Latest / Drawn of History / FDNY Firefighter _ This Past Weekend w_ Theo Von _637(M4A_128K)

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FDNY Firefighter _ This Past Weekend w_ Theo Von _637(M4A_128K) · Drawn of History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: We've got new merch. The Year of the Rat hoodies
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: just hit the site. We have them in two colors,
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: and they're made from my favorite hoodie template. We also
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: have the winter sale that's happening right now, 20% off
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: some of your favorites. You can get them before they're
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: gone at theovonstore.com if you get a chance to go there.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: And if not, that is totally great as well. Thank
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: you guys so much for the support. Today's guest is
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: a retired firefighter. and a veteran of the FDNY here
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: in New York City, which is where we filmed. He
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: spent 20 years serving with the fire department in the
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: communities of Washington Heights and Queens, and bravely served alongside
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: many others during 9-11. I'm very grateful for his time
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: and his service. He is what I would call a legend.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Today's guest is Mr. Tony Bonfiglio. Is it too hot
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: in here for you, Tony?
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: No, I feel comfortable. Okay. Yeah, what kind of temperature
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: do you guys operate at?
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: Well, sometimes it's so hot, you know, in the summer
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: when we're out there in like 90 degree weather and
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: you're putting a fire out, it's hot.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: You lose so much body water.
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah. Yeah, it's like when you take off your
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: turnout coat and your gear, it's like you fell in
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: a pool.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: Have you ever started a fire where you had to
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: pee and by the end you didn't?
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: Kidding me? Yeah.
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: And then sometimes you're so thirsty. I mean, there were
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: times I was so thirsty from pulling ceilings and the
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: plaster dust that I actually would, I look up and
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: would take water coming off the drain pipe, just right
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: into my mouth because I can breathe. Yeah.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it gets pretty crummy in there. Oh, I bet. Yeah,
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: it's shitty. 20 years, you were Tony Bonfiglio.
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: Yep. And that's Italian.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: That's Italian, man. My whole family's from East Harlem.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: You know, we're Italian.
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's fun, huh?
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Grew up in New Hyde Park. My father moved us
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  Speaker 3: out of the Bronx when I was about six. Yeah.
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: And we moved to New Hyde Park. That's like a
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: town on the Queens borderline on the suburb side. Bring
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: it up. New Hyde Park?
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: New Hyde Park. Went to Herrick's High School. What was
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: it like back then?
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: Oh, it was great. It was like all blue-collar workers.
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: You know, all the blue-collar workers, kids, you know, we
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: had bus drivers, cops, firemen, truck drivers.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: So it was a nice suburb over there, huh? Oh,
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: it was great. Right over the city line. I mean,
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: I had such a great childhood.
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: We had so much fun running around, you know, doing
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: all kinds of crazy shit back then.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: Hot rods, motorcycles.
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: Mischief, huh?
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, mischief. Rock and roll, rock clubs. Oh, in Long Island,
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: rock clubs.
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: Listening to some Def Leppard, some ACDC? Yeah, well, back
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: then it was Twisted Sister, and we used to go
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: to the clubs and see Twisted Sister, OBI. There was
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: a bunch of good bands back then, house bands, but
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: they would play all the cover songs.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: You had, like, Doors. You had Zeppelin.
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
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  Speaker 2: It was awesome.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a beautiful time, dude. I think that's kind
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: of a time that a lot of people romanticize as well,
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: you know?
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: I think so.
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  Speaker 3: I always say that when I die, I hope the
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: heavens like the 70s, man, because that was so awesome.
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  Speaker 2: Kicked ass. And you were on the FDNY for 20 years? Yeah, 21.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: 21 years.
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: How did you get started? Like, what were you doing
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: before you got into firefighting? Because things are going well.
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: You're listening to Twisted Sister. Yeah, hanging out with the boys,
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: getting in trouble. I did get arrested. I was at
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: Speaks Club once in Lido Beach. And I did get
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: arrested there for having some weed and a couple other
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: things on us. Yeah, we were young. So, yeah, we just,
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: and I was going nowhere. I went to college for
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: like maybe three weeks or so. Oh, yeah, that's not enough.
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  Speaker 3: Farmingdale University, I went for food technology. I was going
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: to be a meat inspector. Oh, really?
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  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. Thank God that didn't happen.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, hell yeah, dude. Well, I was working in a
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  Speaker 3: meat factory when I was a kid, scraping hangar room
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: floors like Paulie and Rocky. You know, I had the
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  Speaker 3: white coat on. I'm freezing, scraping the blood and the
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: fat off these floors all day. And what was that
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  Speaker 3: like over there? So what kind of meats did they
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  Speaker 3: even have going in and out of there? Just big
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: sides of beef, big factory, like hanging rooms, big hanging rooms.
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  Speaker 3: And would you be alone in there? Nah, there'd be
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: other people, butchers coming in, grabbing their meat. It was
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: like a big production place, you know, big time, lots
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: of trucks. They would give all the meat out to
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: all the restaurants and everything. And that was right in Mineola.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's pretty cool. And Mineola, is that here in
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: New York?
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Mineola is pretty much right by New Hyde Park.
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  Speaker 2: Got it.
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  Speaker 1: So you're over there. You're in there with the meat,
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: you know. You're in there at night.
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  Speaker 2: Like Rocky hitting the meat.
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure when nobody's looking. Because that
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: was right around the time, you know. Oh, yeah.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: Oh, for sure. Yeah, there we go. That's what it
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: looked like.
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  Speaker 3: Oh, definitely.
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  Speaker 2: Everything turned to veal after this came out.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: You know, that was just, bro, you couldn't, you couldn't
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  Speaker 1: get something that wasn't tenderized.
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  Speaker 2: It was funny because we were all kids too.
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: And you would, you know, all this meat after the
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: place closed would be, but we never took an ounce
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: of meat, you know, back then.
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  Speaker 1: You got all this beautiful meat.
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  Speaker 2: You guys would be like big tubs of filet mignons,
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: all kinds of things.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: And then I had a- So what happens?
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you're in there. You're beating. You guys are punching
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: the meat or whatever.
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  Speaker 1: And was that kind of a common future in your area?
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: No, it was not at all. I just got a
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: job there. My friends were all working there. The whole
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: crew was working.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's fun. And we were the cleanup crew.
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: So once the butchers were all done, we would come
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: in with these high-pressure hoses, and we would just hose
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: this whole place down. Y'all were just partying probably. Yeah,
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: and then we'd oil it up with vegetable oil. It
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: was a funny job, yeah.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: But what was the vegetable oil for?
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: Just make everything shiny and clean because we had online,
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: the inspectors were there. There was two inspectors every day
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: and they would inspect everything. And if they didn't get
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: their payola, then they would knock a machine down and
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: then they'd have to rope the whole thing off and
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: we would have to come in and clean the machine
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  Speaker 3: and then they'd inspect it again.
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  Speaker 1: So it was a little bit of kind of a meat,
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  Speaker 1: was it kind of a meat mafia kind of going
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  Speaker 1: on a little bit or something?
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  Speaker 2: Meat mafia, yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Was it really? Mm-hmm. Wow.
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  Speaker 2: It was owned by two Jewish brothers, the Coens.
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  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: So you know something. Something was afoot, you know? And
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  Speaker 1: so what makes you get out of there? Were your
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: friends kind of graduating? Because I ended up working at, dude,
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  Speaker 1: me and like five of my buddies worked over there at, well,
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  Speaker 1: I think it was called Savison or something. It was
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  Speaker 1: a grocery or Winn-Dixie, maybe it was called. Right. Dude,
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  Speaker 1: one of my buddies would come, clock in, go home.
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  Speaker 1: And then he would wake up and he'd come clock out, dude.
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  Speaker 1: He worked there for like, yeah, he worked there for
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  Speaker 1: almost 11 months. Dude, and the rest of us were
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  Speaker 1: afraid to do that. So we'd actually be in there working.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: But we would during like, but it was so much
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  Speaker 1: fun as having your friend, bro. There was nothing better,
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  Speaker 1: I think, than that time if you were either like
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: late years of high school or right out of high school,
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  Speaker 1: and you got to work with like your buddies who
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  Speaker 1: hadn't gone all, like nobody kind of figured it out yet,
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  Speaker 1: and you got to work with your friends. That's what
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  Speaker 1: it was.
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  Speaker 3: Saturday morning, we'd all be banged up, you know, from
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: being out drinking all night. We'd just be getting home,
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  Speaker 3: and we had to go in Saturday morning to clean,
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  Speaker 3: to oil the whole place.
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  Speaker 2: So those were fun trips. We had oil fights. We'd
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  Speaker 2: get soaked in oil.
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  Speaker 3: Oh, God.
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  Speaker 1: I think we might pick up a new listenership during
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: this episode.
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  Speaker 3: Oh, man, we would have some good oil fights. Really?
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  Speaker 3: Because you'd have these big squirt bottles, and then we'd
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: have these 55-gallon drums of oil. What?
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: And with seed oil?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was vegetable oil.
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  Speaker 3: Oh, Lord. We would even do the trucks in the
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: vegetable oil. It looks like they got waxed. What?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, they were all shiny. And what vegetables was it
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: coming out of? I have no idea.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: Look up vegetable. I never even thought about that. What
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: could even have that much oil? Maybe an eggplant? What
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  Speaker 1: is vegetable made of?
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  Speaker 2: Vegetables.
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  Speaker 3: You'd think, but what?
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  Speaker 2: They squish them.
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  Speaker 1: Vegetable is made from the oils extracted from various plant
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  Speaker 1: parts like seeds, fruits, nuts, and grains, most commonly soybeans, corn, canola, sunflower,
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: and palm. Because that's kind of the oil that everybody's
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: kind of against nowadays, you know? But I guess you
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: guys were just using it to keep stuff shiny.
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: Shiny.
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: Wow. Yeah.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: I didn't even know people used it like that.
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we had these black trucks and they would look
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: all waxed after we were done oiling them all down.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: And it stunk too, you know, because it was such
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: a big place and there'd be a lot of like
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: the bones and the fat and you'd had to go
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: in the pit sometimes.
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: It's like you would puke. It was so bad smelling.
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: What was the pit? It was kind of like below
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: the floor. Yeah, that's where all the water would drain
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: into the... And every now and then, our boss would
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: have to go in there. I'd see him reaching in.
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: He'd have, like, fat on his glasses and shit. It was, oh,
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: it was gross. Yeah. Oh, yeah, dude.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I didn't want to stay there.
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: God, yeah. It was cold. It was cold in there, too? Oh,
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: and there was freezers there, and the guys that worked
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: in the freezers, oh, You never saw them. They looked
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: like they were from the Antarctic. They had these hoods
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: and these parkas and they were big boots. And you'd
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: see them now and then. They were kind of scary.
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: You know, you were a kid. You're like, there's the
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: freezer men, you know. They never came out of the freezer. Yeah, dude. Oh,
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: that's fucking wild. Yeah.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: Be living in it. It's hiding from your wife and
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: kids probably in there. Oh, God.
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: That's when family life's bad. When you're like, I don't
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: care how cold it is. I'll stay in there.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's bad. That's the last job you want is
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: working in a freezer.
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: Oh, I think so. That was in the line. And
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: what kind of guys would do it? Was it tough guys?
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: Was it Russians?
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: Who was doing it?
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: Tough fucking guys.
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: Butchers.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: Psychos. They got their own toolbox of knives. You know,
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: the big. A couple of times they would pick you
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: up by your shirt, you know. Because we were just
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: the kids, you know. We were running around.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: And you ever get arrested for crimes or anything like that?
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: Like you think where any of them low-key like Dexters
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: or like kind of that kind of guy?
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: They were low-key, but strange, some of them.
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah dang that's why then you had the women they
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: were the packers oh they were yeah they would like
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: pack the chickens and all that and wrap it and everything.
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah women do better gift wrapping they had like.
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: Tough women too they were working there was like that
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: the boss of the women was a real tough broad
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: oh yeah oh yeah.
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: Some girl with a tattoo of richard den.
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: On her smoking everybody be out smoking yeah your smoke
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: breaks and the guy would come with the uh the
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: roach coach and call you out for your coffee and shit.
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: He would? Yeah, the coffee roach, you know. There were
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: a lot of roach coaches here and everybody would come out.
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: You know what a roach coach is? Uh-uh.
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: It's a coffee truck.
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: All right. Back in the day, they would come to, like, factories. Oh,
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: so it just pulls up and you go out and
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: get your snack?
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: And they would be like, all right, the guy's here.
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: And everybody would be out on break, get their coffee,
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: their lousy donut, whatever he had. A little bit of
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: a break. Yeah, I like that, man.
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: Dude, when I was a kindergartner, they had, or I
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: don't know what grade I was in. I wasn't even
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: in a grade. But it was nap time or whatever
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: at kindergarten. But I wouldn't sleep, right? I would keep
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: my eyes open because they had this, they'd bring in
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: this other lady to watch us.
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: And I was like kind of curious about her. So
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: I would just kind of lay over there. You were
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: eyeballing her. Yeah, I was kind of eyeballing her, I guess,
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: you know. Because me and my mother were always on
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: the outs. I was shopping around. So I remember like
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: at a certain point she'd come over and kind of
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: kick me a little bit.
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: And she'd let me go outside and watch her smoke.
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's funny. Oh, that was nice, dude. And she
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: had pretty nice hair. She looked a little bit like
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: a man.
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: But she was definitely. What year was that?
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: Oh, this was probably 84.
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: Early 80s. God.
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: She looked like a fucking man. But she's like only
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: the third woman I'd ever seen, you know?
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: So at that point, she was really good looking. You
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: don't know, yeah.
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, she's beautiful to me.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: You know, she was just stunning, dude. But yeah, she'd
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: let me go out there and watch her smoke, and
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: she'd complain about stuff.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's funny.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: God, that was nice, man. Just getting a little break,
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: you know? So that was like, it felt like it
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: was my break from kindergarten. Like we're on break.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: Oh, I remember kindergarten well.
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: Really? Oh yeah.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: Nap time.
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: That was the best snack and nap. And then out
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: to the sandbox and dig a hole of China.
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Dig a hole down to a fucking butcher shop.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: They would always put like a cone in the sand.
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: They'd be like, oh, you're almost in China. You know,
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: I'd be like, yeah, let's keep digging. Yeah, yeah, dude.
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: And then some kid would get sand in his eyes
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: and he would look like.
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: He was Chinese. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what I got good, dude.
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: So, yeah, so take me out.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: How do you get out of the meat area into
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: the fire? Like take me out of the freezer into
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: the fire, man.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: Take me there.
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: Well, I went– After that, I went to a plastic
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: mold injection factory job. Unemployment sent me to.
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: Oh, they did? They were making body parts? No, no.
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: We were making, there was a game called Othello back then.
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: It was like a black and white chip.
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I remember that game.
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: And we were making the chips and we made the
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: colored beads. So it was all, like, these plastic mold injectors.
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: The color beads for, like, what, Mardi Gras or something?
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Mardi.
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: People just buy them for their crafts and stuff like that.
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: They're, like, 100 different colors. Yeah.
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: And I could never remember the color after I boxed
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: it up.
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: I'd get ready to send it.
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: Get to open back up. I'd be like, oh, amethyst, brown, green.
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: I'd put something down, and then the guy would come back.
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: You can't be yelling at me. You can't send these out.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: And I'm laughing.
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: He's like, what are you laughing about? I mean, I'm
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: making $ 3 an hour, so I.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: Wasn't— Dude, I remember one time I ate a bunch
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: of mushrooms or whatever after school, and I worked at
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: this mail center, right? My job was to mail out
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: these insurance forms to these different companies around the country.
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: Well, I'm in the mail room, dude. I'm not doing
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: real good. Oh, I could imagine.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, my body had gotten really hot, so I
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: took all my clothes off. And I put all my
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: clothes into a box, mailed them to some place.
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: Oh, my God, that's great.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: Dude, my first girlfriend... Her mom got me that job.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: Her dad, shout out Mr. Earl, he was a fire chief, actually.
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: Oh, really?
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: Yep. But anyway, I got laid off. And yeah, the
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: mother had to come.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: Thank God it was a day it was raining because
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: she let me borrow a raincoat she had so I
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: could go get in my car.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, wow.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: So anyway, we made some tough choices over the years.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: But I did have a good time. They had a
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: firehouse down there on Chapatulas in New Orleans. And it
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: would be great because the Mardi Gras parades were down there.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: So we'd go down there.
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: And the firehouse would be open on days like that
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: and all the families. Must have been an old firehouse, too.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: It was beautiful, yeah. I think bring it right up.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: It's right down there off of Chapatoulis over there. And
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: that was it right there.
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: Oh, I see it. That's it right there. It looks
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: like they made it into something. Yeah, they made it
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: into something.
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: But anyway, it was a great time, man.
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: It was a great time. We'd go over there. Everybody's
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: cooking hot dogs. Yeah.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: And just having a great time.
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: That was a beautiful time.
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: Oh, the Cajun.
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah. We had so much fun, man.
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: I'll bet.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: So how do you get into there, man? So you're
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: over there making jewelry and stuff?
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: Well, the funny part is they sent me to this
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: place called Stonewell Plastics in Mineola, and I go in
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: and I got this little Mexican guy. He's doing the
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: interview with me. He's got, it's like middle-aged little guy.
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: He's got a little pencil mustache, you know?
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: So I'm sitting there. I'm 18, you know, and he goes,
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: so what's your name? And I said, Tony Bonfiglio. He
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: writes it down. He says, and how old are you, Tony?
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: I said, I'm 18. Writes it down. He goes, and Tony,
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: were you born here? I said, no, I was born
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: in New Jersey. He starts laughing. Oh, you'll do, you'll do.
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: And when I went back there, I realized I was
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: the only American in the place.
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: Everybody else was foreign. Oh, damn.
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: So you were in there learning Spanish, huh?
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Spanish.
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: What languages were they?
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, who was that? It was mostly Spanish. Yeah?
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there was some black people, but. Even them I
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: didn't understand because some of them from Brooklyn. I had
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: one friend, he would drive me home. I would say, yeah,
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: I'd shake his hand. He'd shake his hand. We don't
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: know what the hell he was saying.
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: Dude, I still can't understand black people. I'd be like, yeah, motherfucker.
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, dude. I mean, look, bro.
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: I don't know what he said.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: It's 40 years later. Something's never changed. And maybe it's
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: for the best, you know? Could be, yeah.
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: So you're in there.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: Are you just like this in for me? Or how
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: do the winds blow you over to the fire world?
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: Well, then I went, my father got me into the
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: printing union, the Amalgamated Lithographers of America Local 1. Wow.
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: And I did that for about four years. But I
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: took the fire department test when I was 18. I
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: was 19, like 78. And was that part of school
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: you had to take it? No, my neighbor came over
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: and he came in our back door with an application.
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: Johnny LaLima, thank God Johnny saved my life, gives me
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: the application. He says, you'll never get rich on this job,
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: but it'll put a roof over your head and food
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: on your table.
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: So I'm sitting at my kitchen table. I'm like, okay, Johnny, thanks.
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: I had no idea it.
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: Was going to be the biggest career move of my life.
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, what made him even come over there and do that,
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: I wonder?
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: I guess he knew I was going nowhere because he
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: was my neighbor, and they saw us all hanging out
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: all the time. I figured this kid would be a fireman.
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: It would be all right. So thank God. I mean,
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: he saved me because I was going. The printing union
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: was going south. Computers were coming in, and they weren't
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: printing anymore on these big printing presses.
