Firefighters’ Symbol of Pride Gets Image Upgrade

[JetPhoto 626]

NY Times April 26, 2007

Firefighters’ Symbol of Pride Gets Image Upgrade

Todd Heisler/The New York Times

Patches at the New York City Fire Museum in Manhattan.

By TRYMAINE LEE

Firefighters wear them with pride, on their sleeves, a variation on the blue uniform that distinguishes one assignment from another. Some are faded, even blackened: arm patches that identify each house, each company, as unique.

The firefighters of Engine 218 in Brooklyn are the Bushwick Bomberos, their symbol a firefighter with water hoses in holsters ready for a fight. Engine 10 in Manhattan is Ten House, represented by a firefighter with a foot on each of the burning twin towers.

Engine 318 and Ladder 166 in Coney Island are the Kings of Neptune, and their patches show King Neptune hovering over a roller coaster, flames blazing in the background.

But not all the names and images have been as innocuous as those.

The patches of the New York Fire Department are slowly being refashioned after two episodes led to a department review and the elimination of patches it deemed inappropriate.

Engine 75 in the Bronx, once known as Animal House, was told to change its name after a controversy in 2004, when several of its firefighters were accused of having sex with a woman in the firehouse, then trying to cover it up.

Engine 151 and Ladder 76 in Staten Island, known collectively for years as Southern Comfort, were told to change their moniker after a sangria- and beer-fueled firehouse brawl in late 2003 over the date of Elvis Presley’s birthday.

The fight ended with one firefighter smashing the other in the face with a metal folding chair. Criminal and departmental charges followed.

The Happy Hookers of Red Hook’s Engine 279 were also told to change their name about a year ago.

“The uniform means a great deal, and anyone in it should treat it with great respect,” said Francis X. Gribbon, a former firefighter and current Fire Department spokesman.

The patches are now regulated, and the colors and designs are subject to approval by a borough fire commander. They can be no bigger than 3 ¾ inches wide and 4 ½ inches high.

Engine 151 dropped Southern Comfort and is now South Shore Pride. Engine 75, the former Animal House, and Engine 279, once the Happy Hookers, have yet to replace their old nicknames.

Names like Happy Hookers were once nonissues, sophomoric plays on words referring to neighborhoods or to hook and ladder tools. “But in this day and age, things are different,” Mr. Gribbon said.

Referring to the Staten Island brawl and the Bronx sex scandal, he said, “No question, it was after those incidents that this review took place And it was decided that things like Southern Comfort, because of its obvious connotation, was not appropriate.”

A report by the city Department of Investigation in 2005 found that in addition to Animal House, a few other firehouses had adopted “equally unbecoming nicknames.” Among the others it listed were Engine 214 in Brooklyn (the Nut House), Ladder 30 in Harlem (the Harlem Zoo), Engine 90 in the Bronx (90 Proof) and Engine 315 in Queens (Clown College).

As for Animal House, investigators did their best to figure out where the name came from. When asked if the namesake was the popular 1978 movie “Animal House,” which depicted a drunken bunch of hard-partying fraternity boys, firefighters gave wildly different answers.

One said the name came from “the era when fire engines were pulled by horses.” Another said the name stemmed from a firehouse mascot, a Muppets character named Animal. Still another said the nickname may have come from their predecessors’ kind approach toward animals, when the firehouse was “home to stray dogs and rodents,” the report said.

The review of patches echoes another recent controversy surrounding firefighters’ lockers. In that case, department brass ordered that everything but a firefighter’s name be stripped from lockers, including stickers of American flags. The policy came about after incidents involving racially or sexually offensive material. Pictures of naked women or otherwise questionable material was torn from locker doors.

The Uniformed Firefighters Association, which fought and won the right of firefighters to display American flags, pictures of relatives and other noncontroversial items on their lockers, did not return phone calls to comment on the patch issue.

The review of patches dug deep into the culture of the department; firefighters see the patches as a way of channeling the spirit of those who have come through the house before them to those who will come after. They are a means of finding comedy in tragedy, strength when strength is feigned and a sense of personality where uniformity is expected.

“We like to identify with the smaller group,” said Lt. Paul Conboy of Engine 218’s Bomberos in Bushwick, Brooklyn. “We’re proud to be part of the bigger Fire Department as a whole, but this gives us a little bit of individuality.”

The patches are worn on the right sleeve, opposite the department’s official patch, which shows the city skyline and a red flame circled in red. They are optional; some firefighters wear them on their bunker coats, others on their dress uniforms. The tighter the company, firefighters say, the more patches you will see.

