Jack Crowe thought he had that Tuesday off. The Thursday before, Crowe,
formerly a lieutenant at a firehouse in Brooklyn and today a captain at Manhattan's
Engine 28, had been promoted. So, on September 11, he was at home in Staten Island, awaiting his next
assignment.
That assignment came earlier than expected and no one had to tell him what it
was. "When I heard the news, I got dressed and came in," says Crowe, who took the
long ferry ride across New York harbor. He helplessly watched the towers of the
World Trade Center burn as he arrived at Ground Zero after the buildings had
collapsed. "You do what you have to do to be there. That's the only thing that goes
through your mind."
Crowe felt that he arrived too late to be a hero -- for the ultimate heroics that
claimed so many of his brethren. Yet Jack Crowe's heroism that day, like that of a
thousand other firefighters, lay not in whether he risked his life, but in his
willingness to do so. The unquestioned devotion to duty, to drop all else and face
all manner of danger, is the common thread that has always linked the courageous
souls of the fire department that the city likes to call "New York's Bravest."
That kind of second nature about duty came through in the tone of every firefighter
who attended the special "Big Smoke" in November, which Cigar Aficionado hosted to
say thank you to the fire and police departments and emergency workers of New York.
You could hear it in the nonchalance of Jeff Borkowski, whose Hazardous Materials
team lost 14 members that day: "We go to any emergency. It's just a job. We do it
because it's something we love to do." Or Evan King, of Ladder 140, who shrugged,
"Everybody was there. There was a job that had to be done." Or Lt. John Driscoll, of
Haz Mats Special Ops, who similarly discounted his appearance there: "Yeah, I went
to Ground Zero. Everybody did." Or Chris Childs, of Engine 283, who vaguely
considered danger but ignored it: "I was thinking there might be some kind of
biological warfare and of trying to get through to my family. But, of course, others
needed help."
If the firefighters themselves downplay their heroism, few outside their ranks now
do. After repeatedly watching the buildings collapse on video with the knowledge
that rescuers had waded in of their own volition, after seeing the tangled wreckage
of fire trucks on the streets where the catastrophe occurred, after months of the
mind-numbing spectacle of firefighter funeral after firefighter funeral, after
hearing the accounts of individual heroism such as the volunteer chaplain who came
to help but was killed himself, it is hard not to appreciate those who serve in the
Fire Department of New York. If any good can be said to have come from the horror
that was September 11, it is that the "Bravest" are finally getting the recognition
they deserve.
It was a long time in coming. Firefighting has been a profession at least since the
first century b.c., when Augustus established a fire department in Rome. Stories of
the bravery of firefighters date at least to the Middle Ages, when crusaders
encountered the use of fire as a weapon. The fierce Saracens poured naphtha on them
and lit it. The Knights of St. John distinguished themselves by risking their lives
to save other soldiers torched in the blazes. The familiar shield of the FDNY -- and
many other fire departments -- is modeled on the Maltese Cross, which was the knights'
standard.
Fire has been part of New York City's history from its very beginning. In 1613,
Dutch explorer Adrien Block established the first white settlement there after his
ship burned at anchor near the site where the World Trade Center would later stand.
The city of New Amsterdam grew up there, and by 1648 fire was such a problem that
the imperious governor Peter Stuyvesant appointed the first fire wardens in the New
World. They levied fines for such violations as improper chimney maintenance. By
1658, "prowlers" patrolled the streets at night looking for fire. Citizens were
expected to keep leather buckets and respond when an alarm was sounded. Much of the
city's early history concerns the establishment of ready sources of water for
fighting fires.
The British, who wrested control of the city in 1664, maintained the Dutch fervor
for controlling fires, and by 1731 were importing crude fire engines -- hand-pumped and
filled by buckets -- from England. The Brits, who had experienced the 1666 Fire of
London, one of history's worst conflagrations, were the pioneers of water-pumping
fire equipment. The first fire engine made in America was built in New York in 1743,
six years after the establishment of a volunteer fire department.
Volunteers would do the bulk of the city's firefighting for more than a century, and
as the department grew so did competition between the resulting fire companies. It
was considered sport to watch the resulting horse races as firemen drove their teams
down the avenue in response to alarms. New Yorkers were even known to turn in false
alarms to enliven an otherwise dull Sunday afternoon. Another unseemly practice
sprung up from the volunteer era -- embezzlement of funds meant for widows and orphans.
The notorious political boss William M. Tweed got his start as a member of a
volunteer fire department.
The steam-powered fire engine would hail the end of New York's volunteer era. The
advancement meant that significantly fewer
men could fight a fire as efficiently. Firemen bridled against the new equipment,
but political reformers and insurance companies lobbied for it, and by 1865 the
steam fire engine was in and volunteerism was out. With professionalism came new
discipline, standards of conduct and training for the firefighters. Damages from
fire dropped precipitously. By 1883, a fire academy was established; today,
inductees receive 10 weeks of training; all firefighters also receive further
instruction continually.
As buildings enlarged and climbed farther into the sky, new equipment was necessary:
better hoses, ladder trucks, etc. The firefighter was increasingly put into harm's
way as he was forced to go deeper and deeper into buildings to make rescues. Bravery
was accepted as an occupational necessity, prompting Ed Croker, chief of the
department from 1899 to 1911, to remark: "Firemen do not regard themselves as
heroes, because they do what the job requires."
A fire protection bureau was established in 1912 as a result of the horrific
Triangle Shirtwaist fire of 1911, which took 146 lives, many of them young female
garment workers. This nearly invisible arm of the fire department provides a sort of
silent heroism, preventing fires and lessening their effect when they occur. As the
estimated death toll at the World Trade Center slowly dropped from 6,000 to 3,000
lives, it became clear that fire protection efforts instituted after the terrorist
bombing of the complex in 1993 had lessened a tragedy that might easily have claimed
25,000 or 30,000.
The FDNY made its way through the twentieth century beset by constant problems, such
as world wars that tapped its ranks and a depression that drained its funds. In the
1960s and 1970s, a new woe touched the fire department, a social unrest that caused
its members to be viewed not as heroes, but as the enemy. For the first time, the
department covered the cabs on fire trucks as protection against attacks.
September 11 changed that -- at least for the time being. Firefighters spoke of the
outpouring of gratitude arising after the tragedy: people stopping into station
houses to thank them, kissing them on the street, cheering as they returned from
digging at Ground Zero. It doesn't go unmentioned in their comments. Jim Rahill, of
Ladder 22, lit a cigar at the Big Smoke and said, "It's nice to know that there
really are people that appreciate us." Chris Donovan, also of Ladder 22, concurred
that the attention was overwhelming, but was more circumspect: "It'll go away. It's
a shame 343 guys had to lose their lives for it to be realized."
John Whaler, of Engine 291 in Queens, put the way we treat true heroes into pointed
perspective: "It's strange the way our society treats athletes and celebrities. What
are they doing? Hitting a baseball for a living. And every year they demand more
millions. We will die for you without even thinking about it, and for us to get a
three-percent raise is like pulling teeth."
Photo by A. Perry Heller
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