Crowley, Chin, Elected Officials & Firefighters Fight Against Firehouse Closings

"While the Mayor is proposing to close fire companies, 200 people are in need of emergency shelter after being displaced by the massive fire that struck Chinatown last week," said City Council Fire & Criminal Justice Chair Elizabeth Crowley. "If Engine 4 had been closed that night, as it was proposed to close in last year’s budget, the Chinatown community would have lost more homes, businesses and probably lives. It is simply irresponsible to eliminate fire companies when our fire services are responding to more emergencies than ever before. The attack on September 11, 2001 happened only a few blocks away from Engine 4. New York City remains one of the highest profile terrorist targets in the world and we have no room to compromise our emergency services. The message is clear: emergencies don’t care about budgets."

 

Firehouses in downtown Manhattan respond to major tourist attractions, transit hubs and potential terrorist targets including Wall Street, The World Financial Center, The World Trade Center, The Federal Office Building, the State and Federal Courts, as well as Chinatown the South Street Seaport and Little Italy, just to name a few.

 

Council Member Margaret Chin, who represents the district where Engine 4 is located, said, “In the four months that I have represented District 1, we have had fires in almost every corner of it, from SoHo to Chinatown to the Financial District. On top of this, we have recently seen first-hand the need for firefighters in our City with the devastating 7-alarm blaze on Grand street, where this company responded and operated. And I have visited a number of firehouses in my District- I know that our firefighters do more than put out fires. They are our first responders, our EMS teams; something we know a lot about here in lower Manhattan. This company, Engine 4, is trained and equipped for decontamination in case of chemical or biological attack, which we need in a District like lower Manhattan that is loaded with terrorist targets. And they are also equipped for water rescue- they even played a major role in saving a young tourist off the South Street Seaport recently. With all the needs and growing population of lower Manhattan, now is not the time to be eliminating essential life-saving services here or anywhere in New York City.”

 

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said, “Lower Manhattan and the Financial District have had several of the most serious fires and emergency response incidents over the past decade including the attack on the World Trade Center, the Deutsche Bank fire and most recently the Grand Street fire in Chinatown. The value to our community of our local fire companies in responding to these and many other construction accidents and as the first line of defense in the event of another terrorist attack cannot possibly be overstated. It is therefore critically important that we keep every fire house in this area open and operational including Engine 4 to protect the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in Lower Manhattan each and every day.”

 

State Senator Daniel Squadron said, “The recent devastating fire on Grand Street reminds us that we should be providing greater support to our firehouses—not shutting them down. I look forward to working with Council Member Chin and City Council Fire and Criminal Justice Committee Chair Crowley to keep Engine 4 open.”

 

Manhattan Borough President Scott M. Stringer said, “In an emergency where seconds matter, the shuttering of a firehouse can have devastating consequences. Even in tough economic times, we need to dig deep to find funding for first responders. We just had a 7-alarm blaze in Chinatown - how much clearer of a signal does there need to be that the safety of New Yorkers can not be jeopardized? Lives and livelihoods are on the line here.”

 

 UFA President Steve Cassidy said, “The last five years have been the busiest in the nearly 150 year history of the FDNY, yet City Hall still wants to close firehouses. A government’s number one priority is to provide for the safety and protection of its citizens, but if proposed staffing cuts and firehouse closures are enacted it will dramatically increase in the time it takes to get a fire truck or an ambulance to an emergency and as result, civilians and firefighters will die."

 

City Council Fire & Criminal Justice Chair Elizabeth Crowley has been leading a citywide campaign against the Mayor’s proposed firehouse closings and continues to mobilize elected officials and communities in support of our emergency services. As part of the Campaign to Save Our Fire Safety, Council Member Crowley has already organized rallies in all of the City’s five boroughs, written op-eds and launched an initiative to flood the Mayor’s inbox with tens of thousands of postcards signed by New York’s tax-payers in protest of these cuts. For more information on Council Member Elizabeth Crowley’s Campaign to Save Our Fire Safety, please visit www.council.nyc.gov/crowley.