Engine 58 is on 5th Ave. in the northern part of Manhattan. It was my first stop today and had special meaning for my cousin Brother Al from the Marianist community in Cape May Point, NJ. Brother Al was the Fire Chief in Cape May Point for more than twenty years, they are Engine 58 as well. Soon after September 11th 2001, the Cape May Point 58 had NYC 58 as guests for several days in NJ.
The second firehouse we visited, is on Roosevelt Island in the middle of the East River, Bogart looked like he wanted some exercise so we decided to walk across the Queensboro bridge from Manhattan. We parked the bus and started our three hour walk to and from Roosevelt Island. I couldn’t help but wonder how many people walked across the bridge deck on 9/11 during our walk. We arrived at the specialty firehouse which handles decontamination, rescue, hazardous spills and many other types of highly skilled services. Most of the training for the firefighters from all the boroghs come here for training. Eddie, a very helpful, informative firefighter, rescued Bogart from thirst after our long walk to his firehouse. Eddie gave us a the background on all of the equipment used in their charge. This dedicated staff is professional in every way.
Marine 1 was my final of all of the forty-nine firehouses I visited on Manhattan over a five day period. A Lieutenant on duty gave me a behind the scenes tour of their temporary digs at Pier 40. We were invited in for coffee and to witness some of the goings-on, including a very great looking lunch which was being prepared. Marine 1 and the two smaller of watercraft have an unbelievable amount of open water and shoreline of the five boroghs and smaller islands of New York City to patrol.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 29th, 2010 at 2:44 pm and is filed under Kindness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.