mister Morane, Mike's been hurt. I says, you got to go to the hospital. So I drove him to the Nassa County Medical Center and Mike was in bad shape and he was talking, but he was very bad. So he lived for about two weeks. After the fire. There was another guy, another fireman, Captain John Tate, that was badly burnt too. He lasted eight days and Mike listed until December eighth. And you know, they only allowed immediate family. So I
initially I told him that I was his brother. So towards the end, you know, the doctor calls me and he says, Bobbie, you know my name. You know, Mike's not doing well. He's not going to make it. So I said, okay, you know, I'm not as real brother
about our fellow's dad. So he died and in the introim Mike was the captain of our company in a volunteer company and then Valley Stream Engine four and we had gotten a brand new rig and he was instrumental in getting us this new max CF beautiful pumpa and uh we worked to get the pump in service while he was in the hospital. And the first official thing that we did with that rig missus funeral. So I was twenty one, he was twenty three.
Wow.
You know so that that matures you for the rest of my life. So I wanted to share that.
First off, Chief, that's uh.
We appreciate you telling that story because that's uh, I know it can't be easy for you.
To say, well, how did you one of my firefighting you know experience, No.
I know we all we all have these little things. How did you like my first gut. Now after I didn't realize that you were going that way? How did you feel? Like obviously you said, and this is your best friend, I guess your brother, But like how lucky did you feel or bad?
Did you feel that you got it out of there? Like you know by chance? You know what I mean? Like it's crazy.
I survive his guilt for a long time. You know, I stretched the first line. I was the noushle man, and like I said, something told me, you're going in too fast, too deep, too fast. And you know, it was nineteen seventy nine. I mean, we had masks, but we didn't have them on. And I said, I'm going to go out get a mask this way I can you know continue And he said okay. I said I'll be back, and wow, it was three minutes, you know, three minutes.
Yeah, no, I listen, we say all the time. But I don't know if at your time, at your time, I don't.
Know what friends good friends that they ever got burnt And it's a shit, shit sandwich for a long time.
But did you use that when you became an officer? Did you use that experience?
I don't think I brought that scenario up, but I certainly you know, it's part of me to my DNA now. So one of.
The cool things would you tell guys to slow down, like in the back of your head?
So yeah, I mean as an officer, you usually have to, you know, pull guys out, you know, like slow down, money and ronan. But one of the cool things about that happened positive for that story was for the last I don't know how many years, and it's seventy nine, forty four years, forty five years, that every either the Sunday before or the Sunday after Thanksgiving, five of his close friends we all get together and we go and visit him at the cemetery. You know, we say never forget,
but you know, we never forgot. And I think it's a cool thing that we do. We started out just the guys, and then when we got girlfriends and wives and kids, we'd meet at each other's houses. And we've done and doing it for you know, since nineteen seventy nine. And unless I was working or I couldn't get off or whatever, I was there and so was everybody else. So we visit. We tell the same stupid stories every year.
Because I've only known I only knew the guy for like six or seven years, and now it's forty five years later, and he was on our list. You know, he was on al Fimu's list in seventy seven. Really, yeah, he was. I was four thousand something, he was five thousand something, so he would have been on the job.
And well, Coops always says, it's not a slogan, right, you either live it and you really don't forget, or you know, we all have guys that you know, to nine to eleven and stuff like that, so you could say it wear a hat or some shit like that, but it takes a lot of effort to do that for forty years to make sure you guys, you.
Didn't coup with the name of the day. I've got to drink by myself.
You ain't drinking bout itself, Jeane, that story so your.
Brother Mike, sorry to you know, break down.
But uh, chief was that Mac an open cab. Mac was the old School was an enclosed cab.
The there was a company and Valley Stream that had one of the open cab cps. That's still yeah. That was the Nope, go back, that's the rig. Yeah. So that West End Avenue is a funny story. So West End Avenue is in Coney Island. So one day where I don't know half in the big group of guys getting allegedly happened. We were volunteers, We were allowed to drink. We went to Coney Island and you know, we had to get up on somebody's shoulders and acts the West Sign.
But I like it.
That was a story in itself. But that was the rig that we got in service.
Yeah, that's a nice, nice rig. Not the Beatles, match Man.
How did you.
Keep obviously that's that's a that's a job that you know could push people not to do that. Like, how did you still keep the motivation to get on the job, Like how did that happen?
Or did you even think about it?
You want to do it? No? The thing that kept me going was Mike died doing what he loved to do. You know, That's all I can We went to funerals together, other volunteers that died over the years, we go together, we tell stories and you know, it just he loved doing it and he was good at it. And he worked for a fire supply company, remember the name of it, But it was in Franklin Square and you know, he did extinguishes and whatever whatever else they did, but ah,
he just loved it. It was his body, it was his life.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's what kept me going.
Well sure, well with that, Chief, Uh, just really quick, I don't want to go too far ahead. And in the beginning, you want me to show picture one with when you're talking about the initial days of value Street one. Was this a picture that you wanted to show or talk about.
I don't want to know. I thought you're going to show that for the like introduction. Uh and you use the one with the ice.
Yeah, like that was a pretty cool So I wasn't sure if that's what you wanted to do.
That because I don't have watching that freaking picture my whole career.
Like what picture the one that I used for the thumb? Now? What this one right here?
Say one too?
That's why I want.
Chief. When you sat down, I'm like, I don't want to.
That's about He's already one or two.
So I was, uh, I wish I had more picture is like I see guys with you know, in front of the rig or in front of the fire and six guys.
And you were in the fire building.
Chief, all these other guys that standing there, Yeah, yeah, standing around the thumb up the rest.
I would come out of a building, I'd see a camera and walk the other way.
I just.
But that picture. I don't I don't know who took it, but somebody from you don't get my good side.
Yeah, all right, so seventy seventy. Take the test in December, but in the meantime, you gotta go slumming. In eighty two you become an NYPD.
I took a lot of civil service tests, you know. That's my father steered me to that. Not not an education or formal education anyway. I took the Port Authority Police, I took you know, other fire departments tests, and I took the seventy seven tests, which I was nineteen years old.
I don't know if I had long hair. I mean, I just took up you know, they had the uh they had the applications up on the on the counter in the valley firehouse, you know, and you took it and a bunch of guys and we get in the car and I did work out somewhat and I went to I think the city had some classes that I went to, but I really didn't do well in the test. I mean I just passed. I was forty nine forty four on the list, which I you know, that helped me later on because I says, well, it ain't never
going to happen again. So I just got on. And if it probably wasn't for the women, I you know, they probably wouldn't have extended the test the list the way they did.
So uh, things happened for a reason.
Yeah, I went into I always wanted to be in the busiest firehouse I can get in and the slowest precinct I can get in. It was.
In the buildings all day, but I ain't chasing anybody behind the house.
When I got Yeah, I was in Forest Hills one o seven precinct and right near Queen's College. I wasn't married. I worked four to twelve. It was great. You know, I had a good time. I would have enjoyed it more if I knew I was going to get on the fire department. But I didn't know, right, And but I took another FD test while I was on a police department and I ended up getting So this is a funny picture.
So, well, this is your PD days, right, I'm assuming that's you in the ped uniform.
No, that's that's me, the tall guy.
No way so early look at it, look at the lots.
So the picture is funny because that's my partner. I was still a cop.
No.
Yeah. So the other guy, Kevin Powers, was in two seventeen. We very very close, and he says, come on watch with us. I'll get you a uniform. So we go to Decalbay Avenue. I'll have my gun in my pocket and we go to the firehouse and Gino Sabastano was there. I don't know if you ever heard of him, but great guy who was a fireman in two seventeen and he died I believe while he was an active chief
and the second battalion. But a great guy. And they're going through the lockers saying, oh, yeah, you're about the size of so and so. So they gave me a fucking uniform. We took the train into the city. We did what you know what we everybody does on Saint Patrick's Day. So this is Saint Patrick's Day in nineteen eighty three. So as I'm walking or marching whatever you do, I see my partner. So that's Jimmy afterday. He's probably
watching tonight because I told him. He says, I'm gonna have a picture of you on there.
So I see him.
He says, come on, we gotta step out of line and take a picture. So that was my part.
That's great, good spot.
Did he did he know that you were obviously looking?
It wasn't cell phones at the time.
No, No, I'm saying, did he know that you wanted to get on f d Oh?
Yeah? He was a volley too, in a different department, right. We always talked about the you know, the real job.
I can't get over the head of head, that's it.
And we we would buff a lot of fires, not that there was a lot of fires in Fresh Metals Queens, but when there was a ten fifty nine, we would go.
And nice, that's awesome. That's a pretty good picture.
I don't have many. So that's so I got called in uh that was March of eighty three. I got called in June, and every very happy day in my life, I had to go. I had to figure what you call that. You have to you know, vauchi you guns. I vouched my guns. I had my PD shield in one pocket, my FD shield and the other and uh, YadA, YadA, YadA, who who.
Are you probably schooled anybody that, uh, you know, I don't really remember too many guys.
I mean, there was this guy Burns, Kevin Burns, I think his name was that that I he ended up in one O two when I was there. But I don't remember a lot of guys. I do remember. I think there was three hundred people and one hundred and fifty of us were cops. Half the club.
That's why they were changing it, right, I mean then in the.
You know, I mean I could understand that you train him for six months, and I did. I did a year and a half. But people, you know, would get out. There was this one guy I remember, a long Greek name. We were in police academy together. We went to the fire Academy together. He went to two thirty seven. I went to two thirty. He went back to the cops. Well, yeah, I know. Well that's why I'm mentioning it that he had a nice he had a nice gig. I think
he was like the PC detail or whatever. You know, he had tit job.
So when you were in when you were in probably school, were you putting in the cult of a fixer or.
