#637 - FDNY Firefighter

Summary

This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von

Episode #637 – FDNY Firefighter (Tony Bonfiglio)

Date: February 4, 2026
Guests: Tony Bonfiglio (retired FDNY firefighter)

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Overview

In this heartfelt and captivating episode, Theo Von sits down with retired FDNY firefighter Tony Bonfiglio, who spent 21 years serving New York City—much of it in the neighborhoods of Washington Heights and Queens. Tony shares memories from his youth, his path into the fire service, the brotherhood of the department, stories from the frontlines (including intense rescues, heartbreaking losses, surreal discoveries, and the trauma of 9/11), and reflections on the changes in firefighting over the decades. The conversation is raw and vivid, blending humor and tragedy, and offers an intimate look at a firefighter’s life—on and off duty.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Early Life and Career Before FDNY (01:45–16:49)

• Blue-Collar Upbringing: Tony recalls growing up in New Hyde Park, surrounded by families of cops, bus drivers, and firemen.

  • “I always say that when I d— I hope heaven’s like the 70s, man, because that was so awesome.” (03:45, Tony)

• First Jobs:

  • Worked in a meat factory as a kid (“scraping hangar room floors like Paulie in Rocky”)—learning hard work among tough but quirky characters who worked as butchers, packers, and inspectors.
  • Played pranks, got into trouble, and had his share of teenage mischief—including a brush with law.

• A String of Odd Jobs:

  • Plastic bead/jewelry factory, Food technology studies, mail room job (Theo shares a similar story)—all reinforcing the randomness and camaraderie of pre-career life.
  • Tony’s neighbor Johnny helped steer him towards the fire department by giving him the application: “You’ll never get rich on this job, but it’ll put a roof over your head and food on your table.” (17:05)

Entering the FDNY: Testing, Training, and Breaking In (16:49–27:10)

• Exams and Lawsuits:

  • Huge competition—40,000 applicants for the written and physical tests.
  • An incident during the physical “ledge walk” station nearly ended Tony’s chance (“What am I, Batman?... I got a zero and everything was down the drain.” [20:13])
  • A lawsuit filed by women candidates prevented any hiring for six years; eventually, changes in hiring policies allowed Tony’s lower place (due to the test zero) to be called up.
  • “Rarely does a complaining woman save you, but they saved me that day.” (22:44, Tony)

• Fire Academy & Probation:

  • Tony is assigned to Ladder 34, a truck company in Washington Heights—unexpected for someone who disliked heights.
  • Quick explanation of firehouse structure (“engine” = hoses/water, “truck/ladder” = rescue, breaking in, ventilation).

Firefighting in Washington Heights—War Stories, Brotherhood, and the Streets (27:36–39:10)

• Neighborhoods on the Edge:

  • Washington Heights in the ‘80s: Crime, drugs, and violence (“They took over the drug business because that was the hub… Badass. Shooting all day long.” [27:53])
  • "We had everything—bodegas, a gypsy cab dispatcher, a whorehouse, and a bunch of drug apartments. Busy block." (60:44)

• The First Real Fire (33:14–44:31):

  • Detailed, cinematic play-by-play of Tony’s first building fire: from the “house watch,” being the can-man (“fire extinguisher with a strap and a hook”), and the terror of crawling into a pitch-black smoke-filled hallway.
  • “No way we’re fucking going in there, right?... It was like if there was a gate to hell, this was it.” (36:58, Tony)
  • Gear mishaps—“I go to hit [the fire] and nothing comes out. I didn’t have air in the can. It’s like a total fuck up…” (39:14)
  • The moment of grace from a veteran Lieutenant (“Yeah, don’t worry about it kid. Shit happens.” [43:59])

• Brotherhood and Bonding:

  • Tony shares how quickly camaraderie forms through shared danger, communal meals, and the ups and downs of the job.