On a recent afternoon at the Bomberos’ house on Hart Street, Lieutenant Conboy scanned a large framed poster of Fire Department patches hanging in the watch room.

There were patches with Popeye, flaming skulls, Snoopy, bulldogs and an assortment of fierce-looking creatures. There were patches with firehouse nicknames and slogans, like the Bedford Express, the Fighting Forty-Four, the Tillary Street Tigers and the Tin House. There were eagles and shamrocks and a bunch of hooks, hoses and ladders.

“Some people make fun of other companies’ patches, but I think ours is pretty good,” Lieutenant Conboy said.

The Bomberos were anointed 20 or 25 years ago, he said. The residents of the largely Hispanic neighborhood had long called them the bomberos, or firefighters in Spanish. While out on calls they would hear people screaming, “Bomberos, bomberos!”

Then a cousin of a firefighter in the house came up with the idea of a patch and a design and rallied the approval of the others. The design shows a firefighter with a big hat and mustache, flames burning behind him, looking as if he is prepared, with itchy fingers, for a Wild West shootout. But instead of guns in holsters are two water hoses.

In Midtown Manhattan, at the firehouse of Engine 54 and Ladder 4, Rich Kane, a second-generation firefighter, mused on a neighborhood woman in her 70s who wears the firehouse’s patch draped around her neck.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, she would come by the firehouse, on Eighth Avenue in the theater district, and tend to the flowers being left by mourners. She soon became a fixture outside the firehouse. From time to time she still drops by. “She walks around the neighborhood wearing our patch like a necklace,” Firefighter Kane said. “For us, it’s a pride thing.”

Their patch shows a large theater marquee with the engine and ladder numbers. Below it are the comedy and tragedy masks, framed by the phrase “The Pride of Midtown, Never Missed a Performance.”

April 26, 2007

To Many in the Department, a Link to a Proud Tradition

By TRYMAINE LEE

Collectively, patches worn by New York City firefighters form a quilt, a tapestry intertwining the history of the city and that of the Fire Department, an institution with century-old standing in some of the city’s oldest neighborhoods, the affluent and the afflicted alike.

There are the Harlem Hose Trotters of Engine 36. And Engine 55 in Little Italy, known as Cinquenta Cinque, and Engine 34’s 38th Street Mutts.

In Brooklyn, there are the Lords of Flatbush of Engine 310. In Queens there are Engine 301, the Hollis Hogs, and Engine 324’s Queens Burros. Engine 94 and Ladder 48 in the Bronx represent the Hunts Point neighborhood as the Hunts Point Devils, and their borough brethren at Engine 64 are the Castle Hill Gang.

In the turbulent 1970s, when arson and outrage engulfed the South Bronx, it was the men of Engine 82 and Ladder 31 at La Casa Grande, or The Big House, who quelled the flames. Those firefighters were chronicled in the 1972 BBC documentary “Man Alive: The Bronx Is Burning,” which told the companies’ tale.

In Williamsburg, Brooklyn, at the firehouse of Engine 216 and Ladder 108 (the Pride of Williamsburg), Firefighter John Orlando sat in a lounge with others from the two companies.

Behind them were three large murals, depictions of the patches of the battalion chief and the engine and ladder companies housed there.

For the ladder company, the mural showed a large flying eagle, its wings spread wide in front of a streaming American flag as flames rise beneath it.

For the engine company, the mural depicted a water hose wrapped around a Maltese cross, whose arms contained a hook, a ladder, a shamrock and a fire hydrant.

The company’s eagle is a throwback symbol from the early 1900s, when the engine’s firehouse was on Segal Street. The firefighters were known as the Segal Eagles back then. But the company was forced to its current address, on Union Avenue, by budget cuts and civil unrest in the turbulent 1970s and 1980s. Frustrations and tensions in Brooklyn then broke out in occasional violence between those at the firehouse and members of the community.

“Our patch, it’s something that gives a message to everyone else,” Firefighter Orlando said. “Company pride. It’s about the people that have come before us, through our house. It’s not so much for us.”

It is for firefighters like Danny Suhr of Engine 216, the first firefighter confirmed to have been killed on Sept. 11, firefighters there said. And like William Baldwin, who was part of Engine 116, the predecessor of 216, who in 1880 became the first member of the Brooklyn Fire Department to be killed on duty. .

“Your patch is your patch,” said Glenn Tracy, a fourth-generation firefighter in Ladder Company 108. “This is your house, where you started. And it’s about passing on the tradition to the young firefighters, about the guys who walked through this same door and wore the same patch.”

