This post appeared in a previous blog and is here for posterity’s sake.
Fire Patrol No. 1, originally uploaded by plemeljr
Today at 0800 hours the New York Fire Patrol officially stood-down (final roll call) and will ceasse responding to calls. I’ve written about the Fire Patrol before, and I still believe that a vestige of old New York died this morning.
For those not in the know, the New York Fire Patrol was a 203-year-old department privately funded by the New York Board of Underwriters, charged with protecting property during fires. They would go in after the FDNY would secure the area; Fire Patrol members have the same equipment, but wear red helmets, and are dispatched by the FDNY. Here is a google cache with some good info. I also heard that there isn’t a lot of love lost between the FDNY and the Fire Patrol.
The argument for shutting down the Fire Patrol by the Underwriters was that the patrol was too expensive:
With dozens of patrolmen in attendance, patrol representatives called insurance companies greedy. The patrol costs $8.5 million a year to run, and patrol members estimate that they salvage more than $50 million in merchandise a year. “These people invented the bean counter,” the president of the Uniformed Fire Patrolman’s Association, James Nunez, said of the underwriters.
I always figured that the reason why the Patrol was being shut down was because the three remaining station houses are in prime real estate locations – one is in Midtown and one is in Cobble Hill; regardless, those properties will soon most likely be up for auction.
Today, an interesting comment was left on a previous entry:
as a former member of the fire patrol its said (sic) to see it go. I was at the happy land social club fire (ed link), the empire state building and so on. I don’t recall us doing much good. By the time the firei departmenr (sic) would let us in all the property was alrteady damaged. as far as the 1000+ runs a year nonsense. We would stay in quarters and then listen for the officer in the f.d. to call in the i.e.”10-35″ (ed10-35 is an alrm system emergecy), defective alarm and record in the book under then seargent Leonard that we responded. If my word is not sufficent check the logs they were always, the book runs, for 30 mins
If there are any current or former New York Fire Patrolmen who could contact me for interviews to chronicle your experience in the New York Fire Patrol, please email me at ima@grubbykid.com. I am interested in any ephemera which could be recorded and anything I could scan, such as any sort of general orders, pamphlets, insignia, etc besides your stories.
Full confidentiality is always honored. Also, if anyone has keys to the three firehouses, I would love to photograph the station houses.
Hey this website is great! I would really like to hear more about friendstir and maybe you should allow people to comment about it?
keep up the good work!
Good luck in your quest for the firehouse ephemera. If you find any, please post it. I’m sure it’d be very interesting–dovetails with what I’m doing on my blog. Keep up the great and intesting work!
They were better known by the moniker “The forty thieves”
“Robert Ruland”, as he calls himself, sounds like just another uneducated puppet for the New York Board of Fire Underwriters that I read about in all the articles whilst the playwright was acted out on stage a few months ago.. I know one thing is for sure and that is the fact that the New York Board will soon be on it’s way out the door itself and all the little minion officers who rode the coat tails (McCauley) of the men and all the ‘whos’ (New York Board members under charge of their leader) down in ‘whoville’ will all be gone finally. “He who laughs last, laughs loudest”. It all finally came full circle.
I posted a comment that is under the “previous entry’s” it was because of the comments of Mr. Ruland. I did not notice the comment made by him about the “Forty Thieves”. That was an extremely derogatory nickname that was not deserved. We kidded around sometimes about it. But, those of us who had not been on the job in the “old days” quickly learned that the old timers never took the use of that term kindly, to put it mildly. They would get quite hot under the collar. So you knew enough not to joke around about it. They were right in taking offense as it referred to all on the job as “thieves”and thems is fightin words!! I can not believe that a former Patroleo would trash the Fire Patrol like that writer.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank Capt’s.Walzer and Cosgrove,Patrolmen Henny Wahl,John Fleming,Bill Keddy,Frankie Guarano,John Walsh, Lieut Chlebik, Sgt.’s John and Bobby Haugstatter, Sgt. Horace Beecher,Sgt. Peter Perlian, Sgt. Joe Keegan. These were some of the older men of the Fire Patrol from whom I learned a great deal and who’s lessons served me well in my later firefighting carrere. Those that are deceased my God hold near to him and to those still living God Bless and enjoy your retirement.
i worked in the fire patrol 1966 to 1969 i worked with some of the men that ken smith worked with in his posted story i worked with all the haugstatters in patrol 3 along with capt mack and his driver ray. i was capt kasper driver in patrol 3 until he retried left patrol for fire dept now retired