Rescue and Tragedy—Fires with People Involved (44:47–55:38)

• Rescue Attempts and Loss:

  • Devastating firsthand stories of responding to calls where lives are on the line, including children—experiencing both heroic saves and the lingering trauma of unsuccessful rescues.
  • On a fatal incident: “We lost this little girl… That one really hurt me a lot… I felt like I killed that kid, you know?” (47:06)
  • On coping: “That stayed with me for years… sometimes I would smell and taste the burnt lips and everything.” (55:27)

• Dealing with Repeated Trauma:

  • “Who do you even talk to about that kind of stuff?... The guys were listening up… I just went in, I took a shower… you get over it, you know, it takes a while, though.” (55:38)

The Street Level—Addiction, Vacant Buildings, and Everyday Danger (56:46–62:38)

• Responding to Repeat Offenders:

  • Firehouse interactions with homeless individuals, arsonists, and those struggling with addiction.
  • “Called three times. We got called to the sixth floor. He kept lighting fires to stay warm… At this point we’re sliding down the poles… We told him, we come back here again, I’m throwing you out that fucking window.” (59:18–59:47)

• Perspective on Society:

  • “Absolutely. Call them skulls. They’re all skells.” (60:44, Tony on how attitudes can harden, though he expresses empathy.)

Surreal and Bizarre Calls—Murder, Drugs, and Temptation (66:45–69:38)

• Discoveries on Duty:

  • Fire in a drug den leads to stacks of drug money: “I’m looking at… stacks of hundreds and $50 bills. Every drawer. No twenties… I could buy myself a new Harley with that money… the devil and the angel on my shoulder…” (68:26)

• Discovery of Drug Room:

  • Finding “half the coke in Manhattan,” and the timeless struggle of temptation, duty, and the unspoken rules among fire crews and police. (69:04–70:51)

Humor, Camaraderie, and “Good Cops, Bad Cops” (115:37–116:51)

• Faking Injuries for Fun:
  • Story about making the cover of a fire magazine following a tough fire; the crew’s inside jokes (“Neck braces on … we had a prop closet at home, you know, canes and braces... That was that. We made the cover. I still have that hanging today.” [116:40])

Life in the Firehouse (75:15–79:36)

• Meals are Sacred:

  • Communal eating, bringing family recipes, and the importance of meal rituals for bonding.
  • “First meal I brought in, my mother made meatballs and sausage and a whole Sunday gravy… But you know what, kid? You gotta make it here next time.” (76:35)

• Traditions vs. Technology:

  • Pushback against “newfangled” equipment and rules; Tony and others preferred old gear, traditions, and the firemen’s unique culture.

9/11—A Firefighter’s Perspective on an Unimaginable Day (79:40–101:15)

• Recalling the Morning:

  • Tony describes the confusion, realization, and emotional breakdown when learning of the towers’ collapse: “I just started crying…I knew how many guys just got killed…” (81:27)

• Going Down to Ground Zero:

  • Racing into Manhattan in the chaos, getting waved onto the LIE by police, and arriving to a nightmarish, apocalyptic scene:
    • “It was quiet, dark, eerie… I heard all the pass alarms going off that, when firemen aren’t moving, makes a screechy noise. And you could hear that all around… we were the only ones there.” (84:25)
  • Wandering through the devastation, finding no survivors, climbing, risking health (“We had to rip up T-shirts to breathe”), and chance encounters with survivors and colleagues in shock.

• Scenes of Unexpected Solidarity:

  • People giving out water, makeshift sandwich stations appear (“To see all these people coming together right at this time, no matter what your race, creed, color…” [88:03–88:19])

• Health Impacts and Lasting Loss:

  • Lingering trauma, exposure to toxic “ground glass” dust (“firefighters losing up to 12 years of lung function” [117:46]), and the collective emotional toll:
    • “343 men we lost that day. It's hard to even get over that number.” (96:15)
  • Later, the experience of recognizing colleagues lost and the overwhelming sadness: “I was devastated… I was still emotional over it.” (106:24)

The Brotherhood, Its Changes, and Reflections (103:05–123:47)

• The Changing Job:

  • More oversight, technology, digital records, and less freedom for “old-school” behavior, but the brotherhood still endures.
  • “Brotherhood… That’s why, you know, I did 15 years in 34 truck from a probie… I had a lot of friends that I’m still [close to] today. The wives, the kids. The kids are on the job.” (74:51)

• Camaraderie with Cops—Boxing and “Battle of the Badges”

  • Tony describes the FDNY boxing club (run by his friend Bobby McGuire), annual charity events, and riotous crowd fights between off-duty police and firemen.

• Firefighter Wives:

  • Appreciation for the partners who kept households running, often emotionally disconnected from the drama and danger.

• Writing His Book:

  • Tony shares about his memoir, Tales from the Tiller, which blends fire stories, humor, tragedy, and firehouse recipes.