Didn't know anybody? I honestly tried my best. I mean, there was a guy, Bill Done. He was a lieutenant in one fourteen, and he was there. I'm trying to think of the chief of department at the time. Was I think the captain of one fourteen. Really good guy. I don't remember his name, but Bill Done. Let its rest his soul, but he took a liking to me for whatever reason. He was there on a punishment and he had to do that. I had to do one
class as a punishment. So he says, Bobby, you know, after the six weeks, he says, Bobby, I'm gonna you know, I'm going to put you in for a truck company. He says, lou all due respect, I really appreciate that, and I know, you know, but because I know they were going to slow trucks, he says, I'd rather go to a busy engine. And I have a little bit of an inn So Bobby, I understand, you know, I
understand you're one hundred percent right. But through my whole career, after he died, and I would see him, have you know, his kids got one the job, got promoted, I would get promoted. He would be there. I go up to him, hey don't know, you know, But so I had guy Kevin from two seventeen Powers helped me at the time. Jimmy Boyle was I think the Brooklyn Trustee and he was a fireman in two seventeen. So Kevin went to Jimmy Boyle and said, yeah, I got a friend of
mine getting on. Well can you put him in the neighborhood. So you know, that's all I had, and which was you know, it ended up being enough perfect.
Yeah, it was a great spot.
It was a great spot.
We hear cheap over and over and over again around that time. It's the same right with the engines that circle one to eleven, right, it's like two thirty two seventeen to twenty seven, two eighty three two yeah, right, two twenty two right, So it was all those engines that were by themselves that happened in a small first do area. But do at that time, we're doing so much work for a first to area that was like ten by ten or some ridiculous thing.
Right, Well, I mean I got the eye, would say towards the end obviously of the warriors. But I just wanted to mention because I did, right, So my first captain was John Bamberry, he just died. Gentleman George Grossman was one of the lieutenants. He was a fireman, a one O three, great, great guy. Jerry Ercalino was I was in his groups. As a matter of fact, my first night, he gave me the nozzle. Joe Russo was a senior man. Woman Samuels. I looked up to him
like a father. Frank Truccio, Carmon Grenada, Bobby Lawrence, Greg Simonara, Richie Crochy, Bonnie Riley, Richie Razuwitz, Jimmy Gasparino, who I think was backing me up the first night we had a job. Mike Thompson, Steve Mondohlia, Tommy Swannick Walter Searing, Tommy Auer, Brenda McSweeney, and Jim Jacket. I mean, these were, you know, great guys that I enjoyed working with. And you know it was only there after three years, but I loved every minute of it.
You caught a job your first night too, it so, yeah, he gave me the first night to ten first boxes.
Well we were second, we weren't first, still, uh, I know, I wrote it down somewhere. Oh so the first night and the guys, you know, knew that this one guy, Jerry or Galino, gave the proby the nozzle because you know, and I thought it was a little weird, but I kind of understood it later on in my career that if he's going to get spooked, let him get spooked on the first night. And now we know who we can,
you know, count on, you know. So he said, they Bobby, you got the nozzle, Jimmy, you're backing them up, and blah blah blah. It wasn't the first run, but we had a job second due with two sixteen and forty eight Humboldt Street on a corner of De deble Boys Street and the second do and vacant, and you know, back then, everybody stretched their own lines. We went to
the floor above and I remember no flooring. We had to crawl along the beams nice and uh now the fire is coming up and beca Bobby opened it up, and you know, so I think I didn't fuck up. I mean, I don't know how I did, but I think I did. Again, tell you that I was putting on the rotation like that everybody else then, you know, after that, but it was it was tremendous, tremendous guys. I just was. I was blessed, and two seventeen and two thirty were like brother sister companies, you know, and
we did everything together. We did our dinner, dance, we did our picnic, we did we were able to swap out vacation mutuals and uh two single engines. And you know, back then you only worked within your battalion. So there was two thirty five, two fourteen, two seventeen, two thirty and one eleven, so there was four or five engines and that was it. So you only, you know, you only worked within your battalion, so you get to know everybody.
It was great because you knew you knew everybody. Now, yeah, we worked.
We were with Eric Allen was from two seventeen. He came over to the squad lady. Yes, obviously.
Good guy.
So what did you do like a thirty day?
So I don't want to get too far ahead. I want to sleep it in here.
Yeah, that's probably school. That's my wife girlfriend at the time.
Make sure we get that in here.
No more curls.
Cool, Yeah happen. Curls probably school happened?
Was exactly.
So nice Italian young lady. You married a nice Italian young lady.
Well, it's we met on a cruise in nineteen eighty one.
On the cruise ships.
Sorry, my friend Eddie Gatty was he went oh two and he put together this cruise and it was it was I think two or three other five. So my friend Kevin Eddie's brother, Steve Eddie. I wasn't on the job yet, but nobody knew everybody. There was eight of us, so two rooms of four. And uh, I was going out with a girl for like four years at the time. I was old. It must have been like, I don't know,
twenty three years old, and YadA, YadA, YadA. And she was from Bensonhurst, so she was on with her sister.
You knew about a girl, Cubs, you knew about a girl. You didn't go to the World Series, you know, we had to go check out a girl.
That's what happened.
Yep, how many years later now.
We met in eighty one. We got married forty years ago.
Nice.
She just celebrated our fortieth anniversary. Never had very nice I'm sorry, what'd you say?
Lott never had a fight, right, Oh that that he won?
Anyway?
Yeah, yeah, exactly. She's playing marge On tonight. That's really was crazy. I'm using my two hours with you guys. I could be having my piece of qualityet my.
Wife, my wife. I've been playing golf.
So my wife plays march On with the girls at the at the golf course over there, and you know, we're playing for twenty dollars a whole.
Whatever the heck we're playing.
She comes at you like, how'd you do you win?
Show? Yeah? I won?
How many games you went? I want three games?
Oh good? How much money do you win? Yeah?
Yeah, cheap though a dollar fifty. I say at least two five out was a game or something.
Hell are you guys doing?
They're freaking crazy.
They're talking about their husbands, that's what.
About them?
Yeah, so you get a hanker when you go to the truck enough for the engine.
There's a picture number four.
Number four was actually you and your wife. So is it be five this one?
Yes? Yeah, So that's a pretty you know somebody took the picture. Obviously it wasn't posing for it. But that's Chris Gleanna. He was a lieutenant one to eleven. I was still a probe. That's a dinger. I don't remember his his real name, but he was home. Yeah, you telling them that, I'm not telling them respect My friend and Kenny Connolly is behind Dinger, so, uh, Lieutenant Gleanna and Kenny Connolly are sharing a cigarette. But you know, I worked any chance I could get in in uh
one to eleven. And then a short time after I was there, Rescue two moved to the Pacific's berg, so they were in the five to seven. So I would try to work over there as much as I could. But that was a picture. Very few pictures of me at a fire after somebody just wrote Chief, Oh, there you go.
I took your picture when you were in probably detailed to one eleven with Chris Yah.
There you go.
Yeah, Jeff was He sent us a lot of pictures at that time.
Now I know who took it. Thank you, Jeff.
All these years you had no idea.
I only to tell you the truth that I just got. Even knew it was, uh something that only a couple of years ago somebody jumping to me. So I didn't know it, you know, for the first thirty years of my.
Anyway, So how come me to go to one eleven?
I was just gonna ask that right there.
I yeah, I put in for six companies for first I started studying when I was a proby. And how that happened was a good friend of mine, Billy Youngston, was in one eleven and he knew that I had some cop time and he guessed when the lieutenant's test was going to be. He knew I was studying to sgeant for the police department when I when I switched over to the fire and he said, oh, Bob, you know you're starting the study group. You want to get in. I said, Billy, I'm fucking proby, you know. He said,
you've got three years. You'll you're you're gonna be you know, You're you're gonna be all. So I was eligible only because of the police time, but I was in a great study group with Bill Youngston started it. Tommy Damore from forty four truck, Kevin Powers from two seventeen, Pete Hart from he was in the Bronx and he transferred to one fifty five. Jimmy Kane was from forty four truck. Uh. We just had a great study group, and you know, we all got promoted. And that started in the fall
of eighty three. So I was on for like, I don't know, a couple of months, six months, and I started studying and the test was spring of eighty six. And uh but one story I wanted the truck one. Yeah, well one story I wanted to share was pretty funny story. So the Chris Eve of nineteen eighty four, I was in on the job about a year, a couple more months in the year, and uh so years ago. You know,
I'm assuming they still do it. The senior guy, you know, the junior guy works for the senior guy on Christmas Eve, and the senior guy works for the junior guy on New Year's Eve. So Joe Russo was one of the senior guys. See the chauffeur. So he says, you know, Joe, you know you're working Christmas Eve? You know, will you work for me in New Year's Eve? And I work for you Christmas Eve? Yeah? Okay, Bobby Great, he had kids, so agreed. I'm not. I don't have any kids. Okay.
So I come in Christmas Eve and nobody wants to drive on Christmas Eve, you know what I mean? I know, so, so they're all bitching. Oh fuck, I don't want to fucking draw you fucking draw. No, you drives who's working for Russo boys? Let him fucking dry?
Who who's working for the chauffeur for Guy's Yeah, let him so.
George Grossman was the officer. He says, Bob, you drove these things in the volleys. He says yeah. He says, jump in, Come on, we're gonna go around the corner. I get in the rig, we go around the corner. I put it in pumps, I hook up to the hydrant. Blah blah blah. He says, all right, go back in back again. He says, your company qualified.
You're good.
You're driving tonight driving.
I said, all right. Never spoke on a radio, never do nothing right. So I'm probably I'm sitting at the house watch where I belong. They're roll in the back cooking, and I guess it's around I don't know, nine or ten o'clock at night. Bee boop, first doo, uh, you know, phone along, blah blah blah. First let's go, you know. So I get in the show for seat I started up, so it's I forget the I thought I wrote the address down, but it was underneath the l on Broadway
Beaver Street somewhere down there. So the lieutenant says to me, he says, he says, you know where this street is? I said no, but I know where Broadway is, So I go ahead. They so we go underneath the l and they're like this. They're like this, you know, they're waving a sin. So I make the left. It's blown out two windows on the first floor. Oh my god, it's an old tenement. And they had to drag a woman, a burnt woman, out of the street so I can go to the hydrant. So the locals dragged are out
of the street. I go to the hydrant. I pumped three lines.
