Aug 18, 2008 2:56 pm US/Eastern
Firefighters Remembered 1 Year After Deutsche Fire
Manhattan Grand Jury Still Deciding Whether To Lodge Criminal Charges
Family Of Victims Gathered Hoping To Mourn, Instead 'There's Only Talk Of Incompetence'
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
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Smoke rises from the Deutsche Bank building in New York on Aug. 18, 2007. Two firefighters died battling the blaze.
AP
It is a day to honor two of New York's bravest who died one year ago today in a fire inside the Deutsche Bank.
Firefighters Robert Beddia and Joseph Graffagnino Jr. died in the partially demolished building when their oxygen supply ran out. Now, the victims' loved ones are reacting to possible criminal charges against several city agencies.
It was supposed to be a day to mark the one-year anniversary of the tragic fire, but as family members cried and hugged one another minutes before the dedication ceremony Monday morning, many talked about the ongoing criminal investigation; Nine months of grand jury testimony about who was to blame and new reports that there was a blatant disregard for even the most basic fire-safety rules at the demolition site. This includes the recent discovery of a room filled with cigarette butts and a barbecue grill:
"All the safety people that were supposed to be there weren't. The landlord is responsible. LMDC is responsible. They should have had greater safeguards in place," said Joseph Graffagnino Sr., father of Joseph Jr.
While Mayor Bloomberg talked specifically about these two fallen firefighters - how they loved their jobs - the mayor made sure to mention that city safeguards have already been tightened since that tragic day:
"Since last August, we've made a number of changes to make sure it never happens again."
And as the plaque was dedicated to the two heroes of Ladder 5 Engine 24, there was anger and frustration among the grieving relatives, arguing that the investigations are moving too slowly. In their hearts, justice has not been served:
"That's politics. Everyone is to blame. Just how they can sleep at night is beyond me," said Terry Massari.
The Aug. 18, 2007, fire at the former Deutsche Bank tower across a street from ground zero exposed the incompetence of multiple government agencies assigned to near-daily inspections of the building, which was being dismantled. It also unmasked a questionable subcontractor and the Fire Department's failure to point out dozens of hazards—including the cutting of a pipe meant to supply water to fire hoses—before the blaze.
"The community had been raising red flags for months and sometimes years" about the toxic tower, said environmental activist Kimberly Flynn. "It's a mystery to us how you can have the number of inspectors that ... were practically living in that building and have that level of disaster."
A Manhattan grand jury has been meeting for nine months, deciding whether to lodge criminal charges against contractors, the government or both.
The building had been damaged by the collapsing World Trade Center south tower on Sept. 11, 2001. Demolition of the 26-story building is now four years behind schedule and the original $45 million budget for taking it down has tripled. Planners hope eventually to replace it with one of five office towers that will make up the new trade center.
Since last year's fire, officials have stepped up inspections, outfitted the tower with state-of-the-art fire safety systems and come up with dozens of proposals intended to make demolition sites safer.
But they say the building posed challenges like no other.
The tower "is a tragically unique building," said deputy Mayor Edward Skyler. "It exposed an area that the city had never looked at this comprehensively. When we looked at it, we found a lot of areas that could be improved."
The blaze, believed to have been started by a demolition worker's discarded cigarette, shed light on multiple lapses.
Regulators—including the city Buildings Department and federal, state and city environmental agencies—had not corrected multiple fire hazards. Among them were blocked stairwells and a negative air pressure system—a system of fans intended to pull air in and keep toxins from escaping—that sucked the fire downward. A standpipe had been cut into pieces in the basement, leaving firefighters without a water supply for an hour after they entered the building.
The Fire Department was required to inspect the site every 15 days but hadn't been there in more than a year. It also had not prepared a fire plan, as it has for more than 200 other sites that pose special challenges.
"This wasn't any building. This was a public spectacle. This was a high-rise, toxic, vacant building that was under deconstruction," said Stephen Cassidy, president of the city's firefighters' union.
Since the fire, the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., the rebuilding agency that owns the tower, has switched subcontractors and resumed cleaning the building of toxic debris—but is not simultaneously demolishing other floors at the same time, a practice the city opposes.
The city has pledged to have the building's multiple regulators talk to each other more, and inspectors will be cross-trained to spot any kind of hazard. Firefighters now inspect the building regularly; a fire chief is assigned full-time to the site, and other officials to a pair of nearby buildings that still need to be demolished. Three fire officers were reassigned in the week after the blaze. The negative air pressure system now can be turned off on sealed floors in case of fire.
Prosecutors are looking at how subcontractor John Galt Corp. was hired, though community leaders and a city agency had recommended against it because the company had no history of demolition or abatement experience. Investigators have suggested Galt employees were transplanted from another contractor whose former owner had reputed mob ties.
Galt—dismissed a week after the August blaze—and the general contractor, Bovis Lend Lease, haven't commented on details of the investigation, citing the prosecutor's investigation.
The bank building now is scheduled to be removed by next summer—the original completion date was 2005.
Even before the fire, the scarred building had become a looming eyesore that symbolized the inertia of post-Sept. 11 rebuilding.
The LMDC bought it three years after the attack to end squabbles between the bank and an insurer over who was responsible for taking it down. Federal, state and city agencies spent another year approving plans to remove toxic debris without polluting the neighborhood.
Hundreds of body parts of Sept. 11 victims were discovered at the tower beginning in 2006. Last year, a steel pipe from the building fell through the roof of a firehouse next door. A piece of equipment fell off a high floor and injured two firefighters a few days after the blaze.
Neighbors still eye it warily.
"We cannot afford to have anyone else lose their life," said Julie Menin, president of the area's community board. "If that means it's going to take a little bit longer to take the building down, then it's going to take a little bit longer."
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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