2 Years Later, 'Deutsche' Unforgotten, Unexcused

The Chief-Leader/Michel Friang LOTS MORE TO DO: Joseph Graffagnino Sr., whose Firefighter son was killed at the Deutsche Bank building fire, said that despite the City Council and Mayor's Office's efforts to improve Fire and Building Codes to prevent any recurrences of the tragedy, too many high-ranking city officials and contractors got off the hook.

There is still anger under the mourning.

Firefighters, elected officials and family members sat solemnly Aug. 18 in St. Anthony's Roman Catholic Church in Soho to commemorate the two-year anniversary of the Deutsche Bank building fire that killed two Firefighters based at nearby Ladder Company 5. Fire union officials present elected not to talk about the controversial fire out of respect for the families, but they have spent the last two years pressing for investigations into the city's handling of the incident.

Ill Will Towards Mayor

During the mass, the priest urged those on hand to put anger aside as they remembered Firefighters Robert Beddia and Joseph Graffagnino. But discontent quietly surfaced after he recalled that last year he was bumped from speaking during the plaque unveiling at the firehouse by Mayor Bloomberg, and he looked around the church to see if the Mayor was in attendance. After he joked that his sermon was safe because Mr. Bloomberg wasn't there, a Firefighter in one of the back pews muttered sarcastically, "Shock."

The Chief-Leader/Michel Friang A TIME FOR HEALING: Father Joseph Lorenzo told Fire Department members and the families of the two Firefighters killed at 130 Liberty St. two years ago on Aug. 18 that the Catholic faith mandates that they use the tragedy as an inspiration to fight injustice and fix problems for firefighters.

After the mass, Firefighter Graffagnino's father, Joseph Sr., said that he wanted to take the priest's advice of moving beyond the tragedy of losing the two members of the Fire Department and instead working to make conditions for the public and firefighters better.

Mr. Graffagnino is, in fact, working with the City Council and the Mayor's Office to revamp the Fire and Building Codes to make demolition, construction and abatement sites safer. At the time of the Deutsche Bank building fire, it was undergoing a controversial simultaneous abatement and demolition, and numerous code violations including the severing of the standpipe, smoking on the site and blocking the exits contributed to the deaths of the two Firefighters. The FDNY failed to inspect the site for more than a year before the fire, even though it was mandated to do so every 15 days.

But Mr. Graffagnino contended that although the Manhattan District Attorney's Office last year indicted three individuals for wrongdoing at the site, it had not properly probed the main contractor, Bovis Lend Lease, or the building's owner, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC).

Key Players Not Accountable

"They're going after the subcontractors, nobody's going after the prime contractor, Bovis," he said. "Nobody even mentions the LMDC anymore, the landlord of the building; the city and the state officials who are all part of this haven't even been mentioned by name. I think that's a huge failing on the City of New York and the State of New York not to hold these people who caused these things to happen, not to hold them to a higher standard that they try to hold everybody else to. I think it's just blasphemy on their part."

When DA Robert M. Morgenthau announced his indictments last December, he noted that even though there was considerable wrongdoing on the part of city agencies, sovereign immunity made prosecuting the city itself incredibly difficult, and that instead his office reached an agreement under which the city would provide more personnel to oversee construction and demolition sites.

Capt. Patrick McNally expressed his gratitude for the support from oth- er firefighters on the anniversary. The Soho firehouse was hard-hit on 9/11, losing 11 members, something that was always on the conscience of Firefighter Beddia, who was not scheduled to work that day. Three firefighters from the company died following a Watt St. fire in 1994, including Capt. John Drennan, who was badly burned in the fire and succumbed to his injuries more than a month later.

"They were both leaders," Captain McNally recalled of the Deutsche fire victims. "Bobby took care of everybody and Joey was just an exceptional Firefighter."