Oh my god, dude, two thirty two.
Seventeen and Squad one they had three line stretch. I fucking pumped three lines. So so does drop the tank. But yeah, okay, but it was my first run, first runners the show. Well I was off, but I was just off.
You get an out of boy from the lieutenant after that.
Oh, I just you know, I guess I did what I had to do, you know, just impressed. I didn't suck it up, and you know, yeah we got got water.
So oh that was kind of like a comic thing. I would imagine, like, you know, new guy in there. I don't know.
Too many guys. I guess their first run gets a no.
Not like that either where the car people at.
But usually if there's a as we should say, partaking, then it's always that new guys.
You know, stick that kid up there. What could happen?
You know?
Actually, you know they hang it out the windows, and I.
Don't know exactly what you're talking about.
The dragging a burnt lady out of the way.
I couldn't believe because I go like this, you know, I point to the hydrant. They dragged it right of the way, so I know the hydrant and they its fun.
Yeah, fun stuff, good shit.
So look, you asked the question why did you go to one eleven? Why did you you put in for a bunch?
Right?
So let me talk about the test. So the test was in eighty two. So I took the test in May of eighty six. It was cheating by somebody, a member of a fraternal organization. And uh, I'm not going to steer you towards the newspaper article naming a guy. But there was rumbling about throwing the test out. So I knew I wanted to go to a truck. You know as soon as I could, I put in for six trucks. At the time, there were spots for six companies, and it was right after the lieutenant's test, and we
had a we had a covering new captain. So I go in. One eleven was first, one O two, one oh wait, one twenty three, one thirty two, and one seventy six. So I had three years on the job. So I go up to the captain. I says, cap, you know how you doing. I'm you know, I'm looking to go to these companies. So we left. He says, Bob, you're not going to at these fucking companies. I says, well, I appreciate that. I understand that, but can you do me a favor and sign it? So yeah, okay, here
I go, here you go. So he signs it. And that was the summer of eighty six. So all summer they're saying, oh, they're gonna throw the fucking lieutenants tests out. They're gonna throw it. So I, you know, like I was friends with, you know, all the study of the students, and uh, I says, look, if they throw the test out, I'm gonna pull my paper. So Eddie Garretty, good friend, of mine. He was in one O two and they were in the three four battalion. So, uh, he calls
me up. I don't remember, but which first.
I think.
I think he called me about they threw the test out, so I said, all right, well, I'm gonna pull my paper. Like an hour later he called me, oh, and by the way, you got transferred to one oh two. So September sixth of eighty sixth I got transferred. And the only reason why I didn't feel bad was that that was a study in house. You know, it was real study in house. I was the I was the seventeenth guy to get promoted out of the house, sixteen out of the truck, and one out of the engine from
that list. So there was a lot of students, and I kind of just you know, everybody's in the same boat. Everybody's got to study again. So it was for three months September October November December that the test was again given again September December that year. But they were all welcoming, and.
Are you a junior guy there? When you got there with those other guys with less time.
I doubt there was anybody there with less time. But my first captain was Dennis Cross.
I was gonna ask you for yeah, I mean he was.
My first captain. I got this funny story about my first day there. But John Doggerty was a lieutenant. Frank Gletto was a lieutenant. Joe Dirks, who was a Gordon Bennett winner from one O three was one of my lieutenants. Jay Tavoalaro who was my mentor because we were in the same groups. He was one of the chauffeurs and we ended up getting promoted the same day. On lieutenant was I was seven sixty three, he was seven sixty
two on the list. Hanka Mellon, who ended up retiring as a lieutenant one seventy five, Pete Hassler, John kenn and Mike Dally, Eddie McGrath, Eddie Travis.
Who was Pete Travis Chief.
Eddie Garrity transferred out of one O two and went to rescue one because he didn't do as well as he thought he that it was going to do on lieutenant's tests. John O'Connell, Tommy Richardson, Mark Farran, George Bell, Navis, Billy.
I'm sorry, except Bran was there too.
Man live well, hopefully he hears this that he was on an onion skin when I got transferred there, and he said, what the fuck is this guy comes here with three years on the job and he goes before me. I wasn't going to bring it up.
Was the richies man? Yet I guess they came after you.
They both Rass and Croach, he transferred before me before a year or two. But Billy McGovern who was a battalion chief in in the second Battalion dart On nine to eleven. Mike Banker, who I think retired as the captain Squad sixty one six one yea Ray Coyle, Bobby ol Or, Donny Boyle, and then I know we were talking about Louell about the four guys. So that was Croachy, Rasuwiz, Dennis Pace and Billy o'fanos. That was the guy. You
couldn't think, yes, yes, yes they were. There were four guys from two thirty the transferred to one O two that had seats together.
The kid the guy told me when I got in there, who was my first my first tourus as a lieutenant.
Right.
I turned the MDT around, you know, to me, and we're flying like we're going towards one eleven's area, and we would pull up and as I'm going to hit the eighty four, he turns the MDT around and he says, yeah, Lude, I'll touch the MDT.
I'll take care of everything.
Went like this.
Oh yeah, okay, okay.
One in Rome, Bro and Cat Murphy, Dennis Murphy. He said to me when I was getting promoted at two eighty eight, he was my captain. He said to me, when you get there, go upstairs, you know.
Relieve the guy.
Obviously put your get get ready, go upstairs.
When you make the BF four out, you know, just take a look and see how much time the guys got.
You know, Bro, it was I had. I was just coming up on ten years.
All those guys, Richie, I think it was Grimaldi.
I mean it was uh Pollid, Ray Pollard. All those guys.
Had like twenty five years or more, all of them are you know. I didn't even go downstairs. I went downstairs. I gave him the BF ran away, and then I went upstairs.
No, they did. They did the roll call, and they used to do anyway. No I didn't, No, they didn't. I remember covering as a captain there years later and I said, come on, you know, we'll do it all. No, no, no, let's go fucking roll call. Have you had a roll call?
So I tell her.
With the Chief Travis when again, I think this was that first night we go to we Go. I think it was like a valve al m and the water was leaking out underneath the rolldown. So I was going around the side to see what was going on, and I hit a sauce start up and they cut the roll down gate for the water leaking out, right, So I come around and Chief Travis is that it's like it was July one hundred degrees. All the guys got their jackets off and they all have cut sleeves. I
think I told this story. They all had cut sleeves. T shirts would cut sleeves, and Chief is that, and I go over them to introduce myself for the first time. I'm like, oh my, and I never was dressed properly coobs though. I go over to shake his hand. I got the shirt on, buttoned up, everything right, and I'm thinking to myself, he's gonna like rip into me like
with these guys. Next thing I know, he's talking to them everything, and I get to the firehouse, and I said, wow, man, I thought the chief was gonna read me out because everybody was out of uniform. He's like, look, Chief, he was a one o two guy. I said, oh, he's one of two guys. I went upstairs.
I cut my shirt. I said, hey, when that.
When Mike Travis's father.
No, I don't think so. No, No, I'm sorry, Chief, I just was thinking about one or two.
No, it's a good, great spot. I loved it working there. Put it easily stayed the canman for thirty five years. You know, no problem.
Yeah, did you ever give you can up?
No, Let's see the let's see the ice picture. Now, let's I want to I've been looking at this picture for like thirty.
Show the one with the building first.
Sure. Absolutely, So that was.
A story that was the you know, I almost bought the farm that that night. So it was a little background. I worked Tuesday, January twelfth, nineteen eighty eight, six by nine tour, so I was working the two for some reason, I was working two straight toward night tours, January twelfth and January thirteenth. So January twelfth, I went to a fire and it was cold out, very cold out, and I had a scarf around my neck underneath my coat, and I went to a fire and the scarf melted
around my neck. So it was you know, I guess it was polyester or whatever. But yeah, I said, oh, this ain't good. So I went in between tours the next The next day, in between tours, I went to this place called Accurate Fire Equipment and bought a hood. So hoods weren't a thing then, you know, they weren't a thing. But I said, well, you know, if i'm gonna it's a fucking cold night, I'm gonna, you know,
buy a hood. Which so now it's I'm working Wednesday the thirteenth, and early on the January fourteenth, there was a fire with that putting up a new building there. It was an old building and that was five eighty three Franklin Avenue. So we get assigned, and this is between Atlantic and Pacific Street and Brooklyn. We very rarely ran south of Fulton Street, but we get it was it was a busy night and companies were all out
of out of sorts. It was early in the morning, it was just starting to get light out, and we're going down on on what Street, down down south, So I remember Richie Crochey was hey, he had the iions I had the OV. So I remember saying to him. He says, rich oh, boy, I hope the fireing out by the time we get there. He says, oh, don't say that. Oh I said that one time, and I got the shit beat out of me. So sure enough
we get there. Al Petrocelli was a covering captain before we got the spot in one O two and we get a sign to the exposure, which was where that where that arrow is? That was five eighty five, I believe Franklin. So we get a signed okay, search exposure four. So we go into exposure four. I note the front fire escapes. I got the OV and we all go up together to the top floor and the captain says to me, Bobby, go the rear. We'll start in the front and we'll meet in the middle and keep going.