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: So I got that, and then about a year later,
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: I took a physical test after the written test. The
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: written test we took in a high school somewhere in Queens.
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: And was there a lot of people taking those tests
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: at the time?
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: 40,000. 40,000 people wanted to be firemen? Yeah. Wow.
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: Because the job, I think, in a lot of ways,
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: it's a very family, like it's a lineage job. It's
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: like a lot of families do it.
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: Definitely. And there's a lot of esteem with it, you know?
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: Time.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: Especially at that time, what was it like? Like, was
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: it a very revered position? Did you even think you
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: could get it?
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: Get the job?
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: I think I, you know, cause I was 19, I
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: was in great shape and the physical test is really
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: where they separate everybody. The written test was a joke.
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: I mean, it was like a third grade questions, you know? Yeah.
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: Remember any of them or no? Uh, well, I, you know,
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: I saw the, the sanitation guy, he was saying about
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: the dirt and the shovel. That's exactly what it was like.
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: What would you use? A garbage truck, a plow or
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: a a shovel and brew, but it'd be ridiculous if
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: you got your name right, you know, that was it.
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: So I got a 98 on the written test, probably
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: the highest I ever gotten any.
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: Test in my life.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: But what was the physical part like? Like take me
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: through that.
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: My father took me to East New York to an
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: armory in this real shit neighborhood. And we parked his
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: Buick Regal. It was like the nicest car my dad
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: ever had. And I bought him these spoke rims for
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: it for his birthday. Oh, those are nice. So we
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: get there, and he says, here, you take the keys.
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: I'm running for the subway, and you take the car home.
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: I'm like, yeah, you sure, Dad? You want to? Yeah,
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: don't worry about it. I mean, he's an East Harlem guy,
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: so I wasn't too worried about him. So he took off.
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: I go in this armory. It's like when you get
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: in there, it's the size of a football field. And
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: there's 100 guys that day that are going to take
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: the test. And they break you up into like 10
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: men groups, and you go around all these different stations,
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: and you take different tests.
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: You had to run. One was a mile.
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: One was an eight-foot wall. You had to jump over
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: the eight-foot wall. That was like the separator. Like if
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: you didn't get over the eight-foot wall, you went to
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: the police department.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: Sorry, guys.
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: Hey.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: That's what separated them.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: That's what it is, man. Sometimes you got to separate
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: the beef from the pork, you know? Well, the funny
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: part is I got a zero on one of them.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: And if you get a zero on one of those stations,
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: you're done. You're not going to get hired.
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: Which one was you?
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: I had this thing called a ledge walk. You had
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: to put on a turnout coat, a helmet. You had
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: to put boots on. You had to put a mask on.
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: and you went up on a balance beam next to
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: a wall and you had a slide along the wall.
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: Like you were shimmying along a ledge. It was called
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: the ledge walk. I'm shimmying along this thing. I'm like,
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: why the fuck would I be on a ledge? I mean,
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: is this job that crazy? What am I, Batman? You know,
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: I'm going to be out on the ledge and I
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: went all the way down. I touched the line. I
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: came all the way back. And the woman scoring me says,
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: you didn't touch the line down there.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: Uh-uh.
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: What?
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: I race all the way back, touch the line. I
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: come back. She says, you ran out of time. I
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: got a zero. I was like, ah, that's it. Everything
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: was down the drain. Come on. You think she just
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: didn't do it correctly? I think, yeah, I do.
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: I think she was there to knock some of the
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: white guys out because there was too many white guys
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: on the job, which they were complaining about. They wanted women.
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: They wanted minorities. I think they were told, because I
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: stepped on the line. She wasn't even anywhere near the line. But,
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: you know, it's like everything happens for a reason, you know? Right.
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: I mean. Right. And so you get to zero.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: Pissed. And so, but, and there's 10 stations. You do
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: fine on the rest of them.
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: You get out of there.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: And are you then waiting for your grade? Like, do
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: you even like.
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so now after you get all that done, everybody
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: says their half-assed goodbyes. I went back out. Thank God
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: my father's Regal was still there. Yeah. I got into Regal.
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: I found I had a joint in my workout bag.
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: I lit that sucker up. And now I'm driving home.
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: We had no directions back then, so I'm looking for
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: signs for the LIE.
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: And boom, I get home. My dad was there. How'd
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: you do? I said, yeah, I think I did all right.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: So now.
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: It's the girls have a lawsuit because 40 girls took
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: the test, the first 40 girls ever, and they didn't
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: pass with 40,000 applicants. None of them passed?
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: None of them passed.
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: Were some of the women in there on that day?
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: You were there with that 100 people?
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: No, I didn't see any women that day.
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: But we had a couple in my battalion when I
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: got there. So anyway, they had a lawsuit, and this
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: lawsuit went on for six years. So from that time
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: I took the test, I didn't get a notice that
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: I was hired for six years. Because it was- Because
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: of the women, because the lawsuit took so long. They
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: usually hire about 2,500 people off the list. Now they
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: had to go deep into the list. And because of
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: that zero, I was like 4,300 on the list. So
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: the women saved me.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: Thank God. Thank you, girls. I appreciate it. Yeah, because
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: rarely does a complaining woman save you. Oh, they saved
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: me that day. Brenda Berkman right there. Brenda Berkman. Everybody
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: knows Brenda.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: Pioneering female firefighter. She was the sole named class plaintiff. Yeah,
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: she was a lawyer. In the federal sex discrimination lawsuit
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: that opened the fire department in New York to women firefighters.
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: After she won the lawsuit in 82, she and 40
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: other women became FDNY firefighters. Was that a time where, like,
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: were people like supportive of the women?
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: Were they against the women? What did that feel like?
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: Did it feel like they were totally against the women?
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: They were. It was an all male place, you know?
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And, you know, I guess a lot of guys,
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: they don't feel like they didn't mind the women that
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: really passed the test, but to just get on because
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: you're a woman that was not, you know, today now
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: they have girls, you know, there's so much into athletics
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: and stuff. They could pass these tests now, but back then,
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: you know, it wasn't like that.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: So some of it, they were just kind of stacking
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: the deck, like we're just going to put some extra
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: girls in. Because some of that's just a liability.
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: That's it. Well, yeah, life and death. And a liability
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: for their own life. That too, yeah.
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: But, I mean, if your kid is trapped in a fire,
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: you want the best person going to get that kid,
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: not somebody that didn't make it. Yeah, for sure, 100%.
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: I agree with that. But they saved me, and I'm
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: the luckiest guy for that.
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: So you're in, huh?
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: I'm in.
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: You made it in. Yeah.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: And do you remember, like, Like when you, do you
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: get a letter that's like, yeah, I'm in, you got it?
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: And does it have flames on the- My wife, my
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: wife came, I come pulling up in the parking lot
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: from the, working at Mastercraft Litho.
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: And I had a little Chevette.
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: We both shared this little Chevette car that my wife
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: bought on her own when we were kids. And I
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: see her coming across the parking lot with a wave
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: in the, I said, what is it?
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: She goes to fire department, watch six years. Fire department,
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: watch it. They're going to hire you. I said, holy shit.
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: I looked at it.
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: Tony Bonfiglio, New York City fireman, report to Randall's Island,
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: 823 something, 84.
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: I was like, I'll be there. That's pretty cool, huh?
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: Oh my God. I was so happy.
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: She was happy.
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: She was happy. I was happy. And where did you
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: meet your wife, Christine?
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: I met her.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: I know she's here with us today. Where did you
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: meet your wife at? Well, on my block.
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: I was walking up my block in our neighborhood and
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: her and her sister just moved in from the Bronx.
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: They were in the Marble Hill Projects. They were like
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: the last ones out of these projects. And so I'm
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: going up the block. I'm like 14 years old.
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: And they're coming down with one of my friends and
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: he's like, hey, these two girls just moved in from
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: the Bronx, you know, Chris and Bernie. And I'm like, hey.
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: First of all, I was like, thought he was pulling
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: my leg. So that was like how we met. And then,
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: you know, we went through school. We didn't really date
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: until we were like 18. Mm-hmm. Hey, there you go.
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: Here we are, yeah. That's a great shot, yeah. Yeah,
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: I was like size 32 waist back then. Hey, huh? Look,
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: I'm looking at Christine, okay?
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, she's looking good. Yeah, yeah.
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: You can say what I'm looking at your waist, buddy. Yeah,
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: we were like 24 years old there. I was just
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: getting out of the academy. That's graduation day. I graduated
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: from there after six weeks of training. Oh, that's nice, huh? Yeah. Yeah, dude,
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: you look pretty pleased. Well, the funny part is they
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: give us your assignment, you know? So I get this thing,
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: 34 truck. Now, like 150 firemen, only 10 are going
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: to go to trucks.
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: The other 140 are going to go to engine companies.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: There's an engine company.
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: They're the water. They got the hoses. And then there's
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: the truck. That's the ladders. And, you know, they break
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: down the doors. The ledge walkers. The ledge walkers. So
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: I didn't want to go to a truck. I didn't
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: like the heights. I didn't like the ropes. I didn't
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: like the ladders.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Look, I got a zero.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: On the ledge walk. Yeah, you got the wrong guy.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: And why did they choose you for that then?
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: I have no idea.
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: My father said they saw how good I was at
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: breaking things, that they sent him to the truck. So
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: now I see a truck in Manhattan.
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, man. All right.
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: So I tell her, I says, I'm going to a truck.
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: 34 truck. They gave me a truck. She's like, they
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: gave me a truck. I'm like, yeah, because most guys
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: are in the engine for like maybe five, 10 years
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: before they get to a truck. And so in the
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: engine means they're in the actual fire engine? They're in
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: the engine and they're a separate company. You know, they're
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: engine A4 and we were ladder three, four. It was
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: a big hundred year old firehouse.
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: And so a ladder, they do different stuff than the
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: engine does.
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: The engine puts the fire out. Okay.
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: The ladder opens up, opens up the door, breaks the
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: doors down, opens, cuts the roofs open, makes all the
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: rescues and the searches. It's a lot more intimidating because
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: you don't have the hose line. You're actually in there
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: crawling around. With no water.
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: No water. Maybe a can on your back.
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: What?
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was a can man for quite a while.
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: And that's heating up quick probably.
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: So you get in a ladder and where's the ladder at?
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: What's that like?
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: 161st Street in Manhattan.
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: On Orphan Saddam Avenue in a place called Washington Heights.
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: Washington Heights.
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, a lot of Dominicans up there. Oh, my God.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: When I got there, they were just coming in.
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And they took over with blood, man. They killed everybody. Really? Oh,
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: they took over the drug business because that was the hub.
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: You had the GW Bridge right there. You had all
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: the parkways to head out to Brooklyn, out to Long Island.
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: So everybody would come in and buy their crack and
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: their cocaine. It was badass. I mean, they would be
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: shooting all day long. Was it exciting? It was.
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Oh, my God.
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: And the place was so crowded. It was like full
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: of people with these old broken down tenement buildings. Brownstones, tenements,
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: all broken down, hundreds of years old. The firehouse was
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: 100 years old.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: Was it exciting to go work there? Did it feel scary?
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: What did it kind of become for you?
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: Well, the funny part I was going to say is
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: that I went with my wife from the graduation. I said,
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: we got to go. It's on 84th Street, I told her.
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: I didn't realize that was 84 Engine when I.
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: Read the thing.
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: So I take her into Manhattan, and I take her
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: down 84th Street, and there's no firehouse. I go all
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: the way back up to the west side. I come
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: all the way down. There's no fire. And we're saying, wow,
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: this is nice.
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: Look at this.
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: It's all money, brownstones, high-end stores. Finally, I go around
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: 85th Street and I find a firehouse and I got
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: my uniform on and they tell you to not always
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: knock on the door and say probationary firefighter Bonfiglio. This
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: old guy answers the door. What can I do for you, probie?
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: He knew right away I was a probie just by
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: looking at me with the stuff on. I said, I'm
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: looking for my firehouse, 34 truck. They said it's on
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: 84th Street. He's like, wow, let me look at that.
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: He's like, dude.
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: You're in with 84 engine and you're on 161st Street.
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: I was like, what?
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: Holy shit. I had to get in the car and
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: tell my wife we got to go up to 100.
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: And now we left the glitz and now we're in
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: this freaking rundown neighborhood.
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: It was like, holy shit. The music's a little bit better.
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: You got a lot of salsa blasting in the streets.
• 29:10
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• 30:34
  Speaker 3: Play responsibly. So you're in there. You're in the ladder.
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: Truck company. Ladder company.
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: You're in the truck company. You guys are the ones
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: that go in. So you have more of an ax
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: than you do a hose. We got a forcible entry team.
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: Okay. A roof man.
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: And another guy that's called the OV, he vents out
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: the outside, he goes up the fire escapes. Oh, yeah,
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: peeping Tom, probably.
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: You're the guy, the first guy in to break in
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: the window. Yeah, or just sitting there by it. I
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: won't say nothing. So do you guys get there before
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: an engine gets there, or does that matter? We try
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: to get there at the same time. You never know.
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: I mean, if we're leaving quarters together, we always let
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: the engine take off first.
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: Hopefully they go and find a hydrant.
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: Okay, got it.
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: And we tried to get in front of the building
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: with the ladder. Okay, got it. So take me on
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: your first fire.
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: My first fire. Well, I've been at car fires, rubbish fires.
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: We had water leaks, so many water leaks because it
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: was such an old neighborhood. When we go to a
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: water leak, we got to find out where it's leaking.
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: Sometimes we got to break into the apartment, gas leaks.
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: We did everything, all the utilities up there. So I
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: do it for about three weeks. I'm still wondering, oh
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: my God, what's going to happen? What's it going to
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: be like? I still have no idea. I'm a can man.
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: The probie gets the can. Okay, and the can means what?
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: I got a fire extinguisher with a strap on my back,
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: and I got a hook. And I'm going to be
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: the guy that if I can put out whatever fire
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: I can with the can. Oh.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: Is it actually helpful? Is the can helpful?
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: If a good can man could maybe put out a
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: room of fire. Okay, okay. Yeah, you get your finger
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: over that thing, you spread it around.
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: So it's real?
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: It's real, yeah.
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: Okay, got it.
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: Do you remember the day that you get your first five?
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it was like three weeks in, and I'm doing
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: my first 12-by watch. So you have a house watch,
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: and somebody's got to man it. It's got a computer
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: in there that comes on and tells you what your
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: alarms are, and you acknowledge them. You hit all the lights.
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: You send the companies out. So I got to do
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: my first 12-by. So I never done a watch alone yet.
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: So the 12-by was like, you know, it was a
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: little scary at first. And that's 12 hours? No, 12
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: to 3. You do a three-hour watch. Okay.
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: So 12 o'clock came. I went in. I took the
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: book over.
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: It's midnight. And I'm sitting there. And it's like 1
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: o'clock in the morning. And all of a sudden, like 1.30,
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: I start falling asleep.
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: I'm like sleeping. Look, I've had a job before.
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: I know how it is. I'm sacked out. All of
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: a sudden, the alarm goes off. The computer goes, it
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: starts ticking out this alarm. I'm like, oh my God,
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: I was so scared. I got up, I hit the
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: house watch light. I'm looking at the ticket. It says
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: engine A4, ladder three, four, first two, fire on an
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: eighth floor. So now I got to hit all the
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: bunk room lights. I got to hit the intercom, say
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: everybody goes. I got to hit the three bells. And
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: then I got to acknowledge on the computer, both companies, 10-4.
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: And then I got to take the tickets and put
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: them on the truck side and the engine side. And
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: then I put my gear on and out the door
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: we go. Let's go, Tony. I'm amped up.
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: Oh, man.
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: So now we get there. It's 3.30, quarter to four
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: in the morning. And it's like a projects building, about
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: 11 stories. It was a pretty decent building. It was
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: on Amsterdam Avenue. And so we're the forceful entry team. Me,
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: my lieutenant, who was this salty guy from the Bronx, Spinelli,
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: he was like a real I mean, he was the
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: war days, you know, back in the 60s and the 70s.
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: How salty?
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: Salty means, you know, like, yeah.
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah. Yes, he was salty. Burly mustache, unruly hair.
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: Gout in his smile, huh?
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: It's all bent and burnt, you know.
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, dude, definitely.
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: Great guy, though, you know. Yeah, it's like he was
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: raised in an ashtray.
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: Oh, this guy, yeah.
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: So, the forceful entry team is a cam man, an
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: irons man. He's got an axe and a halogen and
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: the boss. And we're the three guys. So, now we
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: go into the... lobby door, and we hit all the buzzes, 3.30
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: in the morning.
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: And there's people in there sleeping.
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no, they're in there. So all of a sudden
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: they start, who is it, who is it? You're like,
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: fire department, open the door, open the door, fire department.
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: So they buzz you in. Now they go in the lobby,
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: nothing's showing, nobody's bailing out, you know. So I'm like, eh,
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: I don't know, so this might not be it. Take
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: an elevator to the seventh floor because the fire was
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: on the eighth floor. So we get to the seventh floor,
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: and you never take the fire, the elevator to the
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: fire floor for obvious reasons. So we take it and
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: we take the stairs to the eighth floor and we
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: get in this hallway and now it's like a big
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: projects hallway. I don't know if you ever seen one
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: of them, but they're painted green and they got like
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: fluorescent lights and it's long. So we go to all
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: the doors and we stick our noses in the jams
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: trying to smell smoke. We don't smell nothing. So the
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: boss says to my friend, Jimmy, the Duke, he says,
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: go up to the next floor and check it out.
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: Calls down the battalion, says, yeah, we got nothing showing
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: on the eighth floor. We're going to check out the
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: ninth floor. So with that, now we go into the
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: hallway and my friend is on the top of the
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: stairs and he says, Lou, I think we got something.
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: So I'm like, oh shit, this is it. I'm in
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: this project hallway, quarter to four in the morning. I'm
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: running up the steps with my hook and everything. And
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: I said, the boss says, what do we have? And
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: the Duke opens this door. And I was like, oh
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: my God, if there was a gate to hell, this was.
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: It, okay?
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: Black shimmering smoke that looked like satin curtains just going
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: in all different directions. And my first thought was no
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: way we're fucking going in there, right?
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: I see these guys, hey, look, let me see a
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: two bedroom. This won't work for us.
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: They're pulling their boots up and they're putting their air,
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: they're turning the air bottles on and everything. I'm like,
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: oh shit, this is it. So now we're getting down
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: on our hands and knees, and the Duke tells me,
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: you hold my coat, okay? And I'm like, yeah, for
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: sure I'm holding your coat. So you're behind him crawling?
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: I'm behind the Duke.
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: The boss goes in first like this black abyss we
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: just crawl into on the floor. And what are y'all
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: looking for?
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: The fire department. We got to find it.
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: Oh, so this is just the hallway? The hallway. Oh,
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: I thought that.
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: Somebody left their door open. Pull up that hallway you had, Nick.
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: Is that the one from the actual building?
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Oh, this is a general one.
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: I think I know what you're talking about though. It's
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: narrow hallways. Narrow hallways, long green.
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: Look at that color. Yellowish green. That looked just like that.
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: Oh God. So now we're on our hands and knees
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: and I'm, I'm got his coat.
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: I got the can on my back.
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: I got my mask on and we're in total blackness
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: and I'm crawling down like a hundred feet. And I'm
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: saying in my mask, I'm saying, what the fuck am
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: I doing here? This is fucking crazy. I'm never going
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: to do this again. I felt so helpless.
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: And what am I going to do?
