Education - FDNY History

A Quick History of the FDNY - by Peter Rothenberg and Geoff Giglierano
Chapter 1: Begining With a Blaze	Chapter 8: The Process of Professionalization
Chapter 2: The First Fire Engines	Chapter 9: Faster and Better in a Changing City
Chapter 3: Competition	Chapter 10: Covering More Ground
Chapter 4: Hear the Loud Alarm Bells	Chapter 11: Firefighting Starts Becoming a Science
Chapter 5: Pumpers and Politics	Chapter 12: Larger Events Affect the Department
Chapter 6: Decline of the Volunteer System	Chapter 13: FDNY and Times of Social Upheaval
Chapter 7: Volunteer Department's Demise	Chapter 14 The Job Goes On

Chapter 13: FDNY and Times of Social Upheaval

"New Yorkers finally realized that their city was undergoing a 20th century version of the Burning of Rome. And while Rome at least had a fiddler, the only music to accompany the burning of Brownsville, or the South Bronx, and more recently of Bushwick, were the fire sirens which pierced the air all hours of the day and night. One might well ask what was the Fire Department doing throughout this period. The answer is that it was trying to hold the line with all the resources at its command--with double sections in its Engine Companies and Ladder Companies, with the double and triple sections at the Battalion level....And when this allocation proved to be inadequate, the nightly relocation of fire companies from Manhattan and Queens into The Bronx, and from Queens and sometimes Staten Island and Manhattan into Brooklyn."
Memorial Day Services Address, by Commissioner Augustus A, Beekman, October 17, 1978

In the post-World war II era, the FDNY faced new challenges. Suburbanization accelerated and many middle and upper income people left the city. At the same time the city's building stock grew older and more deteriorated. Beginning in the 1960s, the number of fires in certain parts of the city dramatically increased. In 1950, the number of alarms in the city had been only 62,021. By 1964, the number was over 128,000.

Tower ladders were introduced in 1965, the same year that FDNY received one of its most remarkable rigs, the Superpumper. The Superpumper was capable of pumping 8,800 gallons per minute--the most powerful land-based firefighting apparatus ever built. Still the number of fires grew: in 1970, the annual number of alarms in New York City was 261,131. In the early 1970s some companies made 7,000 to 8,000 runs per year. It was not unknown for men in some firehouses to catnap on their rigs through the night, as they got tired out from going up and down to their bunk rooms. Social unrest made the FDNY's job harder. Poverty, drugs, and the absentee landlords worsened the problems in many neighborhoods. Firefighters became targets for violence, leading to the adoption of covered cabs on fire trucks.

At the same time, New York City was struggling with financial problems. The Marine Division fleet was reduced, even as old wharves and waterfront terminals were catching fire regularly. The firefighters, underpaid and overworked, grew frustrated and angry, and in 1973 went on strike for five and a half hours. In 1975, budget cuts led to the elimination of 32 fire companies. In that same year, the number of alarms rose to 398,867.

Increased use of plastics and other chemicals made firefighting more hazardous. Gradually, the FDNY adopted different kinds of protective gear for its members. Filter masks, introduced in the 1940s and 1950s (which few firefighters liked to wear anyway), were replaced by self-contained breathing apparatus in the 1970s. Flame-retardant "bunker" clothing was also tested and adopted, starting in the 1970s. Nonetheless, the job remained extremely dangerous and challenging, in part because even in its most difficult times, FDNY took a very aggressive stance in its fireground tactics.