I said, all right, I go all the way to the rear. I note that there's no rear fire escapes. So now I'm searching from the rear towards the front, and they're searching from the front towards the rear. Now it starts getting shitty, so they decide to go down unbeknownst to me. So I'm search towards the front. I'm getting towards the front room and Greg Siminara in one eleventh bucket is coming in in that window off the fire escaped there. So I says Greg, it's getting shitty
up here. Now you know we were fireming together in two thirty. I knew his capabilities. Great fireman. I says Greg, it's getting shitty up here. I'm going to just search this room and I'm going to go down. So he pulls the bucket. He says, okay, Bobby pulls the bucket away. Two fourteen was stretching a line to the top floor, a dry line to the top floor, and that's when the shit hit the fan. The whole third floor lit up. So now we're I mean two fourteen's on the landing
and I'm in the front room. So they all dive through the fire down below the fire and I'm stuck in that room there. So I my My first thing that I'm fearing is I'm going to die up here with my my my cheeter, my cheaer. I didn't have a face piece, that was my That was the thing I was thinking of so I give like a half face. I give like a half fasce urgent. Yeah, one or two ov. I'm up on the top floor. So now there's fire about those three windows on the third floor there.
So the chief says, go to the rear, go to the rear. I know, I go to the rear. I'm a dead man. So I yell out to Greg in the bucket. I says, Greg, Man, come and get me. So they kept the fire in the window from a line in the street. So I was in that the window where the arrow is. So he says, what window, what window? Yet I says, off the fire escape. So he drove. He drove the bucket through the fire, through the smoke. I dove in and I got out. So
now they call for water. They're gonna, you know, we're gonna go to a next steary operation. And that's how I got coated with the ice. Greg and I were in the bucket. We knocked the fire, went up to the fourth floor. So we knock too far. Two floors of fire down, and you know, it was cold morning, and YadA, YadA YadA. So now we're over, we're done, and hey, come get me. Well, no one O two was leaving. They were leaving because they got you know, take up, but I said, hey, don't leave without me.
So you hood looks good.
See yeah, I mean it was only a couple hours old. But that's uh Richie Deeper Dover he was a chief in the five seven. Uh that that's like you can cut off there, but uh that clicked. Sure.
I went to probably school of his son deep Andy. Yeah, and.
I was in the.
That was in the magazine the what the fuck is the name of that magazine? What was the magazine we had in the fire house all the time. I can't think of w n y F magazine.
Thank you.
Yeah, I don't think that picture was in the w M.
It was in the back. Yes, I remember seeing it.
What episode I have a.
Bunch here and go look the next uh the next day, after that incident of my ship in my pants, I get over time because it's the end of my you know, it's my second tour, right, So I'm in the fire house and bed for the avenue and the three four Battalion was still in existence, and uh, well you want to work overtime? Said yeah, okay, all right, Oh you got to drive the chief. So I never drove the chief before. I was all right, well, what the you know,
what could it be? So we get we get a I'm working chief stayed in the three four battalion first time ever. We get a box in with one O eight and uh to sixteen on Graham Avenue manhole for you, and I'm just like, you know, I'm standing there with a fucking clipboard. I don't know what the hell I'm doing. So all of a sudden, boom, the fucking manhole goes flying. So I was a student, and I know it said don't.
Run, don't don't run, always look up and look up.
If it's going to land on your head, then you move, then you run. So the fucking things coming right towards me and I run. What the fuck?
They never got towards anybody really, So, you know, this morning and then.
Later on the afternoon, the fucking manhole almost lists. So now the next day, which was Friday to fifteen, I didn't have any kids. My wife was like six months pregnant at the time at the first one, and she was working at the time, and I go to the new I go to the candy store to buy the newspaper, and the fucking front page of the news of the daily news. I think I have a picture there there Daily News, this one. So I go to the candy store and that's what I see. So I start laughing.
So the young girl behind the counter, she's on the phone, she says, Oh, what are you laughing at? I says, that's me. She says, Oh, I was just just talking to my friend. What a fucking picture that is? You know? I says, yeah, it's a long story. But that picture was on the WNYF which I'm sorry. It was on the department orders, which they had a thing it started in January nine of eighty eight, you know that they
would put pictures and whatever. I don't know what they called it, but that was the first picture.
I like how they tied it into the Jennifer's Final hours last week and talk of sex and there you are.
So you're familiar with that story that the whole did you do you remember that story?
But no, is that the one of the central plot?
It was They called it a.
Not yuppie yuppie rape or whatever it was.
Yeah, yeah, that was it. I don't remember the guy's name, but but that picture. Also, I'm good friends with Paul Pharaoh, and he told me that that picture six foot tall in the I A F F headquarters in Washington, d C. I never seen it, but that he told me that that's one of the pictures in their headquarters lobby.
Now I know why he had a hood on, because you always wonder like, how did that guy have a hood on? If he was like back then nobody we didn't have buds then interesting.
As you guys, and well how can they left jump there? They didn't tell you they were going down?
I never really uh, after you run for your life, you never really yeah, yeah, I.
Did never really approached that. Why did you leave me up there? But anyway, where are we? We are?
Uh Chancellor?
We were in one of two.
Yeah, we got promotenant. We got to move a little quicker because we got an hour and fifteen in oh to Uh.
Promoted to the gott. I got promoted jury.
Yeah, I'm sorry, Uh to division three and assigned to a lot of twelve.
Well I covered Jerry Tracy I called up. I didn't know I got assigned to the third division. I didn't know anybody Jerry Tracy. I knew from one O eight I was in one O two. He was in four truck. I called up Jerry. I said, said, Jerry, how you doing? You know I just got a sign. Oh you know, he says, Bobby, you know I'm going on vacation. Nobody's covering my vacation. You're covering my vacation. I sais ah four truck? You know?
You know?
He said, No, nobody's covering it. You know I'll call it up. You know, they'll call you what you're doing. So I was My twenty four partner was Tom Galvin. He was a captain of Ford Truck. The first tour I was an up and down twenty four in the middle of July of nineteen ninety and it was the
Empire State Building fire. So I'm driving in from Valley Stream and I'm listening to ten ten Wins and they're terror telling these howering stories about a big fire, the Empire State Building fire, fucking fires wrapping around the core and blah blah blah, and guys are getting burnt. I'm saying, what the fuck am I getting myself into? I says, I was only I was never more than ten feet
away from a window. And now I'm going this fuck in Manhattan John Bill Navis, who I worked with his brother George, and went out to telling me, you know, Howering, it's amazing that we lose didn't lose a dozen guys that fire. I'm going to move it along. There was another story while I was doing that vacation. So there was old lower tenements under demolition right in the harder Times Square where they sell the tickets for the shows.
I don't know what it's called ticket whatever. There was a bunch of old law tenements that they were under demolition. So when they were doing the cutting or whatever, the corners went on fire. So I got seven years on the job, first time lieutenant and Ford Truck and Times Square.
So we go to you know a little for the microscope.
So I says, to the show for I says, why don't you hit it with the aeriel knock it down and we'll hit it with the booster. You guys. He goes, yeah, Love, we don't do that around here. So I look on the on the on the curb and everybody's got a fucking cap. I says, bro, do whatever you do. So they got the fucking ball cutters. They're going. They went the booster, they're going to knock it down. They take it. They gift wrapped each pace. They're coming down. You never
twelve I get a sign right. O'Connor was a Fineman and four truck lieutenant in two thirty five Captain twelve truck. Uh knows me knows I'm covering. At that time, seventh Battalion went from the third Division to the first division. Bobby, you know we need a guy lieutenant. Blah blah blah. I was studying for captain. You know, I like twelve truck. The response there he was decent. They didn't do a lot of the high rise stuff that they didn't like.
They did old tenements and and H types and brownstones. So I he asked me. I went and was in twelve truck for a bunch of years. Guys there was Rod O'Connor, Jack Gibbons was a very senior guy when I was there. Clarence Singleton, which he retired as a lieutenant to eighteen Big Angel RIVERA, Wayne Petretti, Mark Fredrickson, great guy, Larry Cohen, Mike Matt Cassidy, Tommy Lane, and Heinz Cothy and Paul Farrow was a lieutenant in Engine three while I was there, so I got a quick
story about Heinz Coty. So after I get promoted, there was a guy in twelve truck that had a construction business, so I'm already gone, and he hired some of the guys in the firehouse to help him, you know, work on construction in the Manhattan. So I wish I could think of his name, but I don't remember his name. So Heines is working for this guy and they're walking up to the building with it and they smell smoke. So they said, oh, the fucking son's barning. You know
something's barning. Oh fucking building over there's on fire. So one of the guys there was three guys. One of them was lieutenant I think it was, I can't think of his name, Larry Bleeker, Larry Bleeker who ended up being a captain of two thirty. Heinz Kthy and this other guy. They go into the fire into the building. Heinz goes up to the roof. So sixteen truck was first due, so I guess they got The other two guys go to the fire floor. They're doing whatever they're doing,
but there's somebody at the window. At the window, so Heines is in Doungarees construction close you know. So a guy that I grew up with is his father was this guy, Bobby mcglock on. My father's best friend was the roof man in sixteen truck. So heine says, come on, I'm a fire him in a twelve truck. I'll lower you down to get the guy out of the fucking window.
They do a roof robe rescue. I swear to god he ended up Dale mclough and got a medal for roof rope rescue getting lowered by some guy that claims he knows what he's doing.
From that's worked.
I worked with Dale when I was in sixteen truck. He's a good guy.
Circle the trust right there.
Yeah, it's like I suck that so moving along left. Like ninety five, I got promoted to captain. I did six months in the captain's management program, which was torture tough. Yeah tough.
I think.
I think there was thirty guys in the class. Fifteen did six months and fifteen did a year, so I would have had to turn it down if I was in the year group, but I was in the six month group. Fortunately, my job this was the old headquarters on I think Livingston Street, and my job was to put the forms online like now, I guess that's a common thing like but everything was by paper and carbon paper and back, you know. So there was a pile somebody else had you know, started it, So there was
a pile of papers. So it took me six months to move the pilot papers from the otherft side of the desk of the rights of the.
And that was my good god, crucial, crucial, right, like, we can't use this guy.
Anywhere else on the job.
This is really what we need to do.