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: It's pitch black. We're crawling in a hallway we've never
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: been before.
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, dude. Oh, yeah.
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: So we crawl up. And then all of a sudden,
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: the Duke stops. And he says, we're at the fire door.
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, oh, OK. Can't see nothing. Yeah, it
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: almost seems like some kind of sex trafficking or something,
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: you know?
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: Ooh, they.
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: Whatever's going on, it sounds kind of out of sorts,
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: you know? It's out of sorts.
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: Anyway, so carry on, sorry. So it's something that I never,
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: I'm quitting in the morning. I swear to God, I
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: was quitting. I was like, what are we going to
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: do in here? We can't see, I'm on the ground.
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: So finally we call in and I crawl in and
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: I hear the boss. He's up ahead of us in
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: the apartment already. He says, bring the can in here.
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: So now I crawl past the Duke. I'm on my
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: hands and knees. And about 10 feet up, I see
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: the boss on his knees with a glow of the fire.
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: He goes, you see the fire?
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: It's to the left.
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: And I look and there's a room on fire. It
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: looks like cotton candy. The flames are like all over
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: the place. And how much is it protecting you? How
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: much is your suit protecting you at that point? Nah, nothing.
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: What? Dude didn't take it off, bro. Yeah, no.
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: They're just coats, you know, to keep you warm, basically.
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: They got your leather helmet on. Keep you warm.
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: And at that point, does it kind of take on, like,
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: do you start to feel a little bit more empowered
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: kind of or something?
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: No, I felt scared shit. I just wanted to get
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: out of there and get this fire over with.
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: So now I see him and he says, do you
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: see the fire? And I look to the left and
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: I said, yeah, I see the fire.
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: I'm in this mask, you know. And he says, hit
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: it with the can.
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: I got the can and I'm on my knees and
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: I go to hit it and nothing comes out. I
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: hit it again, nothing comes out. I didn't have air
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: in the can. It's like a total fuck-up for a pro.
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: You should have put it in there? That's my fuck-up. Oh,
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: my first job. So I said to the boss, I
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: got no air in the can. Oh, I've used that
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: excuse a lot of times. A lot of times over
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: the years, buddy. I'll tell you that.
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: And I want to apologize to a lot of those
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: women out there.
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: But yeah, that was my excuse. I got no air
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: in the can.
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: You know?
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: That's a good analogy.
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I got a ladder issue. But go on.
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: Fully extended.
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: Fuck, you must have been embarrassed, huh? I wasn't embarrassed,
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: but yeah, I felt like, oh man, I'm going to
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: catch some shit for this. Yeah, I embarrassed everything.
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: Did you like just make a sound like you had
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: air in it?
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: No. Like. I didn't make no sounds. I could believe
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: it because, I mean, you always check the can, you know?
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: You got to pressurize it, put a little water.
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: So he says, all right, back out. to the doorway.
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: So now the fire's coming out over our heads in
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: the hallway. And I get to the door. We came
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: in crawling. And the elevator was right across from the apartment,
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: the fire apartment. And the door opens. And there's 84
• 40:04
  Speaker 3: Engine without a mask on or anything. They took the
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: elevator to the fire floor. And they got stuck. And
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: they're going down on their knees, and they're trying to
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: put their masks on. And I'm yelling in my mask.
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: I'm like, get the fucking line in here and put
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: the fucking five. I'm screaming. I'm like out of my
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: mind now. So finally, they get in the line. Now
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: it's black again. And the line is the hose? The hose. OK.
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: And it's all asses and elbows now in this hallway.
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: That's what we call organized confusion. And everybody started bringing
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: the line past me. I see him get up to
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: the room, and the boss says, there's the fire to
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: the left. He crack, I hear the line crack, you know,
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: get the water comes up, he cracks it, and now
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: he hits it, you know, and he starts pushing the
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: fire in. And I squeeze past them because I got
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: to search the apartment. That's my job.
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: And you're searching for it to see if there's anybody
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: in there. The bodies, yeah.
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: Wow. So now I'm searching along the wall and still
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: can't see. And I'd get to a window and I'd
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: smash it out with my hook. And I would stick
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: my head out the window because this is the first
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: time I could see again since we left that stairwell. Oh, yeah,
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: you got to get some fresh air. Fresh air and
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: some view of something. So then I'd go around. And
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: then all of a sudden, they knocked it down fast.
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: And I run into the Duke, the irons man. He's like, yo, Proby,
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: you broke your cherry, man. Congratulations.
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: And I was like, wow. I took my mask off.
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: It was kind of like still gray smoke and steamy,
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: but it was better than the mask, you know, because
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: that was so confined. So I said, yeah, Jimmy, I
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: set my first fire, but this might be my last fire.
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: I said, I don't know if I'm doing this again.
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: And there we were. We overhauled the apartment and we
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: threw the mattress out the window.
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: We took everything out. Throw the street down into the street.
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: And who's down there catching that? He's hitting whoever. That's free.
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: Back then, like, nobody. Who gives a shit, yeah. Just
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: hopefully nobody's down there. You yell out, look out! And
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: then you throw the burning mattress.
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: Out the window.
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: Oh, shit. I'll throw my ex-wife out that bitch, you know?
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: Don't suck.
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: Let's take that out.
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: Let's take that out.
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: And then I'm looking out this window, and it's encrusted
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: with all these embers and shit, you know, like gold
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: and amber and everything. And it was like 5.30 in
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: the morning. And the Manhattan skyline was turning purple. So
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: I had all this beautiful thing. I was like, wow,
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: this is some sight, you know? Excuse me.
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was definitely rock and roll, man. I was like, yeah.
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: So now I had to get back and I put
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: the air in the can when I got back, changed
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: all the masks and everything. Now I had to go
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: up and see the boss, you know, take my medicine.
• 42:36
  Speaker 3: So I walk up to the truck office and I
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: knock on the door.
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: It's open.
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: He says, yeah, come in. And he's wiping his face
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: down with a towel. He just came out of the bathroom.
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: I said, I made like puppy eyes. I said, Lou,
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: I'm sorry about not having air in the can. And
• 42:52
  Speaker 3: he's like wiping his face. He goes, yeah, don't worry
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: about it, kid. Shit happens. And I was like, oh, oh, oh, wow.
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: I was 23 years old, you know? So now I'm
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: walking out and he goes, hey, kid. And I turn
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: around and he goes, you did a good job. And
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: I was like, oh, wow. That's awesome. Yeah. And then
• 43:08
  Speaker 3: I'm driving home saying, am I quitting this fucking job?
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: Because it was like, It was like nothing I've ever experienced.
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: And growing up, I did a lot of crazy things,
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: but this was the scariest thing I ever did. But
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: yet it was so exciting and thrilling. I mean, I
• 43:22
  Speaker 3: got home and the grass was so greener. The sky
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: was so blue and the air that I was breathing
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: was so appreciated. Because you were alive. I was alive, man.
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: It made me, I was like, wow, that was something.
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: Of course, that wasn't my last job. I went 21
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: years more after that, so.
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: What kind of like made you decide you just have
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: to go back to work and it just kept being
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: like that or like?
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I, you know, yeah.
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: You know, we were a busy truck back then because
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: we had a lot of fires, a lot of occupied fires,
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: which are really, they're a lot more intense than a
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: vacant fire or, you know, something like that. You know,
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: you got a lot of people bailing out in there.
• 43:57
  Speaker 3: Sometimes they're trapped, you know, you got to get to them,
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: the truck, that's their job.
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: You know what's almost, hearing you say this and like,
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: thanks so much for your time, Tony, too. I appreciate it, man. Oh,
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: thank you. This is like an honor.
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: Oh, thanks, bro.
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: Are you kidding me? Yeah.
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: You guys are pioneers, you know, you're the millennial pioneers
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: with entertainment these days.
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: I think you changed the whole scene.
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: Oh, well, I just, I think it's like people just,
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: we got to find more humans that have the best stories,
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: you know?
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It was so crazy.
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: We're just like, we're coming to New York and we
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: just get an email from you the other day that
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: you had seen that we put out a thing about
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: looking for somebody that works in a fire department. And
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: my producer's ex forwards it to me. He's like, Can
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: you believe we just, this guy, we're going to be there?
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: I was like, wow, this thing's really interesting.
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: So I think it was meant to be.
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: Hey, I think so too.
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: And I think I was about to say, I think
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: it was meant to be that your first fire didn't
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: have any, nobody was in it.
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: Because that would have, that could have been super scary. Yeah.
• 44:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah.
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: Take me through like some of the times where there
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: was somebody in there. Like how much of a different
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: scenario is that? Is the energy different when you get there?
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: Who lets you know if somebody's in there or do
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: you even know? Like take me through that process of
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: like right when you get there and then take me
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: into one of like a fire where it was inhabited.
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: Well, one, well, this one fire where I, uh, we,
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: we lost this little girl and that, that one really
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: hurt me a lot because, uh, We got to the
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: apartment and my lieutenant, he was a little Irish guy,
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: the bravest guy I've ever met, Lieutenant Maloney, and I
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: would chase him up to the fire, the door, the caller,
• 45:33
  Speaker 3: and he would knock on the door with his little crowbar,
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: fire department, open the door, you know, he'd sound.
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: Like some cartoon, you know, the Irish broke.
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: So these people opened the doors and we walk in
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: and there's a card table sitting there, about eight people
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: playing cards, they're eating. We're standing in the kitchen, the
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: three of us. And we're like, my lieutenant.
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: Says, what the hell?
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: Did you call the fire department? So they're looking up.
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: They're like, yeah, I think something's burning in the back.
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: It was a big apartment. So we're like looking at
• 46:03
  Speaker 3: each other. Something burning in the back. What the hell
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: is this? So now we go down the hallway. My
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: lieutenant's cursing under his breath. He's like, all these motherfucking,
• 46:11
  Speaker 3: sucking fucking shit.
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: They're still playing cards. Cards is fun, though. Cards can
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: be fun.
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: They were.
• 46:17
  Speaker 3: But we get into the living room, and there's like
• 46:20
  Speaker 3: these French doors. I don't know if you know French doors,
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: probably from- Is it like that kind of- They're glass paneled,
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: and they're like two doors you open to a room.
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: They're called French doors.
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: You think there's going to be somebody French in there,
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: but there ain't. Yeah, no French people in there. There
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: never is, dude.
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: There never is.
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: Typical French. You'll send the doors.
• 46:37
  Speaker 3: We'll be there. They're not.
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: Typical French. So anyway, I open the French door, and
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: the room is on fire.
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah. We're like, holy shit. Close the door. We get
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: down on our knees, start putting our masks on. And
• 46:52
  Speaker 3: we're calling 1075. That means we got a working fire.
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: He's telling the battalion, you know, the engine now, they're
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: coming up with the line. So right before they got
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: the line, I says, all right, guys, it's right here.
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: I put my mask on. I said, showtime. And I
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: went to open the French doors. And I get a
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: call over to Handy Talkie. There's a kid in the room.
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: My friend, the OV, is with the mother out in
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: the street. Oh.
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: So now we bust into these doors. They're hitting. Thank
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: God we had the water. Hitting them.
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: And I'm frantically looking for this kid in the dark,
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: in black smoke. I'm on the bed. I'm feeling all
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: over the bed. I got to find this kid. And
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: is it mostly feeling? How far can you see? I
• 47:31
  Speaker 3: don't see anything. You don't?
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: I put tape over your eyes.
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: Nothing.
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: And you're feeling with gloves on, too. Yeah, sometimes gloves.
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: Sometimes you forget your gloves, but yeah. What? Yeah. What, Tony?
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: Back then, we were like, less equipment, better. You want
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: to get in, you want to get in, you want
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: to get out quick, too.
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: No, that sounds like a guy who forgot his equipment. Ah, yeah.
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: Put air in the can. Yeah, put some air in
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: your can, Tony. That's always that guy's excuse.
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: You know exactly but that's a great attitude to take
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: like nah guys if there's air in this cam we're
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: gonna have to be here all afternoon yeah yeah we're
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: in and out.
• 48:05
  Speaker 3: Of this i could have probably put that maybe put
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: it out with the cam but anyway so the engine
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: i'm in there i'm going around and finally i'm going
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: around the wall i can feel i'm sorry i'm under
• 48:14
  Speaker 3: the bed feeling around trying to find this kid and
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: i get to a window i break the window out
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: and i look out the window and i see my
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: irons man that was with me he's in the street
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: with the kid that a limp kid, you know, and
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: they'd taken the kid. They opened the battalion car door.
• 48:30
  Speaker 3: They go in there, and they rushed off the Columbia Presbyterian.
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: How'd the kid get out? No, he carried. She was unconscious.
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: Oh, he found her.
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: She didn't make it. The kid was dead, unfortunately. She
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: was burnt.
• 48:41
  Speaker 3: They tried to revive her at the hospital, but it
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: didn't work. So I'm overhauling now, and I see my lieutenant,
• 48:49
  Speaker 3: and I said, I just saw Jeff in the street
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: with the kid. He's like, oh, Anthony. the kid was
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: right there behind the door. And I was like, oh,
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: I was crushed, man. I shut that door. I felt
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: like I killed that kid. So we go to Presbyterian. Oh,
• 49:05
  Speaker 3: so before we leave, now the deputy shows up because
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: now we got a 1045, which is a body. And
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: he's like, what happened here? And we're in this apartment.
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: People are still playing cards. So my lieutenant says, well,
• 49:19
  Speaker 3: we came up to the apartment and i said i'll
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: tell you what happened and now the deputy looks at
• 49:23
  Speaker 3: me you know i go you see these motherfuckers over
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: here i said they didn't bother to fucking tell us
• 49:27
  Speaker 3: there might be a kid in that back room and
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: i'm throwing f-bombs at him and the deputy says uh
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: lieutenant you better control your man So the boss puts
• 49:36
  Speaker 3: his arm around my shoulder. He says, come on, come on, Anthony.
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: He called me Anthony. That's Anthony in a brogue. Anthony,
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: let's go down to the street. You know, we went
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: down to the street and we went and we picked
• 49:47
  Speaker 3: up my friend Jeff at the hospital. I said, how'd
• 49:49
  Speaker 3: they make out with the kid? He said they were
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: trying to revive her. They were bringing her to the
• 49:53
  Speaker 3: burn center. So that was the last we heard of her.
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: But there's no way you could have known that, right?
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: Because you go in and the kid was hiding.
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: Behind the door. Who would think?
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: You'd think somebody would tell us there could be a
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: kid back there. Oh, it's heartbreaking.
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: Oh, man.
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: Did you ever find out why they wouldn't let you
• 50:07
  Speaker 3: know what was going on there? I guess there was
• 50:09
  Speaker 3: like an SRO bid or something. They were renting out
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: that little back room to this woman and her child,
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: you know?
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: So it was pretty bad. And I had a few
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: of those.
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: I mean, right after I was getting over with that one,
• 50:22
  Speaker 3: I got another one where we showed up without our
• 50:25
  Speaker 3: masks on because it was.
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: The middle of the day. Yeah.
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: No, I get it. There was nothing showing. We get out,
• 50:32
  Speaker 3: and the guy says, hey, they're working on the oil
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: burner all day. And we had a lot of oil burners.
• 50:36
  Speaker 3: They would smoke up. So we're like, 1020, he says,
• 50:40
  Speaker 3: on the box, which means all the other companies, take
• 50:42
  Speaker 3: your time. Don't blow the red lights and shit. So
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: now we're heading up to the stairs to the caller's apartment.
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: It's a forcible entry to me. Lieutenant Clipper and this guy,
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: Jimmy Lynch. And we get to the door and the
• 50:54
  Speaker 3: woman opens the door and we own the apartment and
• 50:57
  Speaker 3: it's like a slight smoke condition in there, but slight.
• 51:01
  Speaker 3: So we're like, what do we have here? So my
• 51:04
  Speaker 3: boss says, he was a smart fireman. He was from
• 51:06
  Speaker 3: Rescue 2. He said, I think we got something above us.
• 51:10
  Speaker 3: Usually it's below us, you know? But this, I guess,
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: because the smoke was so light. So now we get up,
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: we don't have no masks or nothing. We get to the,
• 51:17
  Speaker 3: I see smoke coming out of the doorway. you know,
• 51:20
  Speaker 3: the locked door in the hallway. So I turn around,
• 51:23
  Speaker 3: I donkey kick the door open, like three kicks, it
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: kicks open, and we got a black wall of smoke.
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: We're like, holy shit.
• 51:31
  Speaker 3: Now we got, after the 1020, we got to give
• 51:33
  Speaker 3: a 1075, which means now we have a fire. So
• 51:36
  Speaker 3: now we're crawling in. No masks.
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: No masks. We're on our bellies. Was it better or
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: worse without a mask in this place?
• 51:42
  Speaker 3: Worse.
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: It was worse. Yeah. Because you could feel the heat?
• 51:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah. You know, back in the day when they didn't
• 51:46
  Speaker 3: wear masks, like in the 60s and the 50s, everything
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: was wooden cotton. Then once the 60s and 70s, and
• 51:53
  Speaker 3: everything's vinyl and plastic, and it's a whole different smoke,
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: you know.
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: It's poisonous, so it gets you quick. That's a great point, right? Yeah.
• 52:00
  Speaker 3: Back then, you could suck the cotton and the wood,
• 52:02
  Speaker 3: you know? Yeah, it was like, yeah, you were probably, yeah,
• 52:04
  Speaker 3: you were smoking. Like smoking a pack of cigarettes.
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: You're like, hell, shit, I wish somebody had a couple
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: tobacco plants and you got to crawl around for another
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: two minutes in here.
• 52:11
  Speaker 3: Exactly.
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: That's what it was like.
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: And things would burn slower back then, too, wouldn't they?
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: Well, back then, yeah, but plastics will take off a
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: lot faster. God.
• 52:20
  Speaker 3: So anyway, he crawls in, and we're like, oh, shit,
• 52:23
  Speaker 3: we got to go in. Jimmy goes in ahead of him,
• 52:26
  Speaker 3: and I'm the last guy in. We're like almost on
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: our bellies crawling in, and I hear the horrible words,
• 52:31
  Speaker 3: we got bodies. I'm like, oh, my God. Now we
• 52:34
  Speaker 3: got to give 1045s. So we had 1020. That means
• 52:38
  Speaker 3: don't come. Take it easy getting there. Now we went 1075.
• 52:42
  Speaker 3: Now we got two 1045s, two bodies. So with that,
• 52:46
  Speaker 3: I get a body, a little girl come to pass
• 52:49
  Speaker 3: it back to me. And I like shimmy out of
• 52:52
  Speaker 3: the apartment. Because you don't know if she, do you know?
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: I don't know anything.
• 52:54
  Speaker 3: I can't see nothing yet. I still can't see nothing
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: until I get to the stairwell. I knew I had
• 52:59
  Speaker 3: a kid in my arms. I see it's a little girl,
• 53:01
  Speaker 3: you know, face is all darkened. So now I'm like,
• 53:05
  Speaker 3: oh shit, I'm going to run her down to the,
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: EMS is going to take her in the street. And
• 53:10
  Speaker 3: I go running down to the street and there's nobody there.
• 53:13
  Speaker 3: And all the people are screaming, you know, they're yelling
• 53:15
  Speaker 3: and screaming. And I'm holding this kid and I'm looking
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: around because we gave the 1020. There was nobody there yet.
• 53:21
  Speaker 3: They're at the malt shop. I put the kid down.
