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Monday, May 12, 2014

New Fire Commissioner and Retrospective on September 11- WSJ and NY Times


NY Politics

Veteran Firefighter Appointed New FDNY Chief

Daniel Nigro, Who Responded To The 2001 Attacks, Tasked With Diversifying His Force

By
connect
Updated May 9, 2014 3:41 p.m. ET

Daniel Nigro in 2001. REUTERS
 
The next Fire Department of New York commissioner, Daniel Nigro, will take the helm of an agency facing new and different challenges than when he left it nearly 12 years ago. 

Mr. Nigro, a 32-year veteran who retired in 2002 as the top uniformed officer, will have to guide an agency with a legal mandate to diversify its staff, address questions about ambulance response times, and negotiate new labor agreements. 

He and Mayor Bill de Blasio, who announced his appointment Friday, vowed to address most of those concerns head-on.

"Opportunities to make a difference do not come along often in one's life, if at all," Mr. Nigro said at a news conference at the fire academy on Randall's Island. 

New Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro, right, with Mayor Bill de Blasio John Taggart for The Wall Street Journal
 
Mr. Nigro, 65 years old, comes from a firefighting family—his father retired as a captain.
He replaces Commissioner Salvatore Cassano, who was appointed by former Mayor Michael Bloomberg in 2010. Mr. Cassano wanted to stay in the post, but Mr. de Blasio said the department needed new blood. 

Mr. Nigro will start in the next few weeks. Once he takes office, he said, he will no longer receive his disability pension. Mr. Nigro said he began suffering respiratory problems after responding to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, which precluded him from doing the work of a uniformed firefighter.
Among Mr. Nigro's foremost challenges is diversifying the FDNY's 15,000-member staff.
In March, the city settled a seven-year lawsuit filed by U.S. Department of Justice and the Vulcan Society, an organization of black firefighters, charging the agency with discriminating against minority applicants. 

The city agreed to change recruiting practices and make the FDNY's ranks more representative of the city's population.

"We must no longer wait for a judge's ruling to tell us what fairness means," Mr. Nigro said. "We must get out front. We must point the way to change. There is no place in the fire department of our beautiful, diverse city, for injustice and inequality."
He added that he looked forward to working with a diversity officer.

Earlier

In 2007, when the lawsuit was filed, African-Americans represented 3.4% and Hispanics represented 6.7% of FDNY employees. From 2002 to 2013, minority firefighters increased 8%, to 16%.
In the class that graduated in December, 62% of 242 probationary firefighters identified themselves as minority.

Questions regarding dispatch communication have surfaced several times in the past year. In April, four emergency response employees were suspended for 30 days after a preliminary investigation found a delay of up to seven minutes in dispatching an ambulance to a Queens fire that killed two 4-year-olds. 

And in December, an investigation determined there was a four-minute delay in dispatching an ambulance to the aid of 4-year-old girl who died in a Manhattan car accident. 

When it comes to civilian calls to 911, "we are going to continue to review the plans, the operations, and continue to work on perfecting them," Mr. de Blasio said. "And that's a very important piece of what the commissioner will be doing."

Mr. Nigro, who successfully merged the ambulance and dispatch service into the FDNY in 1996, didn't address the question of delayed emergency medical service responses. 

City Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley, who chairs the committee that oversees the FDNY, said she would be looking to see how Mr. Nigro addresses ambulance response time issues and diversity.
"He comes with experience," she said, adding that he "rose through all the ranks." She said that currently the issue of greatest concern to her is emergency medical services.

Mr. Nigro will also have to negotiate with the unions that represent FDNY employees. All of the unions have been working without a contract for at least four years.

Robert Ungar, a spokesman for several FDNY employee unions, said Mr. Nigro "led the agency through some of our darkest possible moments after 9/11. We couldn't be happier with the mayor's selection. We really look forward to working with him."