It was, you know, I don't I don't say he's completely useless. While I was there was when Vanessa became commissioner, and I remember who was before him, But what the six months I was there, which I guess was the beginning of ninety six, I don't remember. But you know, he he brought it like a lot of good ideas. You know, guys felt questionable. But I remember the Fireman's rotation, you know, so he had all these new captains, fifteen new captains, and he said, I'm going to have this idea.
I'm going to do approb the rotation. Ask me any questions you want. Somebody says, why do we got to do this? And he had a great answer. He says, well, you know, ten percent of the companies are doing ninety percent of the jobs. He says, I'd rather have a guy go to a busy company for a year than never go to a busy company, right, you know, it kind of made sense that And you learn things in a good house that you maybe want to take back to the house that.
You were in, and I just a chance to go somewhere else with the decent Maybe they want to go to a busy house to stuck in a slow house to get complace it and then never want to move.
Well, that's and I've seen that in three engine and twelve truck. You know, I said, guys wanted to go to busier houses, Guys who wanted to go to slower houses, Guys that got closer home, right, you know. But so that's that I get a signed to the seventh division. But then you know it turned they turned it back to the fifteenth, and so now it's ninety seven. I hear rumblings about these new squads. I'm a covering captain. I loved two fifty two engine. It was a Great House,
single engine. I think the rumors were that that was going to be one of the squads, and I put in for two fifty two, so I think it was a lead ahead. Did I have the lead ahead?
You had one of the but not?
Oh yeah, it was with squad.
So that's what they asked for. They asked for divisions to you know, poll your captains who wants So I put him for two fifty two. Steve Raswella was the captain and I found out later on that he was putting in for it. But a guy I knew was the executive officer of I guess it was man Essen at the time. And uh, he says two fifty two, you know, Steve aswell is staying. Eighteen's open. What do you do you want that? So I says, it's a
tremendous opportunity. I ran in with engine eighteen when I was in twelve.
Right, I wasn't a second do there?
Right?
Yeah?
Right? Yeah, I wasn't you know, I wasn't in the system. I never was in a rescue battalion company. But it sounded like a tremend this opportunity to make I was already studying for battalion chief at the time. My wife says, at the time, Uh, what the you hated work in Manhattan?
What do you want to go back? You know? And one of the things was to their credit was all the guys from the engine says, you take all of us, or you take none of us, which I kind of admire it, you know, but I think I think they all left, And so I would have had twenty five new guys, some guys that had rescue experience, some guys, most guys didn't, So I would have been you know, mentoring or not mentoring. That's you know, training with these guys. Even so, it just so Jerry Tracy, I believe was
the first captain. He was in eighteen. So that was, uh, I guess eight ninety eight. So now December eighteenth, nineteen ninety eight, I was I was UFO in I'm getting but that was like a busy time ninety eight, ninety nine, two thirty six. Yeah, I don't think I was UFO there yet, but I was covering and I was doing Jack Mooney's vacation or tour or whatever. He was a captain one, and it was the night of December seventeenth, I think the fire was on the eighteenth, so rest
in peace. Joe Cavalieri, Chris Bop and James Bohan so Mike Mike Donovan was the officer in two ninety.
I was.
You know, we knew each other from the five seven battalion. Great guy, friendly. We were friends and work and I loved working on Sheffield Avenue. I tried to work there as much as I could. You know, they went to fires, they wanted to drill. I mean, I just love working there, so I worked as much as I could. I was one of the first of my two night tours. I was working the seventeenth and the eighteenth. So I'm working at one O three. There was Ruderick Bauer was driving.
Vic s Fedaro was the OV. Bobby Higgins was the roof man. Dan the Bretty who rest in peace. He got in September eleventh and Rescue two had the irons and Jim Schweckey was a detail across the floor. He had the cam. So we get a run. The Corps came in at four point fifty two am. We got assigned at four fifty four AM. I know where Vandalia Avenue is, I just didn't know which building it was, but we're following ninety down Penn and Mike Donovan sees the fire on the top floor, so he gives a
ten seventy five. We're still driving and said, what the fuck, you know, where's it? Ten seventy five, So we make the right on Vandalia. Earlier in the evening, we had a food on the stove in a building right across the street from seventeen Vandalia Avenue, so it was a food on the stove one seventy and two fifty seven or first do we were second due food in the stove. They go up, they do their thing. Bobby Higgins goes up to the roof and he comes down later on.
He says, it's very windy up there, be careful for a top floor fire. This is earlier in the night, so okay, now fist forward. We got a top floor fire at A two ninety gives a ten seventy five at four point fifty eight. At the same time, the dispatcher calls me on the radio one O three we have a report of a woman trapped in an apartment ten e. That was also at four fifty eight. So we go walking up. I'm not sure if two ninety went up first in the in the elevator or fifty seven.
But I said to Joe Cavalleery, I says, you're first. Do you take the elevator. We're waiting in the lobby. Vic Spadaro gives a fantastic size up, goes to the rear. He says, cap the fires on the top floor, exposure floor blowing in so great great, So I says to the Dan the Bretty and Schweky, I says, come on, we'll take the stairs. So we go to exposure four stairs. And what happened was the SIDS information was reversed because the building that we went to earlier in the night,
the stamp pipe was in exposure too. But whoever wrote up the CIDs card just wrote the same thing for the building across the street, so everything was reversed on the SIDS. So we walk up and I'm not carrying nothing, so I go up, you know first, And I never had to do this before, but I put my face piece on on the half landing between nine and ten, and I had stopped into nine to see where the eline was, So I'm heading for tenny I went, I stopped ninety, so I said, okay, it's the first door
on your right when you go in. So but I never had to put my face piece on. When the fucking door is closed to the hallway. Holy shit. So I put the face piece on.
I go into the hallway and tent flights.
So I did. In the hallway, it's it's hot. I bang bang on the door. The woman open the door. She's in a wheelchair, so I push her in, I turn her around, I pull her out into the hallway. I go towards the door to the stairway, and then the bready comes up. He says, you know, grab the feet, let's go. We carry her down to the ninth floor, and at the same time to fifty seven's bringing the line up to ninety I believe was stretching at this.
At the same time we get her down to the ninth floor, I get back up to the to the door of the hall hallway, and fifty seven is getting burnt. At the time you were allowed to hook up on the fire floor, they're getting burnt with the fucking door closed, trying to hook up the line, you know, in the stampede, So ninety stretch the second line. They come up fifty seven didn't get their line hooked up. I says, okay, are you ready, you know, we'll open up the line. Oh,
we're getting burned at one line. We tried once, we tried twice. We called for two eighty three. I believe I had the second line from the eighth floor. Now we have the engine. Two lines, two lines open up at the same time. Open okay, ready, go open up the door. We were able to get in the hallway, and that only with the two lines opened up. That's how we got in the fucking hallway. So it was uh.
I think dom Carino had the nozzle too there and he's like, I talk about him all the time, like he's burning his ears are going to burn off him before he's And all those guys went to the birth center.
Yeah, I mean eighty three, I believe was on the left side of the hallway and ninety was on the right side. I'm kind of like in the middle pushing down the may days had already occurred, and we're, you know, we're trying to.
Those guys are on the floor from the other side.
I think they went up the other Yeah, exposure too, and years ago they used to called it a wrong way fire when the when the wind was blowing into the into the so I think the minute or two that I was in that hallway, the fire wasn't blowing out or wasn't blowing in. It was blowing out, and then the gusts would come in it would blow back in. So I just I read the safety report in preparation
for this and he said that which was true. The fire was from the floor to the to the top of the door coming out hitting the wall on the other side of the hallway. That's so it's very, very bad night. I remember John O'Connor was the division commander. He had that fire, and I remember him saying, he says, Bobbie, I work one night too many. Wow. You know, he had a he had a career and he retired after that. But you know, it's it's a cheap's worst fear.
Is watch yep.
I to have three guys, I mean three guys.
Yeah, it's terrible, terrible night. Yeah, there you go.
It's still disgusting.
Yeah.
So I had another funny story. You know, Tony Verrially was on here, so I don't think kill mommy telling this story. So I was UF I w and two thirty six. I'm very happy there. I think I was, you know, pretty safe getting that spot. But how it was was if you didn't put in for any transfer order coming down, if you didn't put in, they would
fucking assign your places. So you know, I'm not going to say a slow company in the fifteenth, but I don't want to go there, so I put in for every time there was an opening, I would put in even though I'm where I want to be. So it was one twenty, two eighty three, one twenty six, and two seventy five. Those are the four companies I put in for. So I knew Harry Harry Werner was going to one to twenty, rock O Ronaldi was going to two eighty three, and I didn't know who was going
to the two companies in Queens. But so I'm happy where I am. And I get a phone call a couple of weeks later from the from the fire Commissioner's office. Yeah, Bobby, did you put in for two seventy five engine? I says, yeah, boy, he says yeah, the fire commissioner wants to interview you for two seventy five, I says, for a fucking engine company.
In Jamaica. What's the fire commissioner getting involved with? So it was me, Tony Barryali, this guy Bob Bell, who I knew's father was a valley in my company of Ally Stream, and and uh Tommy Yawer who we were pro he's together in two thirty. Those are the four people that were interviewing. So we go to headquarters. They're all in regular you know, dress uniform. I got my work shirt on my don't I think I had a hat. They had hats on. So they called us one at
a time into the conference room. Commissioner, the executive officer, the chiefer, department guaranty at the time, everybody's in there. So Tony Barriali's like he had a run in with fian, chief fian. So Tony's funny, you know, he's just the fian's in there. Because the fian's in there, I might as well go home because I'm he's holding me. I'm never never getting anything in there. So the first guy is, whoever, no, no, no feeing in in there. So he comes back out
to the lobby. Second guy goes in those this fifteen minutes interview comes out. Tony's like, is feeling in there because the Fians in there. I must want to leave. The Fian's in there. No, no, no feend in in there. He was. He was first Deputy commission at the time. It's okay, boys, you go, So I go. So I'm here for essence to the right gyancy feeing three or four other pieces. Wow, Bobby, you know, what do you want to do seventy five? I says. It's an active company.