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: I do CPR on this little girl. And I, you know,
• 53:27
  Speaker 3: I put it down, I cup her head. And I
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: pretty much all I knew was like a 15 and two,
• 53:32
  Speaker 3: you know, you get two breaths into her. And then
• 53:34
  Speaker 3: you give her 15, and this went on for like
• 53:36
  Speaker 3: 10 minutes before I got relieved. And the sound that
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: she was making when the air would come out, they
• 53:42
  Speaker 3: call it machine gun breath because it's like, and the smell,
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: because I had the smell of burnt lips. So finally
• 53:50
  Speaker 3: somebody came over and they started taking over. And then
• 53:53
  Speaker 3: the EMS came after 10 minutes, they let me go.
• 53:57
  Speaker 3: So now I'm like, I'm walking around the sidewalk. All
• 54:00
  Speaker 3: these Dominicans are very emotional. They're all screaming and yelling.
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: And crying and everything. Praying, some of them probably.
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: Praying everything. Yeah, for sure.
• 54:08
  Speaker 3: I figured, let me go back up to the floor
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: because the other two guys were working on the mother.
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: And when I got there, the EMS already took over.
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: And I was like, holy shit.
• 54:17
  Speaker 3: And it was like the first fire we had where
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: the windows didn't break open. They were the new windows
• 54:23
  Speaker 3: that the Gambino crime family put in in all of Manhattan.
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: And they didn't break like the old windows. So it
• 54:28
  Speaker 3: never got air. So it smoldered. And they died from
• 54:32
  Speaker 3: the smoke. And that stayed with me for years. I would, like,
• 54:39
  Speaker 3: sometimes I would smell and taste the burnt lips and everything, and, oh,
• 54:43
  Speaker 3: it was horrible. That's heartbreaking. Yeah.
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: Like, who do you even talk to about that kind
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: of stuff? Do you guys go to some of the services?
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: What is some of that like?
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: I got back in the firehouse. The guys were listening up.
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: They knew.
• 54:56
  Speaker 3: I took my turnout coat off and... I just went in.
• 55:02
  Speaker 3: I took a shower. We all took showers. And then
• 55:05
  Speaker 3: the boss says, into the office, you know, let's talk
• 55:08
  Speaker 3: about it. So he says, you know, we did everything
• 55:10
  Speaker 3: we could. There really wasn't nothing else we could do.
• 55:12
  Speaker 3: I mean, not having the mask didn't hamper us at
• 55:15
  Speaker 3: all because we still got the bodies. And so then
• 55:19
  Speaker 3: I went home. My wife heard about it already on
• 55:21
  Speaker 3: the news. And so when I got home, they all
• 55:24
  Speaker 3: greeted me. And that was pretty much, you know, all
• 55:27
  Speaker 3: I got was some nice hugs and some tears at home.
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 55:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you get over it. It takes a while, though.
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: I mean, I had a couple of things.
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: I had this junkie that we kept called three times.
• 55:38
  Speaker 3: We got called to the sixth floor. He kept lighting
• 55:40
  Speaker 3: fires to stay warm in the winter. Yeah. And he
• 55:43
  Speaker 3: was a young black kid, you know, and so we
• 55:46
  Speaker 3: would have to climb up.
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: These vacant stairs.
• 55:48
  Speaker 3: I had to pop a hole in the cinder block
• 55:51
  Speaker 3: walls to get in, vacant building. And a couple times
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: it's happened. Yeah.
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: Oh, well, it's the first one. We go up sixth floor. Dark, cold.
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: It's icy. It's about 30 degrees out.
• 56:02
  Speaker 3: A nice kid?
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: I have no idea.
• 56:04
  Speaker 3: I got to the back with my, and I see
• 56:06
  Speaker 3: my Irish lieutenant yelling at him. He's like, what the
• 56:08
  Speaker 3: fuck you doing? You can't light a fucking fire, blah, blah, blah.
• 56:11
  Speaker 3: And he's sitting there and he was in the corner
• 56:14
  Speaker 3: and I came in and I put my flashlight on
• 56:16
  Speaker 3: him and he was looking at me with these eyes,
• 56:19
  Speaker 3: you know, and I was like, God, he had like
• 56:20
  Speaker 3: tombstones in his eyes, you know. And he was only
• 56:23
  Speaker 3: about 16, 17. So we put the fire out, we leave.
• 56:28
  Speaker 3: Two hours later, we get called back again. Go up, oh,
• 56:32
  Speaker 3: got to climb these stairs. Six floors, no steps, just risers.
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: And no lights. It's dark.
• 56:38
  Speaker 3: So now we climb all the way up again. We
• 56:41
  Speaker 3: go through the thing. He lit it up again. The
• 56:43
  Speaker 3: boss is yelling, you can't fucking do this. He's yelling
• 56:46
  Speaker 3: at him and shit. I got the light on him.
• 56:49
  Speaker 3: And the funny part was we just broke into an
• 56:54
  Speaker 3: Entenmann's cake at the firehouse with the vanilla icing on it.
• 56:57
  Speaker 3: that we would keep in the fridge, get it nice
• 56:59
  Speaker 3: and stiff. So as my friend Jeff in the dark,
• 57:02
  Speaker 3: he's putting the fire out, I put the light on him,
• 57:04
  Speaker 3: and he's still got the vanilla icing on his mustache.
• 57:08
  Speaker 3: Somebody took a piece for the road, Jeff, huh?
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: The boss is yelling at him. That's why he's pissed.
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: This guy interrupted his dessert.
• 57:16
  Speaker 3: Three companies and a battalion are responding every time. And
• 57:19
  Speaker 3: we got chains on. It's snowing. It's not like no
• 57:22
  Speaker 3: easy ride. Right, so you get a lot to get
• 57:24
  Speaker 3: out there. So the third time, I hear we just
• 57:28
  Speaker 3: got back from something. We went in our bunks and
• 57:31
  Speaker 3: we get in the bunks and we're like a little
• 57:33
  Speaker 3: pillow talk before everybody was sleeping.
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: And then before you know it, boom, boom, same box.
• 57:39
  Speaker 3: Here we go again. I hear the boss yelling, fuck, shit,
• 57:42
  Speaker 3: I'll kill that motherfucker. Yeah, dude. Let him cook at
• 57:45
  Speaker 3: this point. We're sliding down the poles.
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: This guy's trying to get to heaven, and you guys
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: keep coming in and ruining his trip.
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: Third time.
• 57:54
  Speaker 3: So we're in the rig, and I said to my
• 57:56
  Speaker 3: friend Jeff, I says, let's tell the boss, stay under.
• 57:59
  Speaker 3: Don't even come up the stairs. We'll take care of it.
• 58:02
  Speaker 3: And surprisingly, he agreed. So when we got to the door,
• 58:04
  Speaker 3: I says, Lou, we'll take care of you. Stay down here.
• 58:07
  Speaker 3: So me and Jeff go up. My light, my diehard
• 58:10
  Speaker 3: battery died on me. So I had like no light left.
• 58:13
  Speaker 3: I'm trying to follow Jeff's light. And we're going up
• 58:16
  Speaker 3: just on the rises. And then there's no platform. So
• 58:18
  Speaker 3: you got to like lean over your step to get on.
• 58:21
  Speaker 3: And when you get to the fifth or sixth floor,
• 58:22
  Speaker 3: you're looking down at this skeleton staircase. What? Yeah, so
• 58:26
  Speaker 3: now we go in, go through the dark apartment again.
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: He's in there again. Now he's got candles burning.
• 58:31
  Speaker 3: Because we broke his bucket up.
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: We smashed it all up. So we're like, holy shit.
• 58:37
  Speaker 3: So now Jeff is like leaning into him and he says, listen,
• 58:41
  Speaker 3: you can't fucking do this anymore. And Jeff's like the
• 58:45
  Speaker 3: good cop, you know. I'm the bad cop. So I
• 58:48
  Speaker 3: lean into him.
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: I look at him.
• 58:49
  Speaker 3: I says, we come back here again. I'm throwing you
• 58:52
  Speaker 3: out that fucking window. And he just looked at me,
• 58:55
  Speaker 3: you know. And that was it. That was the last
• 58:58
  Speaker 3: time we went back. We left there. We took his candles. But.
• 59:02
  Speaker 3: Years later, I would see that kid's face looking at me,
• 59:05
  Speaker 3: and it made me feel so bad, a wasted life
• 59:08
  Speaker 3: like that, you know? Yeah.
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: He had the the works everything.
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: That's scary and the fact that he kept going back
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: to do it it's just that power of addiction you
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: know it was cold oh.
• 59:20
  Speaker 3: I guess they keep you warm he was in a
• 59:22
  Speaker 3: vacant yeah oh yeah a lot of shit like that
• 59:26
  Speaker 3: vacants were disgusting Cause it's just, anybody can be doing,
• 59:30
  Speaker 3: they're doing anything, huh?
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: Squatters. Yeah.
• 59:33
  Speaker 3: They're shitting on the floor, drugs, needles, and you're crawling
• 59:37
  Speaker 3: around in there because you still have to save them.
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah.
• 59:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: Vacant fires.
• 59:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: Do you start to develop a certain like, um, attitudes
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: towards humanity or drug users or society?
• 59:50
  Speaker 3: Absolutely.
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: Call them scales. They're all scales.
• 59:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah. To us back then, you know, and, uh, Matter
• 59:58
  Speaker 3: of fact, on my block, we had a tight block,
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 3: 161st Street. And we had a bodega, a gypsy cab dispatcher,
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 3: a whorehouse, and a bunch of drug apartments. Yeah.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: And it was a busy block.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 3: And we had two guys on the block that were
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 3: almost there the whole time I was there. And they
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 3: were the lookouts. And one guy was bald, and we
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 3: called him 8-Ball. And the other guy always had a hat,
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 3: and we called him The Hat.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 3: And the funny part was they would watch our cars
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 3: for us. So nobody would break into the cars and shit.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 3: But yeah, I mean, I would see every agency there
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 3: is come down and radar block through the years. I
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 3: was there, ATF, Manhattan, uh, tactical North, uh, CIA, I mean, everything.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 3: I'll tell you who was the worst ones was the FBI. Yeah.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 3: They come down with machine guns, and I've never seen
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 3: anybody that, and then they clear the street.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: They hit all the apartments. It's amazing. I bet they
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: were all just visiting that whorehouse.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 3: That whorehouse. I would inspect it now and then. I'd
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 3: go in there with my hat and that thing, and
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 3: they'd all be looking at me, you know, be like,
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 3: what the fuck you want, you know? Like, I got
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 3: to inspect this place.
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: What was it like in some of those joints? Was
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: it interesting in there? Was it just women trying to
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: just survive most of those.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 3: Types of people? Yeah, it was just some middle-aged, young,
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 3: not too young, Dominican women. I guess they took care
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 3: of the cab drivers and stuff. And they had the
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 3: different rooms. You know, everybody had their little bed in there.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 3: Just trying to survive.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: And I would inspect it, you know. I got you.
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: You got condoms? The condoms are here?
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Making sure the alarm works, ladies.
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they would be like, come on.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 3: Some of them were the prostitutes would be like, get
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 3: the fuck out of here, man.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: You know, they'd be up all night. They didn't want
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: nothing to do with me. Oh, I'm sure.
• 1:01:46
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  Speaker 1: I remember one time I'm in Kansas city. Right.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: And I guess somebody started a fire.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: And I'd like, as a comedian, you go to different hotels.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: You're always in hotels over the years. And I got
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: to the point where every now, like, you know, every
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: seven weeks, somebody would start a fire, pull an alarm.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: And so in the middle of the night, you got
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: to go downstairs and be outside. So I finally decided
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: for myself, I'm.
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 3: Going to wait.
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not going out there. It was never a
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 2: good fire. Right, right, right.
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: So I was like, I'm waiting out there for 45
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: minutes or whatever while they see if there's a fire
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: or not. So I finally said, I'm staying in the
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: room until I smell smoke or whatever. So one time
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: I'm in there, I just made this big sandwich, dude.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 2: It was really good.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: It was one of the better ones I've probably ever
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: made in my life. And a guy, I remember this
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: big fireman with an ax comes in or just opens
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: my door and the alarm had been going off for
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: a while. Um, And he's looking, he's looking for me
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: and I was like, is there a fire? And I
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: missed something. Yeah, he's like, you got to get out
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: of here. I was like, bro, every week they doing
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: this shit.
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 3: I'm not going. Right.
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 2: I hear this all the time.
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 3: But that's the cry wolf thing too, though, you know? Oh,
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 3: for sure.
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 2: I knew it was on me. I think, you know, hey,
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 2: if it's bad, come back. Right, right.
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 3: And I think he's like, fuck, you know? I don't
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 3: blame him.
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a fireman attitude.
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and it should be. Hey, come back if I'm
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 3: going to burn, you know?
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's just a lot of pressure. Yeah, like immediately
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: I was putting all the pressure on this guy. But, yeah,
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: what were some of the environments you went into? Like
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: did you ever just walk into an environment and you're like, oh, well,
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: this is crazy. Or like a drug den or like
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: a– Oh, plenty of drug dens. I mean every building
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: had a drug apartment. where they would sell drugs.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah. Yeah, but this one fire that I went to,
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 3: it was in the middle of the day. It was
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 3: like the second floor. We pull up.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 2: Fire's blowing out four windows. I mean, it was going good.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: And so we run out.
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 3: Now we're second due, which means we go to the
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 3: floor above the fire. So the first due truck has
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 3: the fire floor. Second due goes to the floor above,
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 3: which the floor above is really shitty because that's where.
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 2: Everything's going, you know?
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 3: So now we get up the staircase and it's starting
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 3: to bank down and get dark. And I see a
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 3: guy runs past me, no shirt on, no shoes. He's
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 3: got like a three-year-old kid under his arm and a
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 3: hefty bag. Oh yeah, so a politician probably. So he
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 3: slips by us, you know. So now we're going to
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 3: take the door in the hallway above the fire department.
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 3: And it's getting smoky and my boss puts his mask on,
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 3: but we have to take the door.
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 2: So I wanted to see a little bit.
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 3: So I'm hitting the, you know, the guy's got the
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 3: Halligan and the door jam, and I'm smashing it with
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 3: an ax, and he's trying to get a bite on
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 3: the jam to bust the door open. So finally, we
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 3: get it. We bust the door open. We put our
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 3: masks on, and we go in, and we're crawling around.
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 3: And the engine company did a good job. They knocked
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 3: the fire down pretty fast, you know. So as we're
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 3: crawling around, it's starting to, the black smoke's starting to
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 3: go away, and it's getting lighter. And I'm on the floor,
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 3: and I bump into a dresser. Now I could start
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 3: to see a little bit. I put my light on
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 3: the dresser. All the drawers are open.
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 2: Stacks of hundreds and $ 50 bills. Every drawer. I mean,
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 2: no 20s. It was all Coke money. Yeah.
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 3: And I'm like, oh, my God. I'm still like my
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 3: one year there. Oh, yeah.
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 2: I'm a junior man. You're like, I got to get
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 2: something for Christine. Well, that's it.
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 3: I got an angel and a devil on my shoulders,
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 3: and they're fighting it out. We're in smoke, so it
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 3: ain't like a setup. Nobody's ever going to notice. So
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 3: I'm thinking, oh, my God, I could buy myself a
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 3: new Harley with that money, you know. And then I
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 3: was like, the angel would be like, oh, you buy
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 3: the new Harley and you're going to crash and you'll
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 3: get paralyzed. And I'm like, oh, shit, the heck could happen.
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 3: So now I told the senior man, I said, Eddie,
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 3: come here, look in this drawer.
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, bring another guy in now.
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 3: Senior man, you know. And he's like, holy shit, Tony.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 3: He's like, what are we going to do here? Oh,
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 3: Eddie's setting you up again. Yeah, I'm like, you'd have
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 3: seen your man. You tell me.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 2: What to do.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 3: Oh, this is dirty tennis you guys are playing. I mean,
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 3: I could have been stacking thousands in my pocket.
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 2: If Eddie would have been like, hey, let's take a little, you.
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 3: Have to, huh? I would have, yeah. Yeah, you got to.
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: I think just to even make sure that it is
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: what it is, get it back home.
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 3: Right. You know, I was young. I had this, oh,
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 3: it's dirty money. It'll bring me bad juju. It could have. Yeah.
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 2: You never know. I mean, I think that. The karma
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 2: of it, who knows?
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you don't know. So the boss walks in, you know,
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 3: the lieutenant, and he's like, what do you got? And
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 3: I was like, we got all this drawer full of money,
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 3: dresser full of money. He's like, oh, I don't see nothing.
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 3: He was like, I don't know if you ever see
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 3: Schultz on Hogan's Heroes. He's like, I see nothing. He
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 3: turns around, he walks in. away you know so now
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 3: we're like so now we go out and it's still
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 3: a little smoky but we could see we don't have
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 3: our masks on and there's another room with a padlock
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 3: on the door So he's like, take the door. So
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 3: he puts the ads into the Halligan, and I whack
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 3: it with the ax. Yeah.
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 2: The door, we bust it open.
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 3: And Theo, I'm telling you, there was like half the
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 3: coke in Manhattan was in there.
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 2: Bricks all the way to the ceiling on all sides
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 2: of the walls.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 3: A pile of cocaine about 18 inches high on the table.
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 3: We were like, holy shit. So the boss gets on,
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 3: tell the battalion we got a drug apartment. Send the
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 3: PD up. So now we're like waiting for the PD
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 3: to come. We wanted them to come before the drug
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 3: dealers got back. So finally two NYPD guys show up
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 3: and they're like, yeah, guys, what do you got? I said, well,
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 3: go in that room and go in that room. I said,
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 3: that's the money room. That's the coke room. So they
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 3: both go in and at the same time they go,
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 3: holy shit.
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 3: They call a backup, you know. So now we're like,
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 3: my boss is like, we're out of here, you know.
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 3: We don't want to be nothing part of this whole
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 3: show here.
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: I'd have stuck around, man, you know. Like Joey Diaz says,
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: every now and then you bump into a Colombian, you know.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 2: I love Joey Diaz.
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 3: Oh, he's the best.
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 2: He was a fireman in Colorado or some shit. Denver.
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 3: Was he a fireman? Yeah, but he was selling blow.
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 3: He said all they had was a pickup truck. I
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 3: don't know if you ever saw it. I think it
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 3: was on Rogan, baby.
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know.
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 3: It sounded like Rogan. Yeah, he said, oh, it was
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 3: just selling.
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 2: It was an easy way to sell Coke. He said,
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 2: I'll go around.
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 3: People call the fire department.
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: Sorry, Joey, but you did tell that story. No, people
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: call the fire department. He shows up in a pickup
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: truck selling Coke. Well, he says it was a ski
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: lodge place. There was never any fire. Oh, yeah, that's
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: a great idea, actually. Yeah, the ski lodge was perfect
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: for him. Yes, Joey Diaz has talked many times about
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: having been a volunteer firefighter, which is really a drug
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: dealer in Aspen, Colorado.
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 3: In the 1980s. Can you imagine him doing that?
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: I bet if you were anywhere with Joey in the 1980s,
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: every place was asking Colorado, dude.
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 3: I go to a restaurant he recommended in Jersey, a
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 3: Chinese restaurant.
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 2: Is it a good spot? King's. Oh, he says, oh, dude,
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 2: this is the real deal. This is the Chinese food.
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 2: You know how he talks, right? Oh, for sure.
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 3: So I go there, and the guy's name is Freddy,
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 3: the Chinese guy. I'm like, Freddy, Joey Diaz sent me here.
