A four story building has "completely collapsed" maybe a half mile up Washington Ave from my house. Apparently the collapse is on Ryerson St633 495 Myrtle Ave just south of the Brooklyn Navy Yard. There has been a steady stream of FDNY emergency vehicles fighting north through the post church traffic in front of my building. Reports are that there are people trapped in the rubble.
So hope they make it out and everyone walks away from this one.
George Martin played his whole NFL career with the New York Giants. He had a few claims to fame during his career. First, he was one of the captains on the Giants Super Bowl XXI winning team. Also, he previously held the record for touchdowns scored by a defensive lineman.
Now, Martin is walking across the country for a great cause: To raise money for the Sept. 11, 2001 first responders.
A Journey For 9/11 hopes to raise $10 million to help pay for health care costs that the first responders and recovery workers who came to Ground Zero require. Here is an explanation of the Journey.
Our mission is to help provide health care for the surviving rescue and recovery workers who rushed to Ground Zero after the 9-11 attacks, by raising a minimum of $10 Million.
One day an idea came to George Martin, executive, humanitarian and former New York Football Giants star. Many of those who had rushed to aid in the aftermath of 9-11 are sick with respiratory and other diseases that can cause permanent disability. Some have even lost their jobs and had no insurance. Mr. Martin wanted to help.
Mr. Martin will walk from the George Washington Bridge (NY) to the Golden Gate Bridge (CA), stopping along the way to promote various events in support of the mission.
The goal is to raise a minimum of $10 million for medical care for Ground Zero workers. Mr. Martin is looking to raise funds and, in addition, whatever amount he raises, participating Hospitals and Medical Care partners will provide a dollar-for-dollar match in medical services essentially doubling the amount of help care available for The Heroes of Ground Zero.
I'll be doing another radio appearance this afternoon to discuss our effort to get the New York City Council to investigate the failings of the Giuliani administration in their handling of the FDNY radios that cost many firefighters their lives on 9/11. I'll be talking about recent developments in this effort as well as some of the larger context of Rudy's performance as it concerns his claims to be a terrorism "expert."
I'll be on Air America Radio affiliate KPHX in Arizona on a show called Action Point. I'm scheduled to be on shortly after 3pm EST and it looks as if I'm not the only New Yorker on the show today. Our good friend Jeffrey Feldman will be on later in the show. You can listen to both of us online here.
As regular readers of this site know, we have been working with the good folks at Brave New Films to get the New York City Council to investigate the way the administration of Rudy Giuliani handled the replacement and deployment of the FDNY radios that proved to be such a source of tragedy on 9/11. We delivered a petition urging action with almost 20,000 signatures to Councilman Eric Gioia on Monday and were very pleased at his initial reaction. Today we have even more video of the Councilman stating in very strong terms that he not only supports such an inquiry but is doing all he can to get the ball rolling.
There is more work to do, but I wanted to thank all of you who signed the petition as well as those of you who trekked down to City Hall with me on Monday. It looks as if our work is paying off.
We deserve answers. The families of those firefighters who gave their lives trying to save others on 9/11 deserve answers. The nation that Mr. Giuliani is asking to elect him President deserve answers. I commend Councilman Gioia for publicly committing to trying to get those answers.
We were very pleased with Councilman Gioia's response and hope that he will indeed deliver on his pledge to get the answers to these questions that we all, most especially the families of those firefighters who perished on 9/11, so richly deserve.
It can be somewhat dismaying to see our former Mayor, and current GOP front-runner, traveling the country proclaiming himself to be, as Bob Herbert put it in Saturday's Times, "some kind of expert, a veritable guru, on matters related to terrorism." But, Mr. Giuliani's actual record suggests something else entirely. Of all the things we learned after the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, the fact that the radios used by firefighters were inadequate was perhaps the most important lesson. In Mr. Giuliani's two full terms as Mayor after that attack, what was done to remedy that problem?
The Real Rudy released a powerful and sobering short film this morning that asks that question and many others. It's long past time that we and the families of those firefighters got some answers.