He says, yeah, we have a some kind of politician, very influential, wanted a strong captain for two seventy five. So I says, yeah, I'd love to work there. It's a good company, good house, you know. Blah blah blah.
So I go.
He says, okay, bringing Tony. So I go back to the lobby. I says, Tony, you must well fucking go home because fucking Fians and oh he's full of shit. He's full of shit. I walk him back. I opened the door. He looks in, he sees feeling. He looks at me. I says, I told you, he didn't get it. He didn't get it. He got two later on. But it was a funny how things work in the fire department, you know, so I get booted out of two thirty six. How much time we got? Five minutes?
No, no, you got time.
I get booted out of two thirty six because at that interview, von Essen says to me, so, Bobby, where are you working now? I says, I'm UFO with two thirty six? Because like this, he looks away from me. I said, wow, that was weird. What's that all about? Like a week later, I get booted out of two thirty six. So I'm not gonna mention the name. Some guy that headed end with van Essen was lieutenant there. He wanted to go back as captain. I get booted out. So I get a call from the division. Yeah, a
cop you're working in you know three twenty one? Next week? I said, no, I'm UFO in two thirty six. Not more. So, I says, can I talk to the chief. So I don't remember the chief's name. But he says to me, all right, you know you got you're not in there anymore. Charlie McGrath, Captain one fifty seven, just broke his back. He says, I'm going to put you there, UFO. I said, all right, funny, great, Yeah. So it was like one tour before I went to one fifty seven. So I
was in one O seven one night. It's a Friday night before I started in one fifty seven. And uh yeah, captain apartment phone, Captain Boyce, Yeah, Bobby, how you doing? This is peak Nancy? How you doing? I'm like, who what the hell is going on? He says, Bobby, I heard you know two thirty six. I think it was John O'Connor. He says, he told me he's putting you one fifty seven. He said, I'm going to give you
one eleven. Is that okay? I says, yeah, Chief, whatever you tell you know, whatever you tell me, you know, whatever you say, I'll work wherever you tell me. He says, hang up, he's gonna call act surprised. So like five minutes later, five minutes later, captain boys apart my phone. Okay, how you doing? Yeah, Bobby, how you doing? Uh yeah, I rethought I'm not gonna put you in one fifty seven. I'm gonna put you in one eleven. UFO. Is that okay?
I says, yeah, Chief, whatever you tell me, you know whatever, I'll work wherever you tell me.
The wor so.
That's how I you know. So for whatever reason. Gancy he was he was a chief in A five seven when I was in one O two and he interviewed uh Greg Seminara from getting me out with the bucket. So I don't know why. I think maybe he had heard for van dalea revenue. This was right after the Vandalia Avenue fire. I got back to quarters that morning after the fire, and I got everybody together, the five guys, I says, I says, guys, you guys did a fantastic
job tonight. This morning, I says, three guys die trying to get that woman out. We got out. I says, we're not putting it for nothing. No, no, no, cap, you're right, you're right. You know, we know what we did. That's fine. So I can't help think and somehow that got back there that we just did our job, you know, and we're not I'm not going to put in a unicitation or something for uh for something that guys, So that ain't happening. And they all agreed and everybody was
good with it. And so I went to one eleven and which was like fucking dream come true. Uh, it was way out of my league. I'll be the first one to admit it. I remember I was UFO there. It was annual inspection. You know, you line up, you did the inspection. Everybody's got the hats on. So some deputy comes by, you know, roll call, We do the roll call salute. The deputy says, all right, the cap Bobby, have somebody get you know, the left handed uh standadventure whatever.
He asked for the smoke Ben, he says, had the junior guy get the I like this. I said that would beat me. Sir, who was who was?
Uh?
You had all the old guys there, right, I mean you had I mean.
So.
Chris Sullivan was one of the lieutenants. He was he was UFO there when I got a sign there. Uh. He died on September eleventh. He was working in the engine. Tony Tony Cruz was one of lieutenants. Steve Luisi was one of the lieutenants. Charlie Williams who I loved. Uh. He lived in the neighborhood. Kenny Connolly was a senior guy. He got the Gordon Bennett and Archer medals. He was one of the chauffers. Richie spatafora great, great guy. Greg Simonara who got me out with the bucket A couple
of years earlier. Richie Spatafora was one of the guys that wrote the bucket down when the when the building came down and shid the bucket off of one eleven and in Brown and Brooks, Bushwick, Joe Valente, Mike Tresa, Billy Reid, Richie McCabe, Eric Wiener, Nick Cicero, Ray Strong, Jimmy Elson, French Saparrito, Chris Isa and I would be remiss if I didn't mention the five guys from the from the house had died, Chris Sullivan, Carpodesian, John Florio,
Kenny Watson, and Mike Roberts. Going on September.
Eleventh, doing good, Chief, You're doing good. How was b A? What was he like that?
I thought you said b I for a second, I'm like what, Oh no, no, No, He's.
A character and I loved him and he was good. Fineman, That's all you can ask for. He took a detail. I don't know if he was on the detail driving in the three seven when I got there or soon after, but while while I was there, he his year came up for the for the detail to drive in the eighth so he says, Cap, you know, uh, my years up in the three seven. I'm going to put the paper in. But I says, Bobby, nobody's pressuring you. I says,
you stay there. This is your company. You stay there, don't you have to put your pay and you stay there and when you want to leave, you come back. So it's another story, but I don't want to tell that's out of school. But he came back when he wanted to come back, and uh, it's fine.
Crazy.
Would you like most about that house? Cap?
Well, you know when I was there doing my details from two thirty, it was the nuthouse and that was, you know, the early eighties, and now it's the late nineties, so a lot transformed. And I, honestly, I'm going to credit Bob Turner was a captain two fourteen. With the priorities were, you know, follow your duty back then, but that wasn't the only priority. And when Bob Turner was the captain, you know, he put the lid on and it was just fires and drilling, fires and drilling, and
that was the priorities. So when I went back there in the nineties, that was a priority. So you know, I wanted to mention earlier on. There's two types of firehouses. One type of firehouse where it's easy to be a fireman and hard to be a boss. The other type of firehouse is where it's easy to be a boss and hard to be a fireman. I want to be in a firehouse where it's hard to be a fireman and easy to be a boss. I don't want to be working in a place where I got to be
let the senior guys run the house. That's where I look at it, and that's how I aspired to work in a place that ran itself, and the senior guys ran the house. And I'm just, you know, shuffling paper and.
Showing up at the job and helping everything.
And he drilled, and I certainly wasn't the most knowledgeable experienced guy there. And I made sure that Eric Wiener or Race Straw or somebody else has given good drills. And you know, I said, in beginning of toice, you know, I said, what do you want to do today? Oh there was this vacant there last week. Let's go over there. We go over there, we're cutting fucking holes. We had rotation guys drilling. It was it was great.
It's a lot of good work there, of.
Course, yeah, I mean one one funny funny. But so one night there was a guy running around in Bushwick setting stairwells on stairways on fire.
I remember.
So we had you know, one twelve down that way. So Charlie Williams was my chauffeur. And you look like eating I'm in big round face all you see his eyes, great Vietnam Vet, senior, senior guy. So he's driving me one night and we are running into Bushwick. We go to a second alarm, good fire. So this was the rundown. So the can man was from two twenty two, the irons man was from two fourteen, the roof man was from one to twelve. Chauffeur Ov and me were from
the company. So we had a good fire. The irons man got burnt from two fourteen Corran I think it was Jimmy Curran. I'm not sure the first name. But so he got burnt. He goes to the burn center. So now we're riding short. So we take up from that second alarm and we're going back to quarters. The guy from one twelve says, oh, can you stop by you? I want to get a change of clothes. Yeah, okay, we stopped. We get a change of clothes. We're driving.
I think it's Gates Avenue, going back to the firehouse and a box comes in. Blah blah blah blah, phone lamber so between Gates and something else. So Charlie Williams. He says, cut, that's right around the corner. I says, yeah, no, I know, Charlie. So I turn around. I see Nicki Cicero has the OV. I says, Nikki, what do you say? What do you think?
Because he does, I says, all.
Right, let's let's we're not going to go in the air. We're just going to drive pass and.
See we check it out, check it out, stealth mode.
We make a right, We make a right. We're you know, we're still assigned to the other box. We make another right through the through the bulkhead in the middle of the block. I says, want to live in Brooklyn. That job on bullet of the street, ten seventy five.
So we go to work.
We no first one, there no no ions.
Man.
I grabbed the ions. The kid hit the can. It's going from top to bottom and the OV goes. He's getting people off the fire escape. We just did what we had to do. So while we're doing this and a company comes in, Shorthanded engine company because they were at the other job. Somebody goes to Bobby Gleeson I think is the chief, and the cops says, a chief, you know, the building down the blocks on fire. So he's no, no, no, it's probably the smoke, you know.
So the cogo A couple of minutes later, cop comes back. He says, Chief, I'm not telling you how to do your job. The fucking building down the blocks on fire. So he says to Bobby Austin, he says, Bobby, be a go. You know see what the guys cops talking about. Yeah about six houses down, you know, three, seven, ten, seventy five. So the address that came in that we went to was for that fire when we seeing the one that we seen, because the fire was through the ballpaper.
I had a gasoline and that's why that wasn't wasn't going as good because he man had a gasoline. So you've had to fucking buildings on the same block.
Saying, man, I remember that guy. Wow.
They finally caught him, though they got him to do a lot of work yeah, oh yeah, two fifty two is.
Going to do a lot of work. Then that all sense.