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 3: He's like, oh, yeah, Joey Diaz. He said, he popular?
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 3: I say, yeah, he's pretty fucking popular. He's like, oh,
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 3: I didn't know.
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 2: Food was excellent. Thank you, Joey. I love that food.
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: Joey has the, it's like, bro, I'd be like, dude,
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: my friend died last week in Buffalo, New York. He's like, oh,
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: next time you're in Buffalo. In your places. Yeah, it
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: doesn't matter. Your friend died.
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 3: It matters.
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 2: You got to walk 11 blocks to get this prosciutto, right?
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 3: Prosciutto.
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: He's like, the only way you get there is by foot, right?
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: I'm like, this sounds very alarming. But dude, he's always
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: got the best food recommendations.
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. He just loves life, man. He just always has
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 2: a connection to life.
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 3: Oh, man.
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 2: What stories. He's so funny.
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 3: He's one of the best. I love him. Yeah, I
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 3: don't know anybody like him.
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: But I bet in your line of work, you probably
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: met a lot of guys not like him, but with
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: similar energies like him.
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 2: Oh, crazy people.
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 3: Yes. When I got on in 83, we still had
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 3: Vietnam vets that were in the fired army. Really? Today,
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 3: it's more college kids. They came out of college, and
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 3: they take the test.
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of guys that want to be in
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 2: the calendar or whatever now.
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 3: And it's a whole different thing. The new guys, they're
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 3: all great. But it was a different atmosphere with the
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 3: vet guys. And plus, back then, they didn't have computers. And,
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 3: you know, there was no cameras. It was B.C., so
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 3: you got away with a lot of shit. Today, you
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 3: go on YouTube, they see you fighting the fire, the O.V.,
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 3: the roof man. If you fuck up, a million people
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 3: are seeing it right there. People in the chat are like,
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 3: get rid of this guy. Like, what's he waiting for?
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 3: Why doesn't he go in? Where's the hose line? What's
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 3: taking him so long? Yeah, yeah, dude.
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 2: All the comments.
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like, Caruso's a pussy, you know? Like, dude, he
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: just his first day on the job.
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: Dude, that is crazy that that's how it's going to be.
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: Everything's going to be streamed, and people will be able
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: to comment at the moment.
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's a whole bit.
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 3: And the other day, I was watching the Chief had
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 3: some kind of iPad thing or something, and they had
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 3: a drone in the air. And the thing was showing
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 3: them all the roof, the holes, the fire, the back.
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 3: It was like a 3D thing. It was like, everything changes,
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 3: you know?
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's already a real estate agent there.
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 2: Everything's changed. Changes.
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 3: So when I got on, the guys from the 60s
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 3: and 70s, they were tough motherfuckers.
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: So some of them had come from war, actually.
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 2: Big time.
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: And this was just another place where they at least
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: had camaraderie, they had a brotherhood.
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 3: It was a paramilitary organization. So you had your lieutenants
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 3: and your captains and your chiefs.
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: Did the stress of the job ever affect guys too much?
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: Was there scenarios like that that kind of happened or
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: not really? No, I think most guys loved the job.
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: What made you end up kind of loving it? Like
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: what made, like what kind of changed for you? Like,
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: or when you look back.
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 2: The brotherhood. Really? Oh my God. Like family.
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's why, you know, I did 15
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 3: years in 34 truck from a probie. I did 15 years.
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 3: I think I left there in 98, but yeah, I mean,
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 3: I had a lot of friends that I'm still today.
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 3: You know, we're all together. The wives, the kids, the
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 3: kids are on the job. Some of them are already captains.
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I guess that's something that's so nice. That's
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: one thing that's harder I even notice about life. As
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: you get out of times in your life where you're
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: either in school where you have teams that you're on
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: or your buddies are always around or in the college,
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: you don't really find a lot of places where there's
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: that much camaraderie anymore. You just don't find it.
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 3: No.
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 2: That was it. That was it there, big time. We'd
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 2: make the meals.
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah. See, this is a— The two probies are coming
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 3: off their probation. So when you come off probation, you
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 3: throw a big party in the firehouse. And they all
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 3: got lobsters and filet mignons. And they have a big celebration.
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 3: I remember my probie meal. It was a lot of fun.
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 3: I came off with another guy, Richie, who we both
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 3: came out of the academy together.
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's nice.
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 3: But yeah, I know all these guys like family. A
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 3: lot of them aren't even here with us anymore. Really?
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. And that pic, that's old.
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 3: A lot of them have gotten older, passed away even?
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 3: Passed away, yeah. Some of them, I don't know, some
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 3: of them might have even passed away on 9-11.
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's a great shot. That's awesome, dude. Yeah.
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, you could just feel so much excitement there.
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 2: Oh, my God, the fun we would have.
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 3: And the meals that I would make were incredible. That's
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 3: why they kept you around, huh?
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 2: Oh, I was a good cook.
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 3: Were you? Yeah.
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 3: The first meal I brought in, my mother made meatballs
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 3: and sausage and a whole Sunday gravy. And I bought
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 3: gavodil and I brought it all in with the bread
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 3: and everything. And the guys loved it. You know, the
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 3: Irish guys call it red lead. That was what they
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 3: call tomato sauce. I make red lead tonight. Yeah, red lead.
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 3: They loved it. They were like, man, that was so
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 3: good and everything. But you know what, kid? You got
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 3: to make it here next time. So I was like, ah,
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 3: I get it. You got to make the meal in
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 3: the firehouse.
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's part of it. Everybody comes together.
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Because it could be all over the firehouse, but
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 3: that's where everybody who's chopping this, who's cooking that, who's
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 3: sauteing things. Yeah.
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 2: Who's doing the entertainment.
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 3: The camaraderie.
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 2: I would put my Louis Primer on the stereo and
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 2: we would just be going, you know.
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 3: Jump driving well, and I'm just a gigolo, and place
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 3: would be hopping.
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 2: Oh, it was fun. Oh, that's nice.
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 3: And great meals. About 11 guys would eat at the same,
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 3: you know, we'd all eat at the same time. Yeah.
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 3: And then everybody chips in at the end of the
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 3: meal because, you know, the city doesn't pay for anything.
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 2: We pay for everything.
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 3: That's crazy. All our TV, all they pay for is
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 3: the firehouse. Everything else we have to buy. Really?
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 2: Really.
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Is it still that way?
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's still that way.
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 3: Wow. Well, when I was on the job, you bought
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 3: your own turnout coat and you had a helmet. I
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 3: brought some helmets here too. And the helmet fit perfectly
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 3: to your head. They made it a mold to your head.
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 3: So you didn't need a chin strap. It just stayed
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 3: on there. And then when Giuliani came in as mayor
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 3: and we had a couple of fires where guys got
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 3: killed and everything, and he couldn't believe how shabby we
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 3: looked because we had the Nobody fixed their gear. Nobody
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 3: gave you new gear. So you went years with this gear.
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 3: And it looked like the coats were all ripped up.
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 3: And I loved the way it looked. Like the Blaze
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 3: News Bears, huh? And all the other fire departments around
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 3: the country. And they already had bunker pants and bunker coats.
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 3: And they had hoods. You had to wear these.
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 2: I hated all of that. I hated the bunker pants.
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 3: I hated the hoods. And so that changed right there
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 3: from the uniforms. And then they gave us a new helmet,
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 3: three sizes, small, medium, large. And they had to have
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 3: a damn chin strap to hold it on. It was
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 3: a lot heavier. Oh.
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 2: I hated it. Yeah.
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 3: But you get charges if you didn't wear it. You know,
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 3: if you took your old helmet and you got caught
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 3: with it or you got caught without your bunker pants on.
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 3: Because it was like the takeover, you know. It takes
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 3: a few years before the old timers really give in
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 3: to all the changes.
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: Everything takes a few years to kind of seep in.
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 2: Especially in the fire department, it's all tradition.
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, dude, that was one of the nice things. Even
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: like whenever I would go with my... It was my
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: first girlfriend, her dad. Whenever I'd go over there, it
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: would just be nice to see the guys all spending
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: time together, you know?
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: And there were no other fire departments around the city.
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: It was just like there was definitely a... It was
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: like this kind of secret society that was a little bit,
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: it was a little hidden kind of, because you don't
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: really think about the fire department all.
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 3: The time, you know?
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 2: I didn't. But yeah, but they're right there, dude.
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 3: Yup. Yup.
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: And they're, and they're the first ones they have to
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: get involved when things get bad.
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 2: You know?
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 3: Um, yeah.
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: If it's okay to talk about what, what was, what
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: were things like during nine 11? Like what was, I mean,
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: I know kind of like what some things were like,
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: but when you look back on it, like.
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 2: Well, I got the, I got off work that morning.
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 3: I did a 24 hour tour on the 10th and
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 3: I just got home and I had a power wash
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 3: and painting business on the side. And I had my
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 3: Dominican helper waiting for me at home. So I got home.
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 3: We came in. I'm making coffee. And my wife calls me.
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 3: She's at work. And she says, you see what happened?
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 3: They flew a plane into the towers. I'm like, you're
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 3: kidding me. I put a little TV on that I
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 3: had in the kitchen. And I'm like, holy shit. I'm like,
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 3: what happened? Did the guy have a heart attack? I
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 3: thought it was like a single plane that the guy
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 3: just Flew in by accident. Yeah, some guy fucking just
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 3: couldn't get a ravioli down or something. You didn't know
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 3: the first one. You didn't know it was terrorists. So
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 3: then I take you. We get to the paint store,
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 3: and the guys are all around the counter with a TV.
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 3: And I come in, and the guy, Tony, turns around.
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 3: He says, why the fuck is they fucking terrorists flew
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 3: planes into the fucking towers? And I'm like, holy shit.
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 3: Now I see both towers going. Now I know it
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 3: was an attack. So I says, all right, we got
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 3: to get out of here. I got to paint a
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 3: rabbi's house in Woodmeer. So I got this painting truck
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 3: with ladders, Tony's power washing and paint. On the way there,
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 3: I hear the first tower collapses. So I'm like, oh,
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 3: I'm cursing. I'm like, motherfuckers. My Dominican guy don't speak English.
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 3: He doesn't really hear, but he knows something bad. He
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 3: knows the towers. So now I get another 20 minutes
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 3: or 10 minutes later or whatever, and I hear the
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 3: second tower come down.
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 2: And I was out of light. I put my foot
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 2: on the brake, and I just started crying. I was
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 2: on there.
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 3: On the steering wheel, because I knew how many guys
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 3: just got killed, you know, from this whole deal.
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 2: Oh, I was crushed.
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: So you, like, yeah, at that point, did you know
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: because you were privy to the information of, or you
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: just knew how it worked?
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 3: You just knew the way it works, you know. They
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 3: called in everything once those planes hit, you know. Could
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 3: you have gone back in, or you weren't even allowed
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 3: to go in? When?
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: Like at that moment, since you had just gotten off
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: of a shift?
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 3: No, well, now I race to the rabbi's house. I
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 3: throw the ladders, the paint. I knock on the rabbi's door.
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 3: I says, listen, rabbi, I'm a fireman from New York City.
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 3: I got to go to the trade center. I knew
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 3: he knew it because he had a TV on inside.
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 3: So he's like, OK. I said, Roberto's going to take
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 3: care of everything. I told Roberto, listen, I don't know
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 3: when I'm going to see you again. And he's like,
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 3: no worry, no problem. My boss, I take care of you.
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 3: He was such a great guy. So now I'm racing
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 3: with my van, and I'm going in and out of
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 3: the elevator train, and I've got my hand on the horn,
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 3: and I'm pedal to the metal, and everybody's probably looking like,
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 3: what the fuck is with that painter? I'm in on
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 3: the wrong side of traffic. I'm just like the French Connection.
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 3: I'm in and out of fucking cars. I get to
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 3: the firehouse, and it's chaotic. Everybody's running in. What are
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 3: we going to do? Who's going? How are we going
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 3: to get there? One guy said he was taking a
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 3: boat because my firehouse in Howard Beach was on a canal. Yeah,
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 3: so my friend Whipper comes in. He's got a Suburban,
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 3: and my friend Bobby comes, and he was like, I'm
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 3: going in with my Suburban.
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 2: Whoever wants to go, I'm leaving now. And were there
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 2: some guys that did not want to go, did not
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 2: want to be involved? No, everybody went.
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 3: Wow. Yeah, so we grabbed our gear. A lot of
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 3: guys went to a staging area. They made that mistake
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 3: because they got stuck at the staging area. We took
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 3: my friend Suburban right to the pile, right there. I mean,
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 3: we were heading down Woodhaven Boulevard. And I'm like- And
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 3: there was no traffic? It was traffic. I mean, the
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 3: shit hit the fan already. So the Whip is driving crazy,
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 3: my friend the Whipper. And I'm like, Whip, don't get
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 3: anybody killed. There are enough people already. Slow down a little.
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 3: So we get to the LIE, and the cops have
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 3: it shut off, the entrance to the Long Island Expressway.
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 3: So I stick my turnout code out the window. And
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 3: they moved the cop cars and they wave us in,
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 3: you know? That had to feel crazy. It was, man.
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 2: I mean, obviously there's excitement, probably a ton of adrenaline.
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 2: Fucking adrenaline. What are we going to do when we
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 2: get there?
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 3: Right. We said, we're going to be an ambulance. We're
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 3: going to take bodies and we're going to rush them
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 3: to the hospital.
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 2: That's what we figured.
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 3: So now we're racing down there and we get to
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 3: the Midtown Tunnel and my friend Whip is a driver, man.
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 2: He's the best. We're doing 100 miles. And we're going
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 2: through the Midtown Tunnel.
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 3: And it's like a time warp with the lights and
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 3: the yellow bricks.
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 2: We're doing 100 miles an hour.
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 3: We come out. We head downtown. By the Midtown Tunnel,
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 3: we head down. He takes us right to the rubble.
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 3: And we get out of the car, and it's dark
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 3: like an eclipse. And all the stuff is coming down
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 3: on us, all the paper and the ash. It was dark.
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 3: The walls were standing still. Did it look something like this,
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 3: or it looked different? Just like that. That's a few days,
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 3: a week later, or whatever, maybe. But it was dark,
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 3: and when we got out of the car, we couldn't breathe.
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 3: So we had to rip up T-shirts, and we put
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 3: them around our faces to breathe. And then I noticed
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 3: there was an old hardware store right across the street with, like,
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 3: a glass door.
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 2: So I grabbed a tire iron. I went over.
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 3: I smashed the door open, and we all went in.
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 3: We grabbed ropes and masks and sledgehammers. Whatever, cops came
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 3: in behind us. Everybody was grabbing shit. So now we
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 3: start to climb, you know, and it was like, The
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 3: top of the trade center was only about six stories
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 3: high now, you know, and we were climbing and there.
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 2: Was nobody around. It was quiet, dark, eerie.
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 3: And we heard all the pass alarms going off that
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 3: when firemen are moving, makes a screechy noise. And you
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 3: could hear that all around, you know, and there was
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 3: maybe one or two other firemen.
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 2: We were the only ones there.
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 3: And we were going in and out of voids, in
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 3: and out of voids, calling anybody to hear us, banging
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 3: on shit.
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 2: And waiting to see if that happens. And nobody, nobody.
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 3: Finally, we worked our all the way up to the
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 3: roof of the Trade Center, which was AstroTurf. And now
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 3: you could see. And it looked like it went on
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 3: for a mile. You know, it was like a movie set.
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 3: It was so crazy. And on one side was the
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 3: EAB bank. And it was on fire. And they had,
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 3: excuse me, they had mesh, like the black mesh covering it.
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 3: And all you saw was the black mesh and the
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 3: flames coming out. It was like satanic. Oh, it was
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 3: so creepy. And so we were climbing all around, inside
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 3: and out of voids. And we did this for like
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 3: maybe about 1 o'clock. We got there at 1130. And
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 3: my friend Bobby says, Tony, my throat's closing up.
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 2: We got to get water. So I said, Whip, we
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 2: got to get water. We got to head to the street.
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 2: Now it's like.
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 3: One o'clock, people are coming in from everywhere. Firemen, cops, firemen,
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 3: a National Guard was coming in. So we worked our
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 3: way to the street, and then we needed water. And
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 3: there was a guy, a Wall Street guy, with an
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 3: expensive suit on, covered in cement dust, and.
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 2: He had a bottle of water.
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 3: Those big bottles? The big bottle, and he was going
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 3: around giving everybody water and trying to wash their eyes
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 3: out and shit. And we were just waiting our turn
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 3: to get some of that water. And as we were
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 3: doing that, these four women, they come out of nowhere.
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 3: They set up two barrels, a piece of plywood. They
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 3: had Wonder Bread and peanut butter and jelly, and they
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 3: started making sandwiches out of nowhere.
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 2: It humbled. And I got a little emotional because it
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 2: was like, you.
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 3: Know, to see all these people coming together right at
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 3: this time, no matter what your race, creed, color, working together.
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 3: So we passed the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. We
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 3: had the water and we went back. But before we
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 3: got up, a deputy gets up on a car and
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 3: he yells to whoever can hear.
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 2: And it was like six truck.
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 3: We just got a call. They're trapped. They're in a shaft.
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 3: And we're going to find them. We were like, this
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 3: is the first time we're hearing anybody's alive.
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 2: We're like, yeah, yeah.
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 3: So everybody starts running for get gear. And there's a
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 3: rescue truck that was crushed. And we ran over to
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 3: the rescue truck, and we started opening up compartments. I
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 3: grabbed a jackhammer. We grabbed some big-ass jackhammer, bits, bottles
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 3: for air, and now we start heading out to look
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 3: for them. So you at least had a mission. Oh,
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 3: we were on a mission now. Now we're looking for it.
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 3: So now another two hours climbing up and down. But meanwhile,
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 3: Building 7, which is the big building everybody talks about,
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 3: was on fire from the moment we got there.
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 2: Every floor.
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 3: Really? It burned every floor. And what caused that fire?
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 3: Just the collapse. You know, they had the two trade centers. Oh,
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 3: the collapse of the other? The collapse right in front
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 3: of them, yeah. There was a lot of buildings on fire.
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 3: So now we're working up and down, and I take
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 3: a fall. I fall into a void. And I fall
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 3: on my right shoulder and my Bobby comes running over.
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 3: He's like, kiddo, you all right? I said, yeah, I
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 3: fucking hurt my shoulder. He helps me up. I take
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 3: the jackhammer. I throw it into a void. I'm like,
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 3: fuck this shit. We had no radios. We didn't know
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 3: if they found anybody or anything.
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 2: Oh, excuse me. My pin.
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 3: It was almost impossible.
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 2: It was impossible.
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 3: Finally, we threw all this shit down because it was
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 3: a couple hours already climbing again. And when you're climbing
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 3: up these big jagged pieces of concrete. Sure, scary.
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 2: In and out, in and out.
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 3: And we made our way into a store, like a
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 3: high-end store that was maybe three stories up. And we
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 3: went in through the window. Three stories up what? High,
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 3: because the rubble was that high. So we crawled into
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 3: their window. And it was a high-end women's store. And
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 3: it's dusty and dark. And we're crawling around. I'm looking
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 3: under all the clothes to see if there's anything. We're yelling,
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 3: anybody here? Anybody here? Nobody there. So we worked our
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 3: way back out. And now we went to the Marriott.
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 3: which was a hotel right there. and we came in
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 3: one of these big broken windows. It was right there
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 3: at Ground Zero, huh?
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and we.
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 3: Climbed down the debris into the lobby of the hotel.