Mr. de Blasio said a search for a new commissioner began in earnest in recent weeks. Officials said candidates in the search included Mylan Denerstein, Gov. Andrew Cuomo's counsel, who would have been the first woman and minority to lead the department. Officials said that Mr. Nigro was the mayor's first choice for the post.
Mr. Nigro's role in responding to the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks permeated the event at the fire academy.

Mr. Nigro, who was chief of operations on the day of the attack, was standing at the base of towers when his colleague and friend, Peter Ganci Jr. died. Mr. Nigro rallied the force in the aftermath and eventually took on Mr. Ganci's role as chief of department.
Mr. Ganci's son, FDNY Lt. Chris Ganci, said regarding Mr. Nigro at Friday's event: "You studied hard throughout your career, you showed that hard work pays off."

Write to Pervaiz Shallwani at pervaiz.shallwani@wsj.com and Sean Gardiner at sean.gardiner@wsj.com

THE RECKONING

AMERICA AND THE WORLD A DECADE AFTER 9/11

The Decade

  • Getting Here From There

    By N. R. KLEINFIELD
    In the years since 2001, neither our worst fears nor our highest hopes have been realized. But what passes for normal has exacted a price.
  • Slideshow

    The Towers’ Rise and Fall

    A photo album of the World Trade Center’s life and violent death.

  • In Love With Death

    By JIM DWYER
    Years of grieving and war. But recall, too, the hour of human decency.
  • Video

    Lessons Learned

    New Yorkers came away from the attacks with greater understanding of their country, the world and themselves. Lisa Iaboni.

That Day

What is amazing is that in that moment, there was a moment before that we saw that plane, that second plane, and there was a moment after, and it’s like two different worlds, those two moments. I mean, literally, I can feel like I can remember the exact second when the whole world changed and my life changed forever. — AUDREY J. MARCUS
  • Video

    The Moment Before, and After

    Days after the attack, researchers at the Columbia Center for Oral History began asking New Yorkers to describe their experience of the most harrowing day in the city’s history.

War Abroad

  • Mission Unfinished

    By JILL ABRAMSON
    In the twilight of America’s decade-long, multibillion-dollar intervention, Afghanistan remains highly unstable, the Pakistanis trust us less than ever, and it is not at all clear how “the big things are going to turn out.”
  • Slideshow

    An Afghanistan Gallery

    A portfolio of civilians and troops by Kuni Takahashi.

  • They Signed Up to Fight

    By JAMES DAO
    Those who enlisted soon after 9/11 learned to cope with trauma, heartbreak and a fading public interest in their war.

War At Home

  • Graphic

    One 9/11 Tally: $3.3 Trillion

    Al Qaeda spent roughly half a million dollars to destroy the World Trade Center and cripple the Pentagon. What has been the cost to the United States?

  • The Price of Lost Chances

    By DAVID E. SANGER
    A survey by The New York Times puts a stark price tag on the cost of reacting — and overreacting — to the Sept. 11 attacks. An even more difficult question is how much Americans paid in “opportunity costs.”

  • Civil Liberties Today

    By ADAM LIPTAK
    Criminal law changed surprisingly little after the attacks. How law was enforced is another matter.

  • Welcome Rescinded

    By JULIA PRESTON
    The Sept. 11 attacks transformed the way the United States regards foreigners who want to come here to visit or to live. Now the primary mission of the immigration and border agencies is to keep terrorists out.

  • Feeling Safer but Wary

    By PETER APPLEBOME and MARJORIE CONNELLY
    Polls reveal that we have not fully recovered, and do not want to forget.
  • Graphic

    Poll: Now vs. 5 Years Ago

    New York Times/CBS News polls describe a city and a nation that have not fully recovered.
  • Photo Essay

    Fortress D.C.

    Some post-9/11 security changes are obvious. But most have been embedded in the landscape and culture of the nation’s capital.