In the film we learn that 7 years after the 1993 attack, the city awarded a no bid contract to Motorola for radios that were not only never actually field tested, but had to be pulled from the field within days after a firefighter almost died when his call for help went unheard. We also learn that the contract for those radios, originally for $1.4 million dollars ballooned ten fold to 14 million in a matter of days.
These days, it seems we are surrounded by incompetence and cronyism. We've almost come to expect it. But, the decisions made by Mr. Giuliani regarding these radios cost many, many firefighters their lives. Those decisions had the gravest of consequences for the bravest among us. Those brave firefighters in the North Tower of the WTC couldn't hear the police helicopter pilots warning of at least a partial collapse of both buildings 15 minutes before the first tower fell. They couldn't hear that because they were using the exact same radios that we knew didn't work from an attack on the same target 8 years previous.
Why has this never been properly investigated? Don't we deserve answers and accountability? Don't the families of those firefighters deserve some answers?
The Giuliani administration has never been held accountable for the negligent decisions that left New York firefighters with the exact same obsolete radios on 9/11 that they carried into the World Trade Center in the 1993 attack. With Giuliani now campaigning for his party's nomination for President on the grounds that he is uniquely suited to prepare the United States for future attacks, the time for accountability is now.
*Why was nothing done to improve FDNY radio performance for seven years after a clear need was demonstrated in the 1993 World Trade Center attack?
*When new radios were finally ordered, why did the city block other companies besides Motorola from bidding on the contract?
*Once Motorola was given the contract, why did its cost jump from $1.4 million to $14 million?
*Why were these new radios never tested?
You can help bring this about. You can sign the petition asking the City Council to launch an investigation here. City Councilman Eric Gioia (D-Queens), has the power to launch such an investigation. He needs to hear from us.
We deserve answers and it's long past time we got them.
At the funeral for firefighter Joseph Graffagnino who was killed in the fire at the Duetsche Bank building seven weeks ago, Michael Bloomberg said this:
We owe you, and every member of the FDNY, answers to the difficult questions that this fire raised. We're going to get those answers, and those answers will be followed by actions.
At the funeral for Robert Beddia, another firefighter killed in that fire, Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta said:
We will continue to conduct an aggressive, comprehensive investigation and it will take us wherever it leads us
It's now seven weeks since tragedy visited ground zero again and what is being revealed about the "investigation" into what lead to that tragedy is disgraceful to say the least.
The Uniformed Firefighters Association and the Uniformed Fire Officers Association just sent out this press release that reads in part:
Today the boards of both the Uniformed Firefighters Association and the Uniformed Fire Officers Association held a joint press conference to address the active effort by the Fire Commissioner and his staff to hinder the investigations and the cloud of scandal hanging over the FDNY regarding the fatal Deutsche Bank fire.
"The entire FDNY is suffering under the cloud of scandal and investigation," said Steve Cassidy, UFA President. "Now more than seven weeks after the tragedy the FDNY's own investigators have been forbidden to examine pre-fire issues which led up to the deaths of two New York City Firefighters."
"We find it incredible that when a pipe from the Deutsche Bank Building fell through the roof of the neighboring firehouse, necessitating a meeting with the FDNY's Manhattan Borough Commander, that even this did not prompt him to require an immediate building inspection before deconstruction work could continue," Cassidy said.
The UFA leader also pointed to recent actions by FDNY's top leadership, including having a chief escort the criminal attorneys hired by the city into Engine 10/Ladder 10 so he could download the company's computer hard drive.
Jack McDonnell, president of the UFOA said,"The Chief of Department advised all of his staff to cease email communication about the Deutsche Bank Building and then the Manhattan Borough Commander followed this by dispatching a similar order to Chiefs throughout Manhattan."
He continued, "The three reassigned Fire Officers are not the problem, it was the FDNY's responsibility to insist that all rebuilding efforts at the WTC site be placed before the FDNY at every stage. They abdicated control to the LMDC and did not exercise their authority as per the Administrative Code.
-All emphasis mine
This is ridiculous. New York's bravest deserve far better than this. The Mayor and Fire Chief promised to "get those answers" and follow things "wherever it leads us." Instead there seems to be an active and overt effort to scuttle this investigation.