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 3: We're the only ones there, you know? So we're like,
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 3: holy shit, look at this place, you know? We're looking around.
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 3: And it was kind of kept okay? Yeah. It was
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 3: a big lobby. There was ash and broken glass and shit,
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 3: but it wasn't collapsed. Right. So I said, look over there.
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 3: I see a fireman sitting at one of those little
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 3: desks in the lobby. We're like, holy shit. So we
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 3: go running over. First fireman we're seeing, you know, and
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 3: he's covered.
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 2: In shit, you know, no helmet. He's like pale white.
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 2: He's in shock.
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 3: And he's sitting there, and we're like, holy shit, buddy,
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 3: you okay, okay? And he turns and he looks at me,
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 3: and it's one of the young guys sitting that got
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 3: on rotation. He just left our house and they sent
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 3: them to Manhattan. We called him Monkey Man. I'm like,
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 3: holy shit, monkey, what the fuck? And he just, he
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 3: looked up at me and he said, all my guys
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 3: are dead. They're all dead. And we were like, oh shit.
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 3: And I'm like kind of rubbing his shoulder. My other
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 3: guys are like, monkey, monkey, you all right? You all right?
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 3: And he was in shock, you know? So we're like, look, monkey,
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 3: we got to go, man. You know, you're okay. We're
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 3: going to leave you here. It was funny because the
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 3: phone was on the table with the little messenger light blinking.
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 3: It was the weirdest sight, you know. And we left him.
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 3: We climbed back out, out the window, back onto the debris.
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 3: It's a long day. Yeah, we were there until like 9.30
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 3: at night from 11.30 in the morning.
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 2: So we were going along.
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 3: We found a hose line, believe it or not, a
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 3: hose line all the way from the Hudson. And there
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 3: was a big opening with like a void that had
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 3: black smoke was pouring out of it. So we had
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 3: the line, and for about an hour and a half,
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 3: we just sat there. We're building seven about 100 yards
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 3: away from us, burning. And we sat there, and one
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 3: guy would go around through the voids, and the other
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 3: two guys would just hold the hose line, pouring it
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 3: into this hole from hell.
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 2: I mean, it was horrible.
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 3: So all of a sudden, we're doing that, and we
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 3: see this chief, and he starts yelling at us. He's
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 3: between us and building seven, and he says, Drop that line.
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 3: Get out of here.
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 2: This building's going to come down. So we were like,
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 2: holy shit, okay.
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 3: We cracked it open a little, wedged it into some
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 3: rocks so the water would keep going down the hole.
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 2: And we took off, and we were like, hey. It
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 2: was like 5 o'clock. We're like, we're hungry. We're thirsty.
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 2: We're tired. We're covered in shit. Let's go back to
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 2: the rig. It's suburban.
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 3: And we'll go uptown, and we'll get something to eat,
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 3: and then we'll come back. So we— We get off
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 3: the pile, like, where's the car? I think it's a
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 3: few blocks this way. So now we're heading down, and
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 3: there's nobody around still. I mean, as far as, you know,
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 3: besides firemen coming in. So I don't know if you
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 3: ever heard of Penny Crone, but she was like a
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 3: popular reporter on Fox News. She was a real tough girl. Yeah,
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 3: Penny Crone. And I don't know if she was Fox,
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 3: but there she is. Very well-known New York reporter. She
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 3: was out there on the street? She was in the
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 3: street when we were walking, and she had a microphone
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 3: and a cameraman, and she came running up to us.
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 3: She's like, guys, guys, can you give me some information
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 3: what it's like down there? So the three of us
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 3: are standing there, and she puts this big microphone in
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 3: front of me, and she goes, can you tell me?
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 3: I said, oh, it's bad, really bad. She put it
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 3: in front of my other friend, Bobby. Bad, he says, horrible.
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 3: My other friend says the same thing. She's getting nothing
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 3: out of it.
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 2: She's like.
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 3: She pulls back, you know, to ask us another question.
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 3: And I'm like, holy shit, look over there. And there's
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 3: this Asian woman covered in dirt, bleeding from her head.
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 3: And she's got a suitcase in her hand. So we're like,
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 3: we run over to her. We're like, ma'am, ma'am, are
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 3: you okay? She was in shock or whatever. And she
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 3: just kept like looking. And my friend went to take
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 3: the suitcase. She yanked it back, you know, and then
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 3: she just walked away. And we were like, holy shit,
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 3: that was weird. What do you think's in that suitcase?
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 3: My friend said, money. She had that grip on that thing.
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 2: It was full of money. Batch of yen in there,
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 2: I bet.
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 3: A lot of yen.
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 2: Some egg rolls. I don't know.
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 3: But we got to the Suburban, and it was covered.
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 3: Now it was green. It was now gray. Wow.
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 2: We'd all get in, and it was like, Theo, the seats,
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 2: the leather seats were like, oh.
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 3: We were squishing our backs in.
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 2: We were getting comfortable. I was almost 40 at that time.
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 1: I can't even imagine. And the fact is, you're alive. Like,
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: you've been through this. I can't even imagine, like, what
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 1: your body's going through.
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 2: Oh, we were beat. We were covered in shit.
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 3: And so it was funny because he put the car on,
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 3: and he started up, and he put the air conditioner on,
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 3: and it blew smoke. It blew dust out. It's like
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 3: Lily Munster's vacuum cleaner. I'm like, oh, everybody's choking. The
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 3: thing's blowing smoke out all the dust. We're like, thanks.
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 2: We needed that. Now we're heading uptown.
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 3: Even with the windows open, the dust is flying off
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 3: the rig. And we go up to 16 Truck up
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 3: in Midtown somewhere, and we take a break.
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 2: I go in, we get a drink of water. I
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 2: call my wife. What has she been thinking?
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 3: I don't know. It's like, you know, 5.30, 6. Oh,
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 3: I forgot to say, before we got to the car,
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 3: Building 7 collapsed. Oh.
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 2: We just missed it. We heard a roar. My friend said,
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 2: 7 just came down.
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 3: So we were like, holy shit, we just missed it.
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 2: But you've been near that all day down there. All day,
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 2: it was burning.
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: Because there's a lot of speculation about Building 7 over
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 1: the years.
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 2: I think it's all bullshit. You do? Because I was there, yeah,
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 2: I mean.
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 3: It kind of gets me a little, because I don't
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 3: know what really happened that day.
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 2: Who knows, you know, who was involved, whatever. I have
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 2: no idea.
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 3: Right. But all I know is Building 7 was burning
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 3: all day long from first floor to the top floor,
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 3: every window. So, you know, people were saying there was explosions.
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 2: But you saw firsthand that it had been kind of
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 2: cooking all that.
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 3: And all the firemen that I ever talked to that
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 3: were there that day, no one, everybody says there was
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 3: no fucking explosions. Yeah.
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they have all these things.
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 3: Like the other day, I thought I saw an AI
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 3: bullshit thing about guys saying they heard explosions. Like they're
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 3: putting that out on the internet. And it looks real.
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 3: You think they're really firemen. You got to be careful today.
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 3: You never know what's real.
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 3: I agree with that. You can't tell. You can almost
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 3: tell a little bit today. But imagine a few years
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 3: from now with the AI, you'll never be able to tell. Yeah.
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 3: You'll need like an AI detection kit. They probably will
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 3: have that.
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 2: Maybe we can get in on that. We could come
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 2: up with it first. Yeah, OK. Sure.
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 1: I mean, if that's what we met for today, to
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 1: be able to start that and keep that out of
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 1: the world.
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that could have saved the world.
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 1: What about over time with 9-11? There's been a lot
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 1: of conspiracy theories and stuff like that. Has any of
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 1: that grown in the world of the fire department culture
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 1: or anything like that? Or is it person by person?
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 1: Because you guys were one of the most affected.
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 3: Groups, you know? Yeah, 343 men we lost that day.
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 3: It's hard to even get over that number. Yeah, it
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 3: was a lot. And we knew it was a lot.
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 3: When we left 16 Truck, we stopped at a Genovese
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 3: drugstore somewhere in Manhattan. And we went in, and we
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 3: got a couple of bottles of water, about four giant
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 3: Milky Ways, and some batteries for our flashlights.
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 2: So now we're covered in shit.
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 3: We're up at the counter, and the young girl's ringing
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 3: us up. And she goes, you guys come from the
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 3: Trade Center? So my friend Bobby said, well, what gives
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 3: you that idea? So she just looked and grinned. She said,
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 3: all right, no charge for you guys. So we took off.
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 3: We ate our Milky Ways. We had our water. And
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 3: then we went back to the pile. Is there a
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 3: picture from that day, Nick? If you have it, just
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 3: pull it up. Don't even wait for me to see that.
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 2: That's my two buddies. That was like a couple weeks later.
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 3: That's Whip and the other guy? That's my friend Andrew
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 3: and Marty. You would have to go down and work
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 3: at the trade center. Yeah. And it was very unhealthy.
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 3: A lot of guys got cancer. A lot of guys
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 3: died after the trade center.
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 1: We just had a breathing expert in the other day,
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 1: this guy James Nestor. and he has a New York
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 1: Times bestseller, a book called Breath. And he talks about,
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 1: is it ground zero?
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 3: Ground zero. Ground zero lung? Ground glass lung.
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 2: Oh, okay. He talks about ground glass lung. Yeah, the glass.
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 1: It's a condition that happened to a lot of people
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 1: who were first responders at ground zero.
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 2: Have you heard about this?
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, I never heard about the ground glass, but,
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 3: of course, the breathing, everybody was in, you know, If
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 3: you were there for like a month or two, some
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 3: guys were there two, three, four months. My friend Bobby
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 3: was there the whole time. He just got his nephew
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 3: on the job. It was his nephew's first job, and
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 3: he was in the troll. He was there every day
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 3: looking for his body, day and night.
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 2: Looking for his nephew? Nephew, yeah, for his sister. God,
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 2: that's heartbreaking, huh?
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 2: He's a good guy. He's a great guy, too.
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 3: Who, his nephew?
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 2: No, my friend Bobby. This is his.
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 3: He's the boxing. He runs the fire department boxing team.
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 3: He is? Bring him on. Let's get a picture of him.
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 3: You see him on there. Bobby McGuire, FDNY boxing. He's
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 3: a Golden Glove champ. Is he a pretty interesting guy?
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 2: Oh, you wouldn't.
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 3: I don't know if you know the Knicks, but his
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 3: uncles are Dickie McGuire and Al McGuire and Marquette. The Knicks? Yeah. Oh,
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 3: there he is. His father was John McGuire, and he
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 3: was like a big guy in New York. Jimmy Breslin
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 3: actually called him the king of Queens because he opened
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 3: the first gay bar in Queens back in the day. Oh,
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 3: that's incredible, man. Yeah.
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 2: He sounds like an interesting guy. I'd love to get
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 2: to meet him sometime.
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 3: Oh, he's a great guy, yeah.
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 1: I bet he's got some great stories, too, just from
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 1: the boxing history of it. You know, Joey Diaz used to.
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 1: He used to shovel ice out of James J. Braddock's
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 1: driveway over in Jersey.
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 2: I heard him say that. That's pretty wild. He'd give
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 2: him a couple of bucks or something.
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he'd give him a couple of bucks.
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 1: And Joey would be like, this guy's been punched in
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 1: the head so many times, he thought he gave me
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: a five, he gave me a ten.
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 2: But that's just a wild story right there. Yeah, yeah. Oh,
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 2: go back and show the guys. That's Marty right there?
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 2: That's Bobby. That's Bobby?
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 3: Bobby McGuire. Bobby McGuire.
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 2: And what was his nephew's name?
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 3: Do you remember?
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 2: No, I don't remember him. My wife might, but I don't.
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 3: Alan.
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 2: His name was Alan.
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 3: Alan.
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 2: He was a lifeguard in Rockaway, the kid. His last
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 2: name was Alan, and he just started on the- He
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 2: just started. It was like his first job.
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 3: And Bobby was there, and I know his breathing is,
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 3: you know, he's had a lot of breathing problems. Once
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 3: you're there too long. So anyway, they're having a fight
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 3: in Madison Square Garden in March. We fight the cops
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 3: every year. It's called the Battle of the Badges. Who's
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 3: won over time, over the years, who's won the most,
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 3: do you think? Well, you know, the cops are double
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 3: the amount of pool that they can get.
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 2: They're twice as big an organization as us. We're like 30,000.
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 3: They're like 60,000. But we still, we get some good fighters,
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 3: and we beat them quite a few times.
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 2: They fight everywhere. They fight in England. They fight in Ireland.
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 3: Oh, really?
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they'll fight any fire department, any cops. So Bobby
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 2: and his gang, this is like a thing they do
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 2: all year? All year, yeah. Oh, he's so busy. So
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 2: he runs this, the FDNY Boxing Club?
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Oh, wow. They raise like hundreds of thousands for
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 3: Tunnels to Towers every year.
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 2: And what is Tunnels to Towers?
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 3: That's with the World Trade Center Foundation where the guy's
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 3: brother ran through from Staten Island. He ran through the
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 3: tunnel to get to the trade center. and he passed away.
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 3: And so they started this organization, and it's huge. Oh,
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 3: that's beautiful, man.
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 2: We'll make a donation to him. Oh, that'd be great.
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, right here.
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 1: Born from the tragedy of 9-11, the Tunnels to Towers
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 1: Foundation carries out its mission to do good by providing
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 1: mortgage-free homes to gold star and fallen first responder families
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 1: with young children and building specially adapted smart homes for
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 1: catastrophically injured veterans and first responders.
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 2: They ran through the tunnel with their gear on, To
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 2: get to Manhattan.
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 1: Oh, the FDNY Boxing Club is comprised of active duty members,
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 1: FDNY and EMS, who train on their.
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 3: Own time established in 1982. FDNY Boxing has spent 40
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 3: years raising funds for worthwhile charities through spirited competition.
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, man, we'll make a donation to them. Yeah, I'm going.
• 1:40:59
  Speaker 1: Bravest boxing team will defend the Big Apple in the
• 1:41:02
  Speaker 1: second international battle of the badges, huh?
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 3: The funny thing is the best fights are in the crowd.
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 3: The cops and the firemen going at it. Holy shit,
• 1:41:11
  Speaker 3: the brawls. One time I was there and this girl cop,
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 3: you know, she was bad-mouthing some firemen and she threw
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 3: a soda at the guy. And the one fireman says, hey,
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 3: you know, I don't hit firemen. And the other fireman said.
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 2: I do. And he clocked her.
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah. Boom, she went flying over the thing.
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 2: The whole fight broke out. It was crazy.
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, why don't you throw
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 3: a soda at you? Yeah.
• 1:41:33
  Speaker 1: And with all the people getting sex changes now, you
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 1: don't know who's got what on them.
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm not frisking you first to find out. Yeah,
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 1: what are you packing? Yeah, yeah, yeah. How has the
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 1: department changed since you got involved in NOW?
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 3: Well, from when I got on and then like in–
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 3: The early, late 90s, mid 90s computers came in and
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 3: that changed a lot. Computers and now digital things. We
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 3: had fax machines and computers and that changed a lot
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 3: of things. Before it was just writing in a book,
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 3: you know, now more things are more digital. So they
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 3: had a little more eyes on you. You couldn't get
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 3: away with as much. Right, a lot more technology, stuff
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 3: like that. Yeah, because back in the day, the bosses
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 3: ran the firehouse. There was nobody else that knew what
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 3: was going on. Whatever they put in the book is
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 3: what it was. Yeah.
• 1:42:22
  Speaker 2: In fact, when I bought my house, it was a
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 2: funny story.
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 3: I was 24, and I told my boss, I told
• 1:42:28
  Speaker 3: the bank, yeah, this is where I work if you
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 3: want to check on my employment. And I gave him
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 3: the number to the truck office.
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 3: So I said, this is what I make, you know?
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 3: And it was like twice what I was making. He's like, ah,
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 3: you can't say that. I said, just tell the bank,
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 3: don't worry about it.
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 2: And it worked.
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 1: What, yeah, what did Christine say when you called her that?
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 1: It must've been crazy.
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, well, her sister answered the phone, Bernie. And
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 3: I was like, Bernie. And she's like, Tony, how the
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 3: fuck are you? What's going on? I said, oh my God.
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 3: We just got out of the firehouse. We're taking a break.
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 3: We're all okay. And I'll talk to my wife, tell
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 3: her I love her, and I'll see her in a bit.
• 1:43:05
  Speaker 2: I'll call her later.
• 1:43:07
  Speaker 3: So I hung up, and we went back to the pile.
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 3: So now we get back on the pile. It's like,
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 3: what do we want? First, we're walking along, and guys are, like,
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 3: seeing other guys that you know. You're hugging. So my
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 3: friend Bobby sees a guy. They're hugging, and I'm standing there, like,
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 3: on a plateau. And this guy hits me, another fireman.
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 3: He goes, buddy, you're standing on somebody. And I was like,
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 3: oh shit. And I looked down and this guy in
• 1:43:31
  Speaker 3: his three-piece suit, he's like part of the ground. He's
• 1:43:34
  Speaker 3: looking up at me and I'm like, oh my God.
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 3: That was the first body I saw all day. Yeah,
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 3: so now we're like, okay, so now we're moving along.
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 3: What do you want to do? They started a bucket brigade.
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 3: I don't know, we must have a thousand Home Depot buckets.
• 1:43:49
  Speaker 3: And you would pass a bucket and take a bucket.
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 3: Just move the water along. For like hours, we were
• 1:43:54
  Speaker 3: doing that, you know, and it was starting. Yeah, it
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 3: was getting dark out. You know, the day was getting,
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 3: it was like around 7.30, 8 o'clock. And so now
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 3: we're doing this for hours. My back is killing me.
• 1:44:06
  Speaker 3: And all of a sudden, we hear all this yelling.
• 1:44:08
  Speaker 3: Everybody's yelling and cheering. It's 9.30 at night, you know,
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 3: at 9 o'clock. We're like, what is that? What is that?
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 3: My friend Bobby goes, look, look over there, down there.
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 3: And we look down, and here comes a parade of ironworkers.
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 3: with heavy machinery, cranes. They got their hard hats on,
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 3: cut-off shirts. Everybody's got their fists in the air. They're
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 3: all hanging off the machines. Everybody's cheering like we won
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 3: the Super Bowl. It was a drop in the bucket,
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 3: but they got right to work, started taking off all
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 3: the heavy shit. I mean, it had months, almost a
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 3: year to go, but it was just a start. Yeah.
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 2: And it just felt so good. Like we had a chance.
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and then... Finally, we were like, you know, let's
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 3: start heading home, you know. And I met a few
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 3: guys heading home. And I was thinking in the back
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 3: of my mind, all the guys, you know, that got killed.
• 1:44:57
  Speaker 3: We had no idea how many yet. Can't even imagine.
• 1:44:59
  Speaker 3: And I run into a friend of mine, and he
• 1:45:02
  Speaker 3: was off in a rescue company. And I said, hey, John.
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 3: He said, Tony, how you doing? He goes, you know, Tony,
• 1:45:08
  Speaker 3: Jerry was working. And Jerry was like one of my
• 1:45:10
  Speaker 3: best friends.
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 2: And I was like, oh.
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 3: God, I just like stepped back because I knew he
• 1:45:16
  Speaker 3: was in Rescue 1.
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 2: I was devastated. My friend whipped sore and he put
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 2: his arm around me. He said, come on, who knew?
• 1:45:24
  Speaker 2: Let's go. Let's leave.
• 1:45:26
  Speaker 3: And I was like, oh, I'm still emotional. It's heartbreaking.