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Notable Quotes (with Timestamps & Speaker Attribution)

• On the ‘70s:

  “I always say that when I d— I hope heaven’s like the 70s, man, because that was so awesome. Kicked ass.” — Tony (03:45)

• On becoming a firefighter:

  “My neighbor… gives me the application. He says, ‘You'll never get rich on this job, but put a roof over your head and food on your table.’ … Had no idea it was gonna be the biggest career move of my life, dude.” — Tony (17:05)

• First fire, facing fear:

  “If there was a gate to hell, this was it. Black shimmering smoke that looked like satin curtains just going in all different directions. My first thought: no way we're fucking going in there!” — Tony (36:58)

• Brotherhood:

  “Brotherhood. Oh my God. Like family.” — Tony (74:51)

• On losing children:

  “We lost this little girl. That one really hurt me a lot…I felt like I killed that kid, you know?” — Tony (47:06)

• On 9/11:

  “I put my foot on the brake and I just started crying. I was on the steering wheel because I knew how many guys just got killed…” — Tony (81:27) “343 men we lost that day. It's hard to even get over that number…” — Tony (96:15)

• Coping:

  “All I got was some nice hugs and some tears at home.” — Tony (55:38)

• On changes in the department:

  “More technology…more eyes on you, you couldn’t get away with as much.” — Tony (103:07)

• On the importance of food and tradition:

  "First meal I brought in, my mother made meatballs...But you know what, kid? You gotta make it here next time." — Tony (76:35) "I'd put my Louis Prima on the stereo, and we would just be going...The place would be hopping." — Tony (77:14)

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Timestamps of Important Segments

• Getting into FDNY, Test/Lawsuit: 16:49–23:57
• Firehouse Life & Brotherhood: 74:51–79:36
• First Firefight—Vivid Description: 33:14–44:31
• Tragic Loss—Child Fatality Story: 46:05–55:38
• 9/11 Response & Ground Zero: 79:53–101:15
• FDNY Boxing Club & Brotherhood Events: 98:25–102:24
• Changing Culture, New Technology: 103:05–103:55
• Writing & Releasing His Book: 123:08–126:21

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Memorable Moments

• ‘Angel and Devil on the Shoulder’ Temptation with Drug Money: 68:26–69:38
• Comedic Cover Photo on Fire Magazine—Injuries Staged/Faked: 115:37–116:51
• Food, Camaraderie, “Clam Sauce Casino” Recipe: 123:08–124:05
• Heartbreak Amidst Brotherhood at 9/11 Aftermath: 106:24–107:01

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Tone and Atmosphere

The episode balances unfiltered storytelling, gallows humor, and profound pathos—true to both Theo and Tony’s personalities. The conversation is gritty, direct, frequently funny, and laced with compassion for the brotherhood, families, and communities touched by firefighting.

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Further Reading / Tony’s Book

• Tales from the Tiller: Tony’s memoir, blending FDNY stories, firehouse camaraderie, and recipes.

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Acknowledgment

Thank you to Tony Bonfiglio and his family for sharing their story, and to all firefighters and first responders for their service.

Transcript

[A]

This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast. Smart move. Being financially savvy. Smart move. Another smart move. Having State Farm help you create a competitive price when you choose to bundle home and auto bundling. Just another way to save with a personal price plan like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state. We've got new merch. The year of the rat. Hoodies just hit the site. We have them in two colors and they're made from my favorite hoodie template. We also have the winter sale that's happening right now. 20% off some of your favorites. You can get them before they're [e-mail] if you get a chance to go there. And if not, that is totally great as well. Thank you guys so much for the support. Today's guest is a retired firefighter and a veteran of the FDNY here in New York City, which is where we filmed. He spent 20 years serving with the fire department in the communities of Washington Heights and Queens and bravely served alongside many others during 9 11. I'm very grateful for his time and his service. He is what I would call a legend. Today's guest is Mr. Tony Bonfiglio.

[B]

And I will find a song.

[A]

It's too hot in here for you, Tony?

[B]

No, I feel comfortable.

[A]

Okay. Yeah. What kind of temperature do you guys operate at?

[B]

Well, sometimes it's so hot. You know in the summer when we're out there in like 90 degree weather and you're putting a fire out, it's hot. You lose so much body water.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

It's like when you take off your turnout coat and your gear, it's like you fell in a pool.

[A]

Have you ever started a fire where you had to pee and then by the end you didn't?

[B]

Oh, yeah, that's what I'm talking. And then sometimes you're so thirsty. I mean, there were times I was so thirsty from pulling ceilings and the plaster dust that I actually would. I look up and would take water coming off the drain pipe just right into my mouth. Cause I could breathe. Yeah, yeah. It gets cruddy. It gets pretty crummy in there. Oh, I bet it's shitty.

