------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the June 5, 2003 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
NEW YORK: ATTEMPTS TO AXE FIREHOUSES IGNITE COMMUNITY TAKEOVERS
By Leslie Feinberg New York
Attempts by billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg to axe city firehouses, mostly in working class and oppressed neighborhoods, have sparked angry protests. Community members--young and old, Black, Latino and white-- have taken over firehouses. Some have chained themselves to the engines.
Bloomberg began the controversial budget-cutting measure on May 25, despite months of demonstrations, rallies and demands to City Hall, Albany and Washington. Four were ordered fully shut that day in Brooklyn, one in Harlem and one in Queens. Others are being partially closed.
But community activists, young and old, together with firefighters, turned up the heat in this struggle.
Dozens of chanting demonstrators blockaded the entrance to the Engine 36 fire station on E. 125th St.
At the same time, in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, neighbors locked arms to form a human chain across the sidewalk in front of Engine 204 at 9 a.m.-- the time set by the city to shut down the station. A group of about a dozen protesters surprised police by rushing inside, struggled with fire marshals for control of the door. They locked themselves inside and held the premises for three hours. Hundreds of supporters outside cheered the actions of these 12 demonstrators as police dragged them out in handcuffs.
One of those arrested was Steve Buscemi, who was a firefighter for four years before becoming an actor. He ridiculed claims by city officials that the closings would only add about an extra minute in emergency response time. "If your house was on fire, would you wait one minute to call the Fire Depart ment?" he asked.
Firefighters agree that closing these facilities would cost lives. (Daily News, May 26)
Activists also occupied a fire house the same day in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where, according to the May 26 Daily News, "a jostling crowd used wooden doors and slabs to keep open the doors of Engine 212."
A total of 20 were arrested at the two Brooklyn takeovers. They were reportedly charged with criminal trespass and disorderly conduct.
Fire marshals have been stationed inside the closed building since then to impede another community occupation.
'IT'S A FIGHT FOR OUR LIVES'
The city had tried to shut down Engine 212 in the 1970s during the last mass closings of firehouses. At that time, too, city officials tried to shift the burden of the fiscal crisis through budget cuts, including mass closings of firehouses.
But when word spread that Engine 212 was being closed, within hours some 300 angry residents massed in front of the station to bar the city from removing the fire truck. That night some of the protesters packed their suitcases and moved inside the two-story firehouse, refusing to leave until the city promised to keep it open. The occupation continued for almost a year and a half, until the city finally relented.
Engine 212 was dubbed the People's Firehouse.
Now, residents vow to renew their fight to keep the station open. They've erected a 12-by-12-foot tent outside Engine 212. Members and supporters of the People's Firehouse camped out in the rain, keeping shifts going around the clock.
"There are no ifs, buts or don'ts," stressed Alma Savoia, a 51-year-old teacher, to the agreement of four of her neighbors alongside her. "We just have to keep it going rain or shine."
If officials try to drive the fire truck out of Engine 212, vowed Paul Veneski, the group will "wake up the whole neighborhood" and block it from being moved. "We're going to be here," he said. "We'll even block the [nearby] Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and the Williams burg Bridge if we have to."
Veneski's father Adam was founder of the People's Fire house. Three generations of the Adam Veneski family took part in this current struggle to keep the station open.
They also promised to dog the mayor until he re-opens the firehouse. "This is going to be a nightmare for him," promised Diane Jackanin.
They made good on that promise on May 27 when neighborhood residents converged on the steps of City Hall wearing paper costumes that looked like nuclear protective gear. They pressed the point that closing their fire station, which is located near a radioactive waste storage facility, was short-sighted.
The protesters said that if a fire ignited at Radiac Corp., which stores low-level nuclear waste from hospitals and research facilities, it would create an environmental disaster. "The city says it will take only a minute longer for other fire companies to respond but that extra minute could be enough time for a catastrophe," said Jen nifer Hilton. (New York Newsday, May 27)
People's Firehouse Director Daniel Rivera summed up the urgency of the overall struggle: "It's a fight for our lives."
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