• 1:45:32
  Speaker 3: What was his name? Jerry what?
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 2: Jerry Nevins. Jerry Nevins. Let's see a picture of him, huh?
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 3: Funny story, when he told me he was going to
• 1:45:39
  Speaker 3: leave to go to rescue, I was like, you motherfucker.
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 3: Are you fucking kidding me? It was like, because everybody
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 3: was leaving. I was there 15 years. I was losing
• 1:45:47
  Speaker 3: guys left and right. They were getting made, lieutenant. He
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 3: wanted to go to a rescue company. We used to
• 1:45:51
  Speaker 3: bash rescue all the time. Rescue is like a special company.
• 1:45:55
  Speaker 3: When a truckie or a fireman gets in trouble, they
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 3: send a rescue guy to get them. They're like expertise.
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 2: They're like the Marines or whatever kind of, or no? Well,
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 2: the Marines, but they're like specialists.
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 3: Is that Jerry?
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's Jerry.
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 3: Oh, there he is. And they were on 42nd Street,
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 3: Rescue 1. So they're right in the middle of Times Square.
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 2: Oh, they were there. Oh, he made so many rescues.
• 1:46:15
  Speaker 2: It was amazing. Wow, so he enjoyed it once he
• 1:46:18
  Speaker 2: got over there.
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 3: Oh, I used to go to some medal days, and
• 1:46:21
  Speaker 3: he'd be there, and two, three medals hanging off of buildings, scaffoldings.
• 1:46:26
  Speaker 3: It was a lot of times in Midtown, the scaffoldings
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 3: would break, and they'd have to go over ropes and
• 1:46:31
  Speaker 3: get these guys. And yeah, he was just a great find.
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 3: But when he told me he was going to rescue,
• 1:46:36
  Speaker 3: I was crushed. I was like, you got to be
• 1:46:39
  Speaker 3: kidding me. He told me in the middle of a box,
• 1:46:41
  Speaker 3: we were checking out a building. So now I get
• 1:46:44
  Speaker 3: back in the rig and we're going down the St.
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 3: Nicholas Avenue and I turned the ladder all the way out.
• 1:46:51
  Speaker 3: So now it looks like a square, you know? And
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 3: I'm like this way looking at him. He's looking, he's like,
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 3: what the fuck? I'm like, fuck you. And we straighten
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 3: it out. Now we're crossing over Amsterdam Avenue, and I
• 1:47:04
  Speaker 3: see them put the lights on.
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 2: Like, okay, we're getting a run.
• 1:47:06
  Speaker 3: I see the boss on the phone, you know, and
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 3: he's taking down the information, puts his arm out. Like,
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 3: we got to run. Sounds like a job. Numerous calls.
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 3: Numerous calls means you're going to work. That means people
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 3: are calling. You know, I see a fire. I see
• 1:47:20
  Speaker 3: a fire.
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 2: I see a fire.
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 1: Right, it's not just some weirdo with a Ouija board. Yeah,
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 1: no Ouija boards, no fake alarms. You hear numerous calls,
• 1:47:28
  Speaker 1: you know you're going to work. So now we go
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 1: around Broadway and I see it. We come up and
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 1: it's the second floor. It's blowing out like four windows.
• 1:47:36
  Speaker 1: And there's an awning with off the fire escape on
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 1: the second floor. And it's still not fire out. I
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 1: got to get in there.
• 1:47:43
  Speaker 2: I'm the OV. That's my job. So now I'm getting
• 1:47:46
  Speaker 2: a ladder out. I'm putting the ladder up.
• 1:47:48
  Speaker 3: The Dominican guys in the street, they're helping me place
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 3: the ladder into the thing. I climb up the ladder.
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 3: I smash the window out. I put my mask on
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 3: and I drop in. Now it's blowing. all the other rooms,
• 1:47:59
  Speaker 3: this room is getting ready to blow.
• 1:48:02
  Speaker 2: It gets hot.
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 3: So now I'm in there and I'm searching around and
• 1:48:07
  Speaker 3: I get lost. I get a little, I get pumped
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 3: into a bureau on my knees and I get disorientated
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 3: and I'm getting scared because my ears are.
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 2: Starting to burn. I know it's going to light up.
• 1:48:19
  Speaker 3: So which is crazy i got caught in a closet
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 3: you'd never think how'd you get caught in a closet
• 1:48:24
  Speaker 3: right but i'm crawling in thinking it's an opening and
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 3: i turned in there and i'm in this closet now
• 1:48:30
  Speaker 3: i can't get out of the closet i'm going around
• 1:48:32
  Speaker 3: in a circle my ears are burning and all of
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 3: a sudden i hear jerry he came in behind me
• 1:48:38
  Speaker 3: and Jerry had a bite bar.
• 1:48:40
  Speaker 2: Which was like totally legal.
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 3: Instead of having a mask with a net on, it
• 1:48:45
  Speaker 3: was like you had a little bite bar in the
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 3: mask so you didn't need that. You just held it
• 1:48:48
  Speaker 3: with your teeth, which was totally outlawed, but it made
• 1:48:51
  Speaker 3: it easier to take it on and off. So I
• 1:48:54
  Speaker 3: hear him say, Tony. I'm like, Jerry. He's like, you
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 3: got to get out of here. It's going to light up.
• 1:48:59
  Speaker 3: I'm like, I can't find my way out. I was
• 1:49:01
  Speaker 3: like taking my mask off, calling for my mother. I
• 1:49:04
  Speaker 3: thought I was a dead man. And then all of
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 3: a sudden I heard the engine at the door and
• 1:49:10
  Speaker 3: I heard this guy McCarthy yelling, kick its ass, kick
• 1:49:13
  Speaker 3: its ass, hit it, hit it. I heard the water
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 3: coming in and I was like, oh, it was music
• 1:49:18
  Speaker 3: to my ears. I was going to live again. And
• 1:49:21
  Speaker 3: then after that, when I was in the street, I
• 1:49:22
  Speaker 3: was like a zombie, you know. And Jerry was like, yo,
• 1:49:25
  Speaker 3: what the fuck's wrong with you? I said, dude, that
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 3: was fucking close. He just laughed, you know. But that
• 1:49:30
  Speaker 3: was it. He went to rescue the next day. I
• 1:49:32
  Speaker 3: never even thanked him for coming in after me that day. Oh, man.
• 1:49:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's just even the stories are so, like, exhilarating.
• 1:49:42
  Speaker 1: I can imagine, like, I can't even imagine what it's like, really.
• 1:49:45
  Speaker 3: We were putting a fire out. I made a cover
• 1:49:48
  Speaker 3: of a magazine. I think you could bring it up.
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 3: It was called Fire Command. I don't know what it was.
• 1:49:54
  Speaker 3: It was like one of these buff magazines. Yeah, that's
• 1:49:56
  Speaker 3: me in the middle. In a neck brace? Yeah. I
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 3: look like an Italian organ grinder, monkey man. I thought
• 1:50:02
  Speaker 3: you were going to say maybe you made the calendar.
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 3: I did. I got the little ringlets in my hair.
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 3: I got the bow ties on. And the friend next
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 3: to me, Kenny, he was a probie. It's a funny story.
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 3: We had to take this line up, the fire escape,
• 1:50:15
  Speaker 3: because we got called in as an extra engine. It
• 1:50:17
  Speaker 3: was a lot of fire. People were trapped. They were
• 1:50:19
  Speaker 3: having a hard time putting the fire out from the inside.
• 1:50:22
  Speaker 3: So we're taking the line up the fire. Now I'm
• 1:50:24
  Speaker 3: in the engine.
• 1:50:25
  Speaker 2: I'm detailed.
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 3: I'm never hardly in the engine. So, but when they
• 1:50:28
  Speaker 3: need a guy and you got an extra guy, you
• 1:50:30
  Speaker 3: go across the floor. Now I'm in the engine and
• 1:50:33
  Speaker 3: we're taking this line up the fire escape to the
• 1:50:35
  Speaker 3: fifth floor. And the boss is yelling, this Joe McLaughlin,
• 1:50:40
  Speaker 3: he's yelling, Richie, get in there, hit it, hit it. Finally,
• 1:50:43
  Speaker 3: they charge the line. We tie it off to the
• 1:50:45
  Speaker 3: fire escape. I mean, it's a lot of water going
• 1:50:47
  Speaker 3: up that high. He's hitting the water, the guy right here, Richie,
• 1:50:51
  Speaker 3: that's squinting his eyes. And he's hitting the water. And
• 1:50:55
  Speaker 3: we're pushing our way in. We made it up to
• 1:50:57
  Speaker 3: the fire floor escape. We pushed the fire in, and
• 1:50:59
  Speaker 3: now we're crawling in. We're climbing in through the window.
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 3: The boss is yelling, they're looking at us, Richie. They're
• 1:51:04
  Speaker 3: looking at us because we're outside on the fire escape.
• 1:51:07
  Speaker 2: We get in.
• 1:51:08
  Speaker 3: The ceiling comes down on our heads. All this hot
• 1:51:10
  Speaker 3: plaster and shit's fucking burned my neck. So now we're
• 1:51:14
  Speaker 3: getting in. We get to like the engine on the
• 1:51:16
  Speaker 3: other side is coming, and they're making a good push.
• 1:51:19
  Speaker 2: They're putting the fire out. We're putting the fire out.
• 1:51:21
  Speaker 3: So now we're at this like wall with a window
• 1:51:24
  Speaker 3: and I'm on top of something. Me and another guy
• 1:51:27
  Speaker 3: were like kneeling. I thought it was a pillow from
• 1:51:30
  Speaker 3: the couch. So the boss tells the probie, take the
• 1:51:33
  Speaker 3: line and shoot the water out the window and it'll
• 1:51:36
  Speaker 3: take a lot of smoke so we could start to
• 1:51:38
  Speaker 3: see what's going on here. And as they're doing that,
• 1:51:40
  Speaker 3: you can start to see a little, the boss takes
• 1:51:43
  Speaker 3: his mask off and he goes, holy shit, look what
• 1:51:45
  Speaker 3: you're kneeling on. And I look down and we're kneeling
• 1:51:48
  Speaker 3: on a corpse with no head, no legs and no arms.
• 1:51:51
  Speaker 3: And he's all like a crispy burnt. We're like, ah,
• 1:51:54
  Speaker 3: we all jump off. We're like, holy shit. I thought
• 1:51:57
  Speaker 3: it was a couch piece, you know? And it was just,
• 1:51:59
  Speaker 3: that's what happened. They killed this guy. They cut him
• 1:52:01
  Speaker 3: up and then they lit him on, they lit the
• 1:52:03
  Speaker 3: place on fire. That's why it was so much fire.
• 1:52:06
  Speaker 3: You get a lot of fire in the middle of
• 1:52:07
  Speaker 3: the day. It's usually arson. Somebody poured gasoline or something.
• 1:52:11
  Speaker 3: So that was a murder, huh?
• 1:52:13
  Speaker 2: It was a murder.
• 1:52:14
  Speaker 3: So anyway, before that, Kenny's a probie. He's probably about
• 1:52:19
  Speaker 3: 21 years old. And he was in softball, and he
• 1:52:22
  Speaker 3: hurt his leg sliding into second base. So we were
• 1:52:26
  Speaker 3: on inspection. I said, Kenny, what happened to your leg?
• 1:52:28
  Speaker 3: He said, oh, I caught it on softball. I said, oh,
• 1:52:30
  Speaker 3: that looks fucking terrible. Then we got that run to
• 1:52:33
  Speaker 3: the fire. So now we're leaving the fire. We're going
• 1:52:35
  Speaker 3: down the steps. I said, we're all going sick. We're
• 1:52:37
  Speaker 3: tapping out, right? So I said, we're going to go
• 1:52:40
  Speaker 3: with our necks from the ceiling coming down. I said, Kenny,
• 1:52:42
  Speaker 3: take that bandage off and tell them you got burnt
• 1:52:44
  Speaker 3: on your leg. So we get in the street. The
• 1:52:48
  Speaker 3: street's busy. It's all fire department cops. There's reporters in
• 1:52:52
  Speaker 3: the street and everything. And the fire department doctor comes
• 1:52:55
  Speaker 3: running over to us. And I said, yeah, the ceiling
• 1:52:58
  Speaker 3: came down on our heads. And he's like, oh. And
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 3: I says, and this guy got burned on his leg.
• 1:53:03
  Speaker 3: And he looks at you. Keddie's leg up. He looks
• 1:53:05
  Speaker 3: at the softball injury, and he goes, third-degree burns. Patch
• 1:53:08
  Speaker 3: this man right up. So I look at Keddie because
• 1:53:10
  Speaker 3: he didn't know. It was his first take. So now
• 1:53:14
  Speaker 3: they take us. We're on the wall, like on Malcolm
• 1:53:17
  Speaker 3: X Boulevard, and they take us. We said, where's the boss?
• 1:53:21
  Speaker 3: We don't know where Joe McLaughlin is. So we see
• 1:53:24
  Speaker 3: a bunch of people, like, standing around. Somebody's on the ground.
• 1:53:26
  Speaker 3: They're taking pictures. We go over there, and we see
• 1:53:30
  Speaker 3: the boss. He's on the stretcher. getting his head taped down,
• 1:53:33
  Speaker 3: and they're all taking pictures of him. We're like, Lou, Lou,
• 1:53:36
  Speaker 3: you okay? You okay?
• 1:53:37
  Speaker 2: And he looks up.
• 1:53:37
  Speaker 3: He goes, get the fuck out of my pictures, he says.
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 3: We're like, he's okay. So they put us in the bus.
• 1:53:45
  Speaker 3: There he is, the best, Joe McLaughlin, CPO Joe. He
• 1:53:51
  Speaker 3: was in the 17 truck in the Bronx in the
• 1:53:54
  Speaker 3: war years. So he was a well-rounded fireman, tough as nails.
• 1:53:59
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 1:53:59
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 1:54:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so he says, get the fuck out of my pictures.
• 1:54:02
  Speaker 3: So we're laughing. Everybody's taking pictures of him. So now
• 1:54:06
  Speaker 3: they take us to the hospital, you know. So we're
• 1:54:08
  Speaker 3: in the emergency room, Columbia Press, and the young nurses
• 1:54:12
  Speaker 3: are patching up and they're laughing with us, you know,
• 1:54:15
  Speaker 3: and it's a busy emergency room. And Kenny's got his
• 1:54:18
  Speaker 3: thing on. So all of a sudden this, like, middle-aged
• 1:54:21
  Speaker 3: head nurse comes in, you know, good-looking woman, probably 40
• 1:54:24
  Speaker 3: or so. So she goes to Kenny's leg and she
• 1:54:27
  Speaker 3: moves the bandage. She makes a face, you know, and
• 1:54:31
  Speaker 3: she's like, when did this happen? And the kid is
• 1:54:33
  Speaker 3: sitting there, you know, he's like, oh, we're all looking
• 1:54:36
  Speaker 3: at him laughing, you know. And she just like patches
• 1:54:39
  Speaker 3: it up. She goes, you're lucky we love you guys.
• 1:54:41
  Speaker 3: And we're like, oh, we love you too, you know.
• 1:54:44
  Speaker 2: Busted.
• 1:54:45
  Speaker 3: So about a week or two, a couple of weeks later,
• 1:54:47
  Speaker 3: I come into the firehouse and this guy says, hey,
• 1:54:50
  Speaker 3: here's one of the superstars. I'm like, what are you
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 3: talking about? He's like, you made the cover of a magazine.
• 1:54:55
  Speaker 3: So I'm like, holy shit, you're kidding. So now I
• 1:54:57
  Speaker 3: go in the kitchen and everybody's clapping and everything. They
• 1:55:00
  Speaker 3: already have the picture in a frame, right? But they
• 1:55:03
  Speaker 3: changed it from report on firefighters injuries. They put report
• 1:55:08
  Speaker 3: on firefighters faking injuries. Yeah, I was going to say, huh?
• 1:55:12
  Speaker 3: So they put captions on everybody. So you see the
• 1:55:15
  Speaker 3: woman with her arms crossed and the bandana? Her caption said,
• 1:55:19
  Speaker 3: I know those motherfuckers are faking injuries. And then there's
• 1:55:24
  Speaker 3: a cop like walking here and he goes, yeah, chief,
• 1:55:26
  Speaker 3: I got those fakers right here. And then this salty
• 1:55:29
  Speaker 3: Harlem fireman, he's looking at us and his thing says,
• 1:55:32
  Speaker 3: you guys disgust me. Look at that sad face. Oh
• 1:55:38
  Speaker 3: my God. That ringlet hair. I love how you guys
• 1:55:41
  Speaker 3: already have your neck braces on. Oh yeah. I kept
• 1:55:45
  Speaker 3: that in my bag pocket. Well, we had a prop
• 1:55:48
  Speaker 3: pop closet at home, you know, canes and braces. Oh,
• 1:55:51
  Speaker 3: that's hilarious. Yeah, so that was how we made that cover.
• 1:55:56
  Speaker 3: I still have that hanging today.
• 1:55:58
  Speaker 1: Oh, just you had to go down to some memory lane, man,
• 1:56:01
  Speaker 1: just to think about different things and just to hear
• 1:56:04
  Speaker 1: about the camaraderie of what the lifestyle was like. Bring
• 1:56:08
  Speaker 1: up the part about the ground glass lung.
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 2: Is that what it's called?
• 1:56:11
  Speaker 1: I just wanted to make sure that I mention it
• 1:56:14
  Speaker 1: on here so that people know about it.
• 1:56:15
  Speaker 3: Let me see.
• 1:56:17
  Speaker 1: Ground glass lungs refers to a radiological finding on CT
• 1:56:21
  Speaker 1: scans showing hazy opacities in the lungs, often linked to
• 1:56:25
  Speaker 1: inflammation or fibrosis from inhaling toxic dust at ground zero.
• 1:56:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the pulverized.
• 1:56:29
  Speaker 1: After the 9-11 attacks. The dust cloud contained over 2,500 contaminants,
• 1:56:34
  Speaker 1: 50% construction debris, 40% glass fibers, 9% cellulose. Inhaling the
• 1:56:40
  Speaker 1: dust led to World Trade Center lung injury, which firefighters...
• 1:56:44
  Speaker 1: with firefighters losing up to 12 years of lung function.
• 1:56:47
  Speaker 1: 70% of workers showed respiratory decline. Yeah, the longer you
• 1:56:50
  Speaker 1: worked down there, the worse it was.
• 1:56:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:56:53
  Speaker 2: Because the dust really never settled for months. Yeah, it's
• 1:56:59
  Speaker 2: so crazy to think that it created a new disease. Yeah.
• 1:57:02
  Speaker 2: You know?
• 1:57:03
  Speaker 3: Probably. Well, you know, think about all those offices, all
• 1:57:06
  Speaker 3: those fluorescent lights, all those computers, they just got pulverized
• 1:57:10
  Speaker 3: to a dust. That's why everybody was covered between that
• 1:57:13
  Speaker 3: and the cement. It's a lot.
• 1:57:17
  Speaker 1: Tony, yeah, there's so many more things I want to
• 1:57:19
  Speaker 1: talk to you about. Maybe we could have you come
• 1:57:20
  Speaker 1: back sometime.
• 1:57:22
  Speaker 2: Anytime. And talk about other stuff. Sure. Maybe I'll bring
• 1:57:25
  Speaker 2: Bobby McGuire with me.
• 1:57:26
  Speaker 3: Dude.
• 1:57:26
  Speaker 2: Very interesting man.