[A]

20 years you were Tony Bonfiglio.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

And that's Italian.

[B]

That's Italian, man. My whole family's from East Harlem. Yeah, you know, we're Italian. Yeah.

[A]

It's fun, huh?

[B]

Yeah. Grew up In New Hyde Park. My father moved us out of the Bronx and when I was about 6.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And we moved to New Hyde Park. That's like a town on the Queens, borderline on the suburb side.

[A]

Bringing up New Hyde Park.

[B]

New Hyde Park. Went to Herricks High School.

[A]

What was it like back then?

[B]

Oh, it was great. It was like all blue collar workers, you know, all the blue collar workers, kids, you know, we had bus drivers, cops, firemen, truck drivers.

[A]

So there's a nice suburb over there.

[B]

Oh, it was great. Right over the city line. I mean, I had such a great childhood. We were. We had so much fun running around, you know, doing all kinds of crazy shit back then. Hot rods, motorcycles, mischief.

[A]

Huh?

[B]

Yeah, mischief. Rock and roll, rock clubs. Oh, in Long island rock clubs.

[A]

Listening to some Def Leppard, some acdc.

[B]

Yeah, well, back then it was Twisted Sister. And, you know, we used to go to the clubs and see Twisted Sister. Obi. There was a bunch of good bands back then, house bands, but they would play, you know, all the COVID songs. You had, like, Doors. You had Zeppelin.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

Yeah. It was awesome.

[A]

Yeah, That's a beautiful time, dude. I think that's the kind of a time that a lot of people romanticize as well, you know?

[B]

I think so. I always say that when I d. I hope the heaven's like the 70s, man, because that was so awesome. Kicked ass.

[A]

And you. And you were on the FDNY for 20 years.

[B]

Yeah, 21.

[A]

21 years, yeah. How do you get started? Like, what were you doing before you got into firefighting? Because things are going well. You're listening to Twisted Sister. You.

[B]

Yeah, hanging out with the boys, getting in trouble. I did get arrested. I was at Speaks club once in Lido beach, and I did get arrested there for. Had some weed and a couple other things on us. Yeah, we were young, so. Yeah, we just. And I was going nowhere. I went to college for, like, maybe three weeks.

[A]

Oh, yeah. That's not enough.

[B]

Farmingdale University. I went for food technology. I was gonna be a meat inspector.

[A]

Oh, really?

[B]

Oh, yeah. Thank God that didn't happen.

[A]

Yeah. Hell yeah, dude.

[B]

Well, I was working in a meat factory when I was a kid. Scraping hangar room floors like Paulie and Rocky. You know, I had the white coat on. I'm freezing. Scraping the blood and the fat off these floors all day.

[A]

And what was that like over there? So what kind of meats did they even have going in and out of there?

[B]

Just big sides of beef. Big factory, like, hanging rooms. Big hanging rooms.

[A]

And would you be alone in there or you have.

[B]

No, there'd be other people, butchers coming in, grabbing their meat. It was like a big production place, you know, big time. Lots of trucks. They would give all the meat out to all the restaurants and everything. And that was right in Mineola.

[A]

Oh, that's pretty cool. And Mineola, Is that here in New York?

[B]

Yeah. Minneola is pretty much right by New High Park.

[A]

Got it. So you're over there. You're in there with the meat. You know, you're in there at night.

[B]

Like Rocky hitting the meat.

[A]

Yeah, I'm sure.

[B]

I'm sure nobody's looking because that was right around the time, you know, so.

[A]

Oh, yeah. Oh, for sure.

[B]

Yeah. There we go. That's what it looked like.

[A]

Oh, definitely. Everything turned to veal after this came out. Yeah, that was just. Bro, you couldn't. You couldn't get something that wasn't tenderized.

[B]

It was funny because we were all kids, too, and you would. You know, all this meat after the place closed would be. But we never took an ounce of meat. You know, back then, you got all this beautiful meat, you guys, Big tubs of filet mignons, all kinds of things.

[A]

You guys are just in there. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

And then I had a.

[A]

And so what happens? Yeah, you're in there, you're beat. You guys are punching the meat or whatever. And was that a common. Was that kind of a common future in your area?

[B]

No, it was not at all. Just got a job there. My friends were all working there. The whole crew was working, and we were the cleanup crew. So once the butchers were all done, we would come