So in two thousand, I my wife got laid off from her job, and I know the job was always you know, like looking for guys to come off line, and Guancy owed me. I owed Guancy big time. So I he was Chief of opera cheap of the Chief of Operations, I think at the time. And I says, Chief, I'm very appreciative if you, you know, taking care of me, giving me a great company, I says, if you need somebody offline when I get pumoted, I was number six
on the battalion chiefs list. When I get promoted, you know, I'll help you whatever I can do, he says, Bobby, we'll have something for you when you get promoted. So September eleventh happens. You know, you know that whole story. But you know, I felt obligated to Chief Guancy to live up to my right offer to come offline. So Cassano was Chief of Operations, so I told him, I says, Chief, I made this pack with Chief Guancy. If you I'm a new battalion chief, now you know, if you need somebody,
I'll do whatever needs to be done. You know, my wife got laid off. I don't have to be with the twenty fours. So he says, okay, Bobby, you know, we'll have something for you. So they made me the liaison to the police department. And I, you know, I worked in one PP and they made a captain from the police department as the fire guy. So I just happened to know them. We were volunteers together and we ended up commuting together and blah blah blah. But mum hm.
I did that for six months and then well I'm walking around and a fireman is, you know, pajamas, and I thought that they would be but they treated me like gold. Oh and then I went to oe EM for six months. They made me a deputy commission of a homeland security which the fund does that mean? Look, the building's on fire. What do you need me for? Uh?
Everybody need it's a good gig.
Maybe it's a gig people could have made that. I mean, people made that job, you know, do something on the side, retire sphema, you know, but that wasn't me. Yeah. I did a year offline and I had to go back.
So we go back where back to the field.
To the thirteenth Division. U. I was UFO and covering in the thirteenth Division and five four battalion, and I got promoted to battalion a deputy chief in May of seven.
Everything was happening as fast after nine to eleven, right, it was just happening.
Yeah, I mean I was only I was I think lieutenant captain of battalion chief for exactly five years and eight months.
Oh my god, oh five years each. Okay, that's good five years. But I know people who did that.
Gonstan went from fireman to chief in like some ridiculous amount of time. Like I don't know if he did it that quick, but there were guys I know who.
Did it fast. Wow.
So I got promoted deputy and h how much.
Time we got time? Chief?
Don't? Right? There was you know, just two other stories. One was this steam explosion. So I'm covering, covering deputy and the third division, and you know, you get in at five fifteen, five thirty. I relieved the guy. I don't even think I'm I don't even think I was dressed yet. So about a quarter two quarter to six, this this box comes in. There was a second alarm and arrival, and I think a bunch of times down,
but very very quick succession. The captain in twenty one engine got it as a verbal they were going to I think an EMS run, and he calls it in. He says, you know, he called it the mother of all transformer fires over the radio. This is the mother of all transformer fires.
I could see that, though it wouldn't look like that. Maybe I don't know it was.
Well, some of these pictures. I'm trying to find something.
Engine twenty one, Engine eight, Engine sixteen initially on the on that mother of all transformers that was at seventeen fifty seven. At seventeen fifty eight, he gets on the scene, he transmits a second alarm, So now you got you know, the whole second alarm assignment. And that's when I got assigned, which was two minutes to six o'clock. So the aid, I don't remember where they are up in Manhattan, but he takes me through the Central Park here in progress report.
I think he transmitted the third alarm before we got there. Jack Joyce was in the ninth Battalion. We get to he says, the command post is at Lexington and forty second Street. The steam explosion was at lex and forty one. So I get there and I meet the battalion chief. I go to open the backup to start getting dressed, and a rock slams through the glass and goes all over me like the back of the car. You know
what I'm saying, mother fucker, what's going on here? So it looked like coming to the and the noise sounded like a.
Jet engine, jet engine. I think I remember that.
So I wrote a WNAF article. I think I don't remember when it was, but.
The mother of old steam explosions.
It was.
Well, you know, And what I tried to delineate in the in the article was we had we had seven buildings, you know, So I broke I broke up the intersection in four quarters, and I gave a battalion chief each quarter, but each each quarter like this was the northwest corner sector three seventy four and three eight Lexington. One is a fifty two story and one's a twenty eight story building. And also one twenty two East forty second Street that
was a fifty six story building. So that's one hundred and thirty six floors that just he had to be responsible for crazy then northeast corner was Kevin Woods, who's the chief of operations now. He had one twenty eight and one fifty forty second Street. One's a forty five story building and one's a forty two story building that's eighty seven floors.
And the other two sectors.
I'm sorry, unbelievable. And there was shit. The ship was going on. Cops were coming up to us. Oh, there's an explosion in the subway. I have three three train cars with thousands of people and people were getting burned. There was two articulating buses right at the explosion. They had like ninety people in them each and they couldn't get out because the fucking steam is now turning to water and the water's boiling in the street.
They're the buses.
Yeah, they're two buses. That's how close it that the one person that died. There was one person that died. I don't think that people in the in the in the pickup truck, truck, tow truck died. But these there was ninety people each of these buses, and rescue one and latter four ended up carrying them all off one at a time. You know. I tried to get them to back up the buses. But because of the debris in the street, that didn't work. But the ship was on.
There was a woman in the water. I mean, obviously you know this is I don't know the next day or whatever. But it was dark, it was noisy, the mud, the asbestos, the rocks that were falling, it was unbelievable. So that was quite the operation. I was the deputy for a while, and then it ended up being a I think a fifth alarm. I transmitted ten sixty because the ship was falling from the buildings. I didn't know what was falling. And then the whole soon as you
mentioned the a word asbestos. Ye, everybody, preserve your whole. Mother.
See, how did you get How did you like becoming a deputy? How'd you like doing that? Did you enjoy it?
It was never a goal, but once you get in that, once you get in the swing of things, uh, I was. I waited for the five to four battalion for five years because that was the closest battalion and they did work and I loved working there. And I waited five years because I turned the five four or five O town three times because they did they had five O nights. I called them five O nights for they a lot of running, and he did work, but the ratio for
work runs was the five fours the ratio roof. So I, you know, I waited for that, and I studied after September eleventh. I studied for deputy by myself, and I didn't do well, but I did, like towards the end of the list. And then I guess a couple of years later, I was in a good study group with you know, so now I needed college. The other test, I didn't need college. I kind of like skated through,
but I didn't ever have college. So the other deputy tests that I was studying for, I think that was twenty I don't know when it was, but twenty five maybe I don't remember when it was. But Jimmy Kane was in the study group, Joe Cunningham, Jerry Migliore, Steve Raynis and Ed Ferrier and me, and we were studying for deputy. And you know, I said, all right, well it depends on how I do on the test, then I'll go to college. But I ended up getting promoted off the old list and I didn't have to get
to college. All those guys. You know, they got promoted, so I don't know. People say that's a hard job. I loved battalion chief. Let's put it that way.
Yeah, that's that's the one you would stay if you had to go back, that's the one you would pick.
You think. Well, so now yeah, yeah, yeah. Well now I'm deputy and I get a phone call about a deputy chief that's in five prevention, Jack Hodgens, and he did a year and they whatever he was doing there there was there was a three star chief and a two star chief in five prevention and he was a deputy. So I get a phone call that, oh, Bobby, would you consider coming here? You know, and then you can you can go to any division you want. So I said, ah,
I said, let me, I'm in the eleventh division. Let me or walk over and I'll talk to you.
So was.
Richie Tobin and uh, I can't think of his name, but he was the chief of fire prevention. So he lay it out on line. He says, look, you do give us a year and you can put him for any division you want. I says, look, I never really was a fan of that. You know, do for me, and I'll do for you. I never was a fan of that. I understood it, but I went, I went, I never did it, and I didn't like it. I says, look, there's there's about twelve other covering deputies. You ask all
of them. I'm not saying no, you ask all of them. If they say no, i'll do I'll do it. But I want the fifteenth Division, Okay. So they asked the guy that his wife was sick and he needed to be home for the nights and everything. So it worked for him, and I was very happy that he got that.
So I said, I.
Did the right thing. I said. So now it's like six months later and I hear rumblings that Ray go Back is retiring. Now it's like, I think it's the end of a wait. Ray go Back is retiring and wait on seven old wait, I don't remember. I think it was so wait and uh, I says, I'm not volunteering. They're looking for a guy. I said, I am volunteering, but if they ask, I'll take that job. Nobody wants these fucking jobs. You know, they're tough to film.
God, nobody nobody wants.
I really really respected Cassano, and I looked up to him. And I think he appreciated me. So he's a hard guy to say no to. So I get a phone call about going to cheaper personnel, and I go and talk to Cassano and Galvin and Ray go back. So he says, I'm retiring January first. This was like the beginning of December. He said, I'm retiring, like December thirty first, you know, would you do it? I said, all right,
I'll do it, you know. So I mentor mentored with him for a month and he leaves, and now I'm the cheaper personnel, which I don't know personnel. I'm nothing. I got a secretary, I got a call. I and some of my great quite a good time, because you know, like it's all the tests, fireman's tests and tennis tests, captain tests, battalion chiefs deputies, fire marshals, all the tests, and it's work. There's work that has to be done. And he left right in the beginning of it, you know.
So now I'm going to do all this, and you've got to put together these what they call them, groups of you know, onside guys and come offline and make up questions. And I got to work with dcasts, you know, civilians. I don't. They don't like me. I don't like them. So I did it for a year. So every other week I cheapiss Sanah was the cheaper department. I would have to meet with him every week or every other week.