Remembrance

  • What We Kept

    By DAN BARRY
    Mundane items like a shred of a T-shirt and a red “Admit One” ticket are the relics that help us to remember what we cannot forget.
    Recovery workers gave these to me while I was volunteering at ground zero. I believe the pin is from a steel beam. — STEPHANIE ZESSOS

  • Growing Up in a Hurry

    By DAVID GONZALEZ
    Austin Vukosa, one of some 3,000 children under 18 who lost a parent in the attacks, became a hyperambitious, self-reliant teenager.

  • Hit Hard by 9/11, a Piece of Queens Struggles to Let Go

    By ANNE BARNARD
    The terrorist attacks scythed through generations of firefighters and Wall Street traders in the largely Irish-Catholic neighborhoods on the Rockaway peninsula. Also, the neighborhood’s Muslim bagel man; and the connection between the 9/11 families and wounded American soldiers.

  • ‘Dear Firefighters ...’

    By SARAH MASLIN NIR
    At a Brooklyn firehouse that lost eight people in the World Trade Center attack, a logbook preserves the thoughts of firefighters and visitors.

Rebuilding

  • Video

    Sky Cowboys

    The ironworkers in the air at ground zero work amid striking views and unshakeable memories. With photographs by Damon Winter.
  • Slideshow

    The Workers

    The World Trade Center site employs more than 3,200 workers. Portraits and audio narratives tell their stories. From the ironworker who provides for her family to the contractor who lost his brother on Sept. 11, they all share a common goal: rebuilding a piece of New York that was once lost.
  • Magazine

    Why Ground Zero Is Perfect Just as It Is Right Now

    By SAM ANDERSON
    The tower at ground zero still isn’t finished. For a nation that prefers to be constantly under construction, that seems perfectly fitting.
  • Interactive Graphic

    Ground Zero Now

    New office towers are rising on the site, which also serves as a memorial and a transportation hub.

  • The Age of the Eco-Citadel

    By HENRY FOUNTAIN
    Engineers and architects are balancing the need for protection with environmental concerns.

Muslims Now

  • Generation 9/11

    By ANDREA ELLIOTT
    American Muslims who came of age in the last decade have had to navigate uncharted waters. For some, that has meant embracing the faith; for others, forsaking it.

  • A Radical Revolution

    By MICHAEL SLACKMAN and MONA EL-NAGGAR
    The Arab Spring uprisings showed hard-line Islamists who had embraced violence a peaceful path to change.

  • Small Leaps of Faith

    By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
    Jews, Christians, Muslims come together, hoping to fight fear with familiarity. How it’s playing out in Syracuse.

9/11 State of Mind

  • Outdone by Reality

    By MICHIKO KAKUTANI
    In the last 10 years, some eloquent or daring works of art about 9/11 and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq eventually did emerge, but none were really game-changing.
  • Video

    Artists Reflect on Sept. 11

    To mark the 10th anniversary of 9/11, The New York Times asked eight artists in disciplines like dance and film to talk about how that day and its aftermath have informed their work and lives.
  • Slideshow

    Art From the Heart

    Tattoo artists, folk artists and “tradition bearers” created works that form an alternate record of the Sept. 11 attacks.

  • The Lexicon

    By CHARLES McGRATH
    Ground zero, sleeper cells, progressive vertical collapse: The most resonant phrases of 9/11 are imbued with what might be called antipoetry, a resistance to prettification.

Portraits Redrawn

  • Living With Loss

    Those who lost loved ones 10 years ago talk about how they’ve coped with lingering grief.
  • Interactive

    Portraits of Grief

    Explore the “Portraits of Grief” archive — more than 2,500 impressionistic sketches of the lives lost in the Sept. 11 attacks. With videos by Matthew Orr of six families 10 years later.

  • The Decade

  • That Day

  • War Abroad

  • War at Home

  • Remembrance

  • Rebuilding

  • Muslims Now

  • 9/11 State of Mind

  • Portraits Redrawn

  • Further Offerings »

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