One Shameful Year
"I'm so angry that this was allowed
to happen, [and] we want justice," said Beddia Crocco.
"I want them more than embarrassed — I want them hurt."
-sister of FF Bobby Beddia
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It was a year ago today that firefighters Robert
Beddia and Joseph Graffagnino - effectively
abandoned on the 14th floor of the old Deutsche
Bank building at Ground Zero - gave their lives
in the service of New York City. In the
proudest tradition of the FDNY, they had rushed
swiftly into the burning structure - unaware
that exit stairwells had been blocked and a
standpipe cut by workers taking down the 9/11-
wrecked building. Trapped, with no water
to fight the blaze and with their airpacks
exhausted, the two men slowly suffocated.
It was a horrific, and wholly preventable,
tragedy - and yet none of those responsible for
the deaths have even been identified, let alone
held to account...more>
related...
Photo Gallery
WABC 8/18/2008
Photo Gallery NY
Daily News 8/18/2008 |
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Deutsche One Year Later: Families Still
Waiting for Answers as They Grieve
“People should go to jail for this,”
Graffagnino said. “Hitting a millionaire with a fine
is [B.S.]. You were [behind] this, you could have
stopped it. You should pay.”...
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Pol: UN Building, Grand Central
Should Fall Under City Inspection
"If something goes wrong in a foreign
embassy or in a state building, it's our
firefighters -- New York City firefighters -- that
are going to have to go up those stairs and save
those lives, and they don't have a road map in those
885 buildings," said Stringer at a news conference
at the Deutsche Bank building at Ground Zero, where
two firefighters died last year in a blaze... |
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Working To Make 9/11 Memorial
'Publicly Available'
The cascading waterfall design for
the national Sept. 11 memorial and museum is aptly
named Reflecting Absence because like other major
projects at Ground Zero, it won't be completed in
time for the 10th anniversary of the 2001 terror
attacks... |
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Give This Pickup Truck the Gold
They parked near the south tower in
time to survive the first collapse and then the
second. I watched Monahan immediately afterward
crawl into the ruins to search for the 11 missing
firefighters from his firehouse, Engine 24/Ladder
5... |
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FDNY's hunkiest pose for
calendar
A hot new 2009 calendar full of
strapping New York firefighters is about to hit the
shelves. But this time there's one difference. You
still get the abs, lats, pecs, biceps and triceps —
but the FDNY hunks will be incognito, their faces
shadowed or concealed by the wide brims of their
hats... |
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Firefighter Union Boss Urges
'No Water' Radio Alerts
Often at fires, the ladder
companies doing specific tasks like ventilating
roofs or searching for victims don't realize that
engine companies on the ground are having difficulty
getting water on the flames. Cassidy's proposal
would send a radio code out every five minutes until
such problems are resolved... |
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FF Thomas Brick Scholarships Presented
to Seven FDNY Firefighters
“I enjoy coming here because it’s
simply a happy event,” said Mr. Bommarito, who has
funded 25 Firefighter Brick scholarships in the last
five years. “We took a tragedy and turned it into
something wonderful.”... |
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34 Fire And EMS Members Promoted
“Everything you have hearled
over the years has brought you to this moment,” said
Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta. “You are the
Department’s legacy and its future. It takes a
special kind of person to step up and do the work
that you do each day.”... |
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