[JBE 328]

Yet another attack by the PC Police. Wonder when Hilton Hotels is going to sue Engine 69/Ladder 28/Bn 16 (The Harlem Hilton) for trademark infringment.

PS Engine 36(RIP Thanx Mayor Mike!!) at one time was known as Skells Angels.

[Guest alsfirefighter]

I often enjoy the stories behind the nicknames/mottos then I do the actual names themselves. I remember reading a few years ago where there were some that were raising a rucus over Engine 73's "la casa caca" which had nothing to do with the neighborhood but from stories I've heard and read about was the conditions inside. The stories are often priceless and many are pride filled. I think sometimes we have to remember that regular people will not always know the circumstances of a nickname or motto or our culture which can lead to some of this.

[Guest WolfEMT]

I can't believe that the FD is wasting money and resources to change something that on the whole, most of the public either doesn't know about or doesn't understand. I mean, seriously, aside from the occasional buff, who actually knew that E 75 was the "Animal House?" And for those who did know, who actually cared? Personally, I think the patches are what set the FDNY apart from the rest of the big-city FDs; not only do they add a sense of history, they also add a sense of individuality.

[Guest]

Yet another attack by the PC Police. Wonder when Hilton Hotels is going to sue Engine 69/Ladder 28/Bn 16 (The Harlem Hilton) for trademark infringment.

PS Engine 36(RIP Thanx Mayor Mike!!) at one time was known as Skells Angels.

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and still one the best nicknames ever...sorely missed!

[RichC 0]

blkcloud:

Does this mean the Harlem Zoo name is on the chopping block as well? Sounds like it Is from the article. Much like banning the green Irish hats worn by one of the batallions during the St Pats Parade, it is another example of over reaching.

Wears away at traditions that are harmless but enjoyed by many.

[Guest]

blkcloud:

Does this mean the Harlem Zoo name is on the chopping block as well? Sounds like it us from the article. Much like banning the green Irish hats worn by one of the batallions during the St Pats Parade, it is another example of over reaching.

Wears away at traditions that are harmless but enjoyed by many.

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yeah but "The Zoo" has gotten heat about the nickname and the patch for years...not going to change...

[Guest]

I think some people need to find a day job. There are so many more pressing issues in the City. This sweep of PC culture is getting unbearable, you might as well send the first amendment to the moon!

My uncle used to be on E75 and the gf's father used to be on L30. Animal House, Harlem Zoo. Who the hell cares? If anything, i think they're pretty fun names.

[10-Buff-4 0]

This is all part of the Bloomberg's general hostility to the Fire Department. Nuff Said.

-Joe DA BUFF

[Guest]

thats a real big shame to see that happen...i thought the different patches and nicknames were one of the great things about the FDNY, and as stated before who the hell actually notices them other then buffs and other FF's. Sad to see something with so much history for dept going away to please a couple politically correct jerkoffs with nothing better to do.

[e92l44 0]

E-38 & TL-51 are not allowed to be called, BRACE YOURSELVES..............................."THE DAWG HOUSE"?!?!?!??!?!

Sorry if anyone was offended.................Apparently it is an offensive title.

[Remember585 815]

That's just plain stupid.

[RWC130 594]

Centennial Hose Company No 4

Peekskill, NY

ENGINE 130

"Dock Rats"

[Oswegowind 17]

I can't believe that the FD is wasting money and resources to change something that on the whole, most of the public either doesn't know about or doesn't understand. I mean, seriously, aside from the occasional buff, who actually knew that E 75 was the "Animal House?" And for those who did know, who actually cared? Personally, I think the patches are what set the FDNY apart from the rest of the big-city FDs; not only do they add a sense of history, they also add a sense of individuality.

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The media knew about it and they used it during their reports on the "sex" thing. They made it fit...and it was a pretty dark situation that was allowed to happen by people not acting professionally. No one says you have to live up to your company's nickname but you should think about it more thoroughly in the future. I love the company level patches but they should have to do with the job and the location.

Centennial Hose Company No 4

Peekskill, NY

ENGINE 130

"Dock Rats"

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That is cause the old firehouse floods all the time, right?

[Guest]

Doesn't the FDNY administration have something more important to worry about??????

[e92l44 0]

Doesn't the FDNY administration have something more important to worry about??????

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Ah....................NO!

[CPAGE 2]

I think that FDNY Hq should be called "The House of Shame" all of them should fight for the brothers as they came from the ranks.

Sorry had to say that after 25 beers.

Chris