• 1:57:28
  Speaker 3: Is he?
• 1:57:28
  Speaker 2: Oh, my God.
• 1:57:30
  Speaker 1: No, he seems very interesting. And I want to get
• 1:57:32
  Speaker 1: a picture up, too. Is this Richard Allen?
• 1:57:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's his nephew.
• 1:57:36
  Speaker 3: That's his nephew right there.
• 1:57:37
  Speaker 2: Get a picture. His sister's son.
• 1:57:39
  Speaker 3: Of Richie Allen. Yeah. That's awesome, man. We'd love to
• 1:57:42
  Speaker 3: maybe get- Every year they acknowledge him in Rockaway. They
• 1:57:44
  Speaker 3: have a big thing with the lifeguards and everybody. Oh,
• 1:57:47
  Speaker 3: they do?
• 1:57:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, surfer. He was a big surfer.
• 1:57:48
  Speaker 3: Oh, wow. Yeah. Oh. Yeah, I got plenty more stories there.
• 1:57:54
  Speaker 3: What was the, oh, the murder. That was a good
• 1:57:56
  Speaker 3: story in the Grand Jordan.
• 1:57:58
  Speaker 2: You know what?
• 1:57:58
  Speaker 1: I think I want to save it because there's even
• 1:58:00
  Speaker 1: some basic, there's like basic questions like, like is Arcand,
• 1:58:05
  Speaker 1: like somebody leaving a candle on, is that like the
• 1:58:07
  Speaker 1: number one cause of a house fire? Mm-hmm.
• 1:58:10
  Speaker 3: Maybe house fires, probably bad electrical work and a lot
• 1:58:16
  Speaker 3: of off fires, arson.
• 1:58:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Big time. Those space heaters. Space heaters. I don't
• 1:58:24
  Speaker 2: know if you ever heard of the Happy Land Social Club.
• 1:58:27
  Speaker 3: I don't know. It depends on which one you're talking about. Well,
• 1:58:29
  Speaker 3: it was in the Bronx. Yeah, it wasn't that kind
• 1:58:32
  Speaker 3: of happiness. Well, I mean, there's a lot of different versions.
• 1:58:35
  Speaker 3: But a sad story, but I think like, I'm not
• 1:58:38
  Speaker 3: sure the number, but you could look it up. 87
• 1:58:41
  Speaker 3: people died from a gallon of gas in a match.
• 1:58:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was horrible.
• 1:58:46
  Speaker 3: You had to respond to that? I didn't respond, but
• 1:58:48
  Speaker 3: my friend Sully did. He was detailed out to the
• 1:58:50
  Speaker 3: Bronx and they were one of the first trucks there.
• 1:58:52
  Speaker 3: And when they got in, they were crawling up the
• 1:58:54
  Speaker 3: stairs and They didn't know what they were crawling over.
• 1:58:57
  Speaker 3: And then when they finally found out it was all bodies,
• 1:58:59
  Speaker 3: it was like crazy. You had happy lands.
• 1:59:04
  Speaker 1: And so a lot of times you don't know what's
• 1:59:05
  Speaker 1: going on, or it used to be, you didn't know
• 1:59:07
  Speaker 1: what was going on until you got in there.
• 1:59:09
  Speaker 3: No, probably not. You don't know who said it. You're just,
• 1:59:14
  Speaker 3: the adrenaline is running, man. Oh my God, your hearts
• 1:59:17
  Speaker 3: are pumping. And it never gets like old, you know?
• 1:59:22
  Speaker 2: Oh, I bet.
• 1:59:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah. How many years, like they would say, we'd get
• 1:59:25
  Speaker 3: there and it'd be a top floor fire.
• 1:59:27
  Speaker 2: Now you got to carry that mask, all your gear, everything.
• 1:59:31
  Speaker 3: By the time you get to that sixth floor and
• 1:59:34
  Speaker 3: you got to put a mask on, you're sucking air.
• 1:59:36
  Speaker 3: You're like, and now you got to put this little,
• 1:59:39
  Speaker 3: and the mask is like the man breathing, so you
• 1:59:41
  Speaker 3: only get air. And I'd be in my mask like,
• 1:59:44
  Speaker 3: I'm getting out of this fucking city. I'm going to Queens.
• 1:59:48
  Speaker 3: I thought Queens would be an easier job for me. Westchester,
• 1:59:52
  Speaker 3: send me to Westchester.
• 1:59:53
  Speaker 2: Anywhere, you know, I'm getting out of this fucking ghetto.
• 1:59:56
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 1:59:57
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, Tony, thanks so much for your service, man. Yeah,
• 1:59:59
  Speaker 1: I would love to just have you come back sometime
• 2:00:01
  Speaker 1: and just be able to just go down, like, there's
• 2:00:03
  Speaker 1: some other roads I want to go down and learn
• 2:00:05
  Speaker 1: more about it.
• 2:00:06
  Speaker 2: Oh, that'd be great.
• 2:00:07
  Speaker 1: And just, but yeah, I think today we just got
• 2:00:09
  Speaker 1: a really good idea of just kind of the brotherhood of, yeah,
• 2:00:13
  Speaker 1: just what your journey has been like, kind of getting
• 2:00:15
  Speaker 1: involved with fire departmenting.
• 2:00:18
  Speaker 2: Oh, what did your wife end up getting a job in?
• 2:00:20
  Speaker 2: My wife?
• 2:00:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah. She worked for a printer, and then she worked
• 2:00:23
  Speaker 3: for a dentist. Oh, yeah.
• 2:00:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 2:00:26
  Speaker 3: Like dental assistant and kind of stuff? No, she ran
• 2:00:28
  Speaker 3: the whole, like, you know, yeah, took the phone calls.
• 2:00:31
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. Keeping everything organized. Yeah, she ran it. Yeah, yeah.
• 2:00:35
  Speaker 2: You know, my wife was a hard worker.
• 2:00:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's nice. Like I said, she bought her first
• 2:00:40
  Speaker 3: car when, you know, we were 17 with her own money,
• 2:00:42
  Speaker 3: four grand. She bought a.
• 2:00:44
  Speaker 2: Chevette, red Chevette. Oh, man.
• 2:00:47
  Speaker 3: Dude, if I saw a girl with a car, yeah,
• 2:00:48
  Speaker 3: I'm going with her. Yeah, I was like, wow, this
• 2:00:50
  Speaker 3: girl's got her own car.
• 2:00:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah. On her own money. No, mom didn't buy it,
• 2:00:54
  Speaker 2: you know?
• 2:00:54
  Speaker 1: That's my, I think, the number one thing I'm looking
• 2:00:56
  Speaker 1: for in a spouse is hard working.
• 2:00:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 2:01:00
  Speaker 3: Because life's hard work. Yeah, you can't try. You can't
• 2:01:02
  Speaker 3: do the door lock anymore, right? Because now they're all electric. Right?
• 2:01:06
  Speaker 3: You always used to say, if the girl gets in
• 2:01:08
  Speaker 3: the car and don't open your door, she's out. Yeah.
• 2:01:10
  Speaker 3: So there's all these little tests. But yes, my wife
• 2:01:13
  Speaker 3: was a hard worker and- a great mother. Yeah, it's
• 2:01:17
  Speaker 3: a nice thing too. Oh, yeah. It's funny because, you know,
• 2:01:21
  Speaker 3: all them years of being in the fire, I'd come
• 2:01:23
  Speaker 3: home sometimes and say, oh, my God, I had a fire.
• 2:01:26
  Speaker 3: Top floor was burning. I'm telling them all this stuff.
• 2:01:28
  Speaker 3: For sure. And they'd be like, Did you remember that
• 2:01:32
  Speaker 3: we have to go to school tomorrow? And I'd be like,
• 2:01:35
  Speaker 3: I just told you this whole story. It seemed like
• 2:01:37
  Speaker 3: it went right over your head. You're like, blah, blah, blah.
• 2:01:40
  Speaker 3: We get it. Yeah, every fire you've been to. Matches.
• 2:01:43
  Speaker 3: Go spit that black tar in the sink again like
• 2:01:47
  Speaker 3: you always do. Oh, yeah.
• 2:01:51
  Speaker 2: Behind every good fireman, huh?
• 2:01:53
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
• 2:01:53
  Speaker 2: It's the wives. I got some pictures of the fire
• 2:01:55
  Speaker 2: department wives and Well, look, you can show me that.
• 2:01:59
  Speaker 2: As long as they're appropriate, you can show me. Oh,
• 2:02:00
  Speaker 2: they're appropriate.
• 2:02:01
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 2:02:01
  Speaker 2: Good girls. Okay. Wild, you know, a lot of them
• 2:02:03
  Speaker 2: are Bronx girls. Well, look, these days, oh, yeah, tough
• 2:02:08
  Speaker 2: women over there. Yes.
• 2:02:10
  Speaker 1: That's what you need in the world. You need a good,
• 2:02:12
  Speaker 1: strong lady. This is your book right here, Tales from
• 2:02:15
  Speaker 1: the Tiller.
• 2:02:15
  Speaker 3: Yes. I didn't even know you had written this. Yeah,
• 2:02:17
  Speaker 3: I wrote this. It just came out last September.
• 2:02:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, great book.
• 2:02:22
  Speaker 3: Dude, congratulations. Yeah. A lot of good stories in there,
• 2:02:26
  Speaker 3: and I got recipes in there. Oh, for sure. Clam
• 2:02:30
  Speaker 3: sauce casino. I think you might like that.
• 2:02:33
  Speaker 1: Bro, I'll tell you this. I took a gal out
• 2:02:34
  Speaker 1: the other night, went to a place. They had clams
• 2:02:37
  Speaker 1: and white wine sauce.
• 2:02:38
  Speaker 3: I'm a clam guy.
• 2:02:38
  Speaker 2: That's kind of like, oh, you would love the clam
• 2:02:40
  Speaker 2: sauce casino. Really? Well, you know clams casino?
• 2:02:43
  Speaker 3: You know, they put the peppers and the onions and
• 2:02:45
  Speaker 3: a little bacon on it, and then they bake them. No,
• 2:02:47
  Speaker 3: I've never had that. Louisiana didn't have clam sauce casinos?
• 2:02:51
  Speaker 2: They might have had it. We had macaroni. There it is.
• 2:02:56
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, that looks good. So I make it, this
• 2:02:58
  Speaker 3: guy that got in trouble and was sent to our firehouse,
• 2:03:01
  Speaker 3: and it was one of his meals, and I took
• 2:03:03
  Speaker 3: it from him. And we make it with the spaghetti,
• 2:03:05
  Speaker 3: so we put it over with the peppers, the bacon,
• 2:03:09
  Speaker 3: the onions.
• 2:03:09
  Speaker 2: God, I want that.
• 2:03:10
  Speaker 1: Breadcrumb and the clams. Oh, I want that. I'm a
• 2:03:13
  Speaker 1: clam guy. Have you seen that kid that says that?
• 2:03:16
  Speaker 3: No.
• 2:03:16
  Speaker 2: Bring up that clam kid. I love this kid.
• 2:03:20
  Speaker 1: But of course that a fireman's book would have fires
• 2:03:23
  Speaker 1: with recipes thrown in.
• 2:03:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's funny because some of the stories are like tragedy,
• 2:03:28
  Speaker 3: and then it goes right into the recipe. It's a
• 2:03:31
  Speaker 3: little weird, but that kid that does the Italian words.
• 2:03:35
  Speaker 2: No, no, no.
• 2:03:35
  Speaker 1: I'm looking for the kid. Yeah, this kid's hilarious. What
• 2:03:39
  Speaker 1: did I just ask you for, Nick?
• 2:03:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm a clam guy. Kid, have you
• 2:03:44
  Speaker 3: seen this little kid?
• 2:03:45
  Speaker 2: No, I didn't see him. This kid, they interviewed him.
• 2:03:49
  Speaker 3: We'll finish on him.
• 2:03:50
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 2:03:52
  Speaker 3: I'm a guy who only basically likes clams, really. I'm
• 2:03:56
  Speaker 3: a clam guy.
• 2:03:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I like that kid.
• 2:03:58
  Speaker 3: That's all I do. All he eats.
• 2:04:00
  Speaker 2: He looks like it. Clams are awesome.
• 2:04:03
  Speaker 3: He's just crazy.
• 2:04:04
  Speaker 2: I hated oysters.
• 2:04:06
  Speaker 3: Oysters.
• 2:04:07
  Speaker 2: Kid's getting a little bit weird. But yeah, that guy's
• 2:04:09
  Speaker 2: a clam guy, you know? He's getting a little weird.
• 2:04:11
  Speaker 1: But I could see you guys just like, you guys
• 2:04:13
  Speaker 1: show up at a fire, but you also brought dinner
• 2:04:17
  Speaker 1: that has to be preheated, that has to be heated up.
• 2:04:19
  Speaker 1: So you're like taking it up to the fire with you,
• 2:04:21
  Speaker 1: leaving it on the ledge.
• 2:04:22
  Speaker 3: As soon as you sit down to eat, the tone
• 2:04:24
  Speaker 3: alarm goes off. Oh, every time, huh? And what happens
• 2:04:27
  Speaker 3: is we have a big thing of foil paper, and
• 2:04:30
  Speaker 3: one guy just starts cutting the foil papers off.
• 2:04:32
  Speaker 2: And the other guys start rapping.
• 2:04:33
  Speaker 3: Taking it to go. Otherwise, the cockroaches will walk away.
• 2:04:36
  Speaker 3: We had so many cockroaches in the firehouse.
• 2:04:38
  Speaker 2: Oh, my God. You can never get rid of them. Oh, God.
• 2:04:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 2:04:42
  Speaker 1: We'll have to hear about it next time. You have
• 2:04:44
  Speaker 1: a book, Tales from the Tiller, the true stories of heroism, heartbreak,
• 2:04:49
  Speaker 1: and humor.
• 2:04:49
  Speaker 2: The luckiest guy alive in his journey.
• 2:04:51
  Speaker 3: In the FDNY.
• 2:04:51
  Speaker 2: That's awesome. Yeah, starts with.
• 2:04:53
  Speaker 3: Some of my jobs before that, and then right through
• 2:04:55
  Speaker 3: the academy and right up to retirement. Who helped you
• 2:04:57
  Speaker 3: put it together?
• 2:04:57
  Speaker 2: Just me and my son.
• 2:04:59
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah?
• 2:04:59
  Speaker 2: And my wife, yeah.
• 2:05:00
  Speaker 3: Oh, that's excellent. Yeah, it was all in-house. And my brother-in-law,
• 2:05:03
  Speaker 3: who was in Utah, in Seattle, he worked for Microsoft,
• 2:05:07
  Speaker 3: and he did all the proofreading.
• 2:05:09
  Speaker 2: Did he?
• 2:05:10
  Speaker 3: Funny story is, you know, he threw his shoulder out
• 2:05:13
  Speaker 3: working the mouse doing all my corrections, because every chapter
• 2:05:17
  Speaker 3: had like a thousand corrections on it, so.
• 2:05:20
  Speaker 1: Well, that sounds like an insurance scam. But that'll be
• 2:05:24
  Speaker 1: the next book, you know? But no, this is awesome.
• 2:05:26
  Speaker 3: People are already telling me, when are you going to
• 2:05:28
  Speaker 3: write another book? I'm like, well, I'm just trying to
• 2:05:30
  Speaker 3: get this one out now.
• 2:05:31
  Speaker 2: It's hard. I go on the Instagram. That helps. And
• 2:05:34
  Speaker 2: there's always some asshole.
• 2:05:35
  Speaker 3: You write one book.
• 2:05:36
  Speaker 1: He's like, when's your next book coming out? And that guy,
• 2:05:38
  Speaker 1: he can't even read. It's always people that can't read.
• 2:05:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, what's my next one going to be? Like, more
• 2:05:42
  Speaker 2: tales from the till?
• 2:05:43
  Speaker 3: There you go.
• 2:05:44
  Speaker 2: There you go. Hey, if it sells.
• 2:05:45
  Speaker 1: You never know, man. Well, I've enjoyed your time today, man.
• 2:05:48
  Speaker 1: Thanks for thinking with us and just kind of taking
• 2:05:50
  Speaker 1: us on a little bit of a journey. Yeah, we
• 2:05:53
  Speaker 1: had so many questions for today, so I'd love to
• 2:05:55
  Speaker 1: be able to get to more of them.
• 2:05:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I can't believe how fast it went. Another time,
• 2:05:58
  Speaker 2: I know. When you're having fun.
• 2:06:00
  Speaker 3: Hey.
• 2:06:01
  Speaker 2: You're the man.
• 2:06:02
  Speaker 1: I'm just glad we're not on fire in here today, man.
• 2:06:04
  Speaker 1: I really am, dude. Checking this lobby out over here, too.
• 2:06:07
  Speaker 1: It's about 1,000 years old over here.
• 2:06:09
  Speaker 3: I know.
• 2:06:09
  Speaker 2: This place is pretty cool, man.
• 2:06:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's cool.
• 2:06:12
  Speaker 1: If you get to go to this, like, a bar
• 2:06:13
  Speaker 1: over there and a restaurant just at each end.
• 2:06:15
  Speaker 2: I went and I looked at them, yeah. Yeah, it's
• 2:06:16
  Speaker 2: just cool.
• 2:06:17
  Speaker 3: It's funny because I've been in, like, big hotels in
• 2:06:19
  Speaker 3: Manhattan before, and the lobbies are, like, tremendous, you know?
• 2:06:22
  Speaker 3: I mean, there's stores and restaurants. So I thought it
• 2:06:25
  Speaker 3: was going to be like I've never been to the Chelsea.
• 2:06:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a nice place to come if you
• 2:06:29
  Speaker 1: just come for a meal or something, like, Um, they
• 2:06:31
  Speaker 1: went to the bar last night.
• 2:06:32
  Speaker 2: It's nice in there, huh?
• 2:06:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 2:06:33
  Speaker 2: This is the suite.
• 2:06:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 2:06:35
  Speaker 1: This is one of the suites and it's, but yeah, it's,
• 2:06:37
  Speaker 1: it just feels like, I don't know. To me, it
• 2:06:39
  Speaker 1: just feels like a lot more chill here.
• 2:06:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely. And relaxed. But thank you for your service.
• 2:06:44
  Speaker 2: I want to say that.
• 2:06:44
  Speaker 1: Thank you for coming today and helping us share, uh,
• 2:06:46
  Speaker 1: memories of, of some of your comrades that have fallen
• 2:06:48
  Speaker 1: over the years and that have also served. And, uh,
• 2:06:51
  Speaker 1: we appreciate it and we appreciate your wife and our son, Dominic.
• 2:06:55
  Speaker 1: We'll have to put a picture of all of, all
• 2:06:56
  Speaker 1: of them together at the end of the episode. And, uh,
• 2:06:58
  Speaker 1: and thanks again, man.
• 2:07:00
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 2:07:00
  Speaker 3: Yep, we had a good time.
• 2:07:01
  Speaker 2: It was a pleasure, man, and an honor.
• 2:07:02
  Speaker 3: Well, I appreciate it, Tony. Thank you very much.
• 2:07:04
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 2:07:05
  Speaker 3: Now I'm just floating on the breeze And I feel
• 2:07:08
  Speaker 3: I'm falling like these leaves I must be cornerstone Oh,
• 2:07:16
  Speaker 3: but when I reach that ground I'll share this peace
• 2:07:19
  Speaker 3: of mind I found I can feel it in my
• 2:07:23
  Speaker 3: bones