And you know what's going on. We're making promotions. We you know, we're putting a class on blah blah blah, giving him a rundown openings. Over time, I'm giving them reports. So he's towards the end, like he says. He says, Bobbie, I fucked up. I should to put you in communications. I said, what are you gonna do next week? Next? Two weeks later, this is Bobby, I fucked up. I should have put you in communications. Two weeks later, this is Bobby, I fucked up. I should have put I
says chief. I can only fuck up one place at a time. Put wherever you want. I'll go. I'll work. Tell me what to do, I'll work whatever you tell me to work. So he says, yeah, I'm gonna put you in communications. So he runs a pair of skipeta. Yes, okay, so go to communications. So that was say the end of the eight beginning of nine. I don't oh nine ten. I don't remember the year. Oh it was, yeah, oh nine,
I started personnel. Ten I started in communications, so that was a whole nother thing that what the hell do I know? I mean, I I talked to the dispatchers on the radio, you know about a twelve Manhattan, But that's all I knew about communications. I know that they dispatch the boxes, they take the phone calls, but what do I shit? And they're all good guys. And the Bureau Communications. When I was there, it was five units FDOC,
which is the Fire Department Operations Center. That's you know, firefighters, lieutenant's captains, mostly light duty, long term, light duty. Then you had the outside plant, which those are the guys that take care of the alarm boxes, the voice alarms, the electricians, the locally three electricians that take There was about fifty sixty of those guys. And then the cell
phone unit that was under communications. And then you had the Emergency Medical Dispatch which was the EMS call takers and dispatches that was under me, and then the fire alarm dispatches. You know, you had different unions involved, and everybody's got you know, agendas, and I have an agenda and I wanted to you know, do the best liked. But it was a big learning curve. And you probably remember about OTC or.
Uh oh TV, like the official track bending back in the day.
And I'm just kidding, No, I forget what it was, some kind of call taking outside call taking. I'm really so happy that I don't remember that.
It was very riveting.
I could tell probably like how I feel about b I G.
You probably remember this big deal that they were transforming about how they took calls in from nine to one one.
Remember, yes, I remember that. Remember whatever they were going through p D first.
I think if I remember, we'd go through p D first, we wouldn't get the pin boxes for a while, something like that.
And it was a cluster fuck. And but you know, John Colo was the chief of communications before I was there, and I guess he's seen the writing on the wall about closing the individual and going to these p sacks p SEC one in Brooklyn and p SEC two, And I was fucking spending a lot of money like that p SEC two building was six hundred million dollars. Oh my god. Wow.
And you were in charge of it.
No, No, I was the fire department rep. But obviously it was a police facility because they owned nine one one. But then we were you know, call takers and dispatches were in the one in Brooklyn and the one in the Bronx, and we had you know, empts and paramedics that were call takers and dispatches and dispatches and what was closing ces wasn't a big popular thing. And then the last thing that I was very involved with was
the new Kid. So we had star Fire, which was from the early seventies, which was a computer program for airlines. So EMS had one, Police had one and fire had one. They were all forty plus years old and PD was doing a new one and it could easily dispatch a fire truck, an ambulance and a police car easily spend one time. But PD didn't want us to have access to their you know dispatch, who's where the cars are and when they're going to get there, and who's available
and all of that. So they paid for a couple of millions of dollars to their CAD, and now we're designing one for us for fire ems together the same CAD. So they talked to each other millions of dollars. We spent over time up the ying yang get professionals that knew what they were talking about, the designers thing, and when the Blasio came in out the window. So I had to leave Communications, and I tried to go to a burrow. And at the time, Brooklyn was open and
Manhattan was open. So I said to I said that Nigro. I said, Chief, you've got to get me out of Communications, you know, please give me a burrow. Otherwise I'm going to retire. Okay, Bobby, yeah, okay, yeah, don't worry. I'm going to put you in operations for the time being. And then so the reshuffle happens and Voice is still at operations and they didn't get a borrow. So I said, all right, I'm going to retire. So can I use my comp time? Oh yeah, absolutely use your comp time.
So when Nigro, you know, was retired, and I guess so too. Around there, if they had a one hundred hours, they had a lot because they would earn it and use it. You'n't earn it and lose it. I had thirty eight hundred hours. It's crazy, it's a year and a half. So he, you know, I guess he didn't realize that. So I worked for nine months one day a week, and I used some time, but I didn't use a lot of time. And I tried to work
the twenty fours. The staff chiefs worked twenty fours one time every thirteen days, and he does a city wide I love doing that and anyway, so then he says, Bobby, you gotta get off the pot. You know that ain't working out one day a week. So I said I'll retire. So it took a year to get out. Yeah it sucked, but I didn't leave when I wanted to leave, but the new chief of department had a different plan for me.
But it's not on your own terms. It sucks.
Yeah, well, especially that way.
I mean, I didn't understand what you were talking about when we talked cheap about that earlier, and now it's crystal clear, you know what I mean.
Yeah, I'm not going to mention the name, but uh, you can sneeze it if you want.
You sneeze them all the time, can you do it?
It sounds like he ended up getting a fall in so he uh mm hmm.
Oh, I know what you're talking about. I remember that guy.
Not too shabby your career chief, No great stories.
Oh, yeah. Well, I know there was something else I wanted to bring up, but I don't remember. Oh, okay, well that's the closing.
Yeah, we're going to do that now.
Yeah, is it is it that time?
First? First, Yes, my wife knows that I'm not a big conversation, so she says, how long is this thing? This is two hours? Two hours. You're gonna talk for two hours?
Job, tell.
I'm talking about me in the fire department. I can talk.
I told you fast.
That's like to pass over a meal. We're gonna sit and read for two hours, two hours.
All right, I need some bread.
I needed something to do with my right hand.
I appreciate that guy. It is very pleasant.
Alright, Chief, it's time for sorry cruises at that time?
Oh, I think it is.
It is that time.
It is time for the Oh school of the day, Chief, take it away, buddy.
Well, I'm not going to talk about something firefighter relating related. I'm going to talk about career relate related. You know, I could easily say, oh, take your glove off and put it over your hand. That's how you know when it's starting to get hot. But uh, I have two uh, and I live by these and some people said, I did well. I did successful, but I just I trudged through. And one of the things I wanted to talk about was I don't remember what it was, but I wrote
it down somewhere. And I always put the fire apartment before me. There was a saying in the Marines, put the service before yourself or something like that, and I live by that in the fire apartment. So my first act closing advice is act like something's always watching you, because someone is. And I, you know, it's kind of a shitty way to go about life that somebody's always watching you. But I have the story of Lieutenant Gordon
Simon in two thirty. I was in his groups for a while and I was a proby and there was a brass plate on the bottom of the office door. It was about maybe a foot high by two or three feet wide, kickplate going for the door. He said, Bobby, I want you to I want you to wax this. I want you to clean it. I spent hours with a little piece of brain cell on my finger, going over over over over over over over. I took two
or three hours to do that little thing. But the point was he was breaking my balls, which I understood but I ain't gonna let him get to me. And I tried to do the right thing. I tried to, you know, tried to do a good job. And I cleaned that thing. And I went over two or three times, every little inch cleaning that brass kickwait because the lieutenant wanted the new proby to do that. And I would always, when I was in two thirty, take a compartment out.
I would paint the inside of the compartment, paint the tools, put all the tools back. I made a tool list from compartment you know, one, three, five. Just I always wanted to be doing something and doing something productive, go on over the asks and what have you. The second bit of advices is have aspirations and work towards them. I always had aspirations. I wanted to work in the busiest fire company that I could get into shortly in
my career, less than a year. A good friend, Billy Youngston, asked me to go into a study group, and you know, I didn't want to, but he's way explained it. Three years. You know, you'll have three years on you'll take the test. It'll take it two or three years, four years to get promoted. Blah blah, blah. So I had aspirations of a busy company and to study, and I did. And I'll tell a story about Ormond Samuels, a gentleman to the highest honor. He was one of the senior guys.
In two thirty I got about a year ron and I'm studying, you know, in a closet somewhere, and he comes up to me and he says, he says, Bobby, I see you studying for chief. So he says, what's the matter with this old coup. Doesn't he know that you got to go study for lieutenant and captain first? So his point was that you know, you're not studying for lieutenant captain, you're studying for chief, which is a great job on a great job on a job. So
and I think that's about it. Thank you, guys, Thank you.
For each stuff, great care, your chief, great stories. Appreciate you open up about those other stories. And it was tough, but we certainly do appreciate it. Here, guys, we have a couple.
Of shout correct yah that too, And we also have health and safety tip.
I don't have one on hand. Put up the what do you call it? First?
Okay, here we go.
The first Responder Center for Excellence is a not for profit organization dedicated to protecting their lives and livelihoods of first responders. Their education and research initiatives aim to bring greater awareness and understanding the challenges to the health, safety, and well being of firefighters, EMS personnel, and other first responders too. They are an affiliate of the National Fallen Firefighter Foundation.
I found the paper all right Tonight's old school health and safety tip number thirty one, Never stole your bunking inside of your car or home. When bunking gear must be transported, use a gearbag or clean plastic bag, and don't put the you know, the bunk gear inside your kids couty.
You know, a smart idea.
Now, let's do the shot, all right, So we have a couple of we have a firefighter death on our YPD death or a firefighter death here. Unfortunately, this is a strange story from what I was reading. A piece of the apparatus broke and actually just some trauma to his legs, but unfortunately he died during surgery.
Uh, firefighter Raymond Muro.
How you say that?
I'm saying that, yeah, yeah, And our other shout out is NYPD officer who was fortunately murdered.
Did a rule Islam. This was a line of duty death for NYPD.
And also, I want to say tonight also we're going to give the five bells to Chief Boyce's friend Mike, who died in the line of duty so many years ago. But he definitely deserves the five Mike, Mike Moran.
I ended up.
Rest in peace, brothers.
I ended up naming my first son after Mike.
Very cool, stand up guy.
Chief.
Thanks for coming on the show.
Lou just Saturday. I'm gonna say no unless you hear from me, right, Okay, thank.
You for the essence coming. You might want to change your mind.
He is coming.
Actually I know you know he's not coming. Gone god, Oh yeah. You can't hang up on me now though, anytime.
All right, guys, we'll see you. We'll see some of you on the boat cruise on Saturday, and I'll see the rest of you on next Thursday.
Until then, stay low and go.
Thank you everybody. We'll see it the big one. Alright, guys, have a good night. We'll rolling heavy in South Florida. Stay salty, and I'll see you guys next Thursday.
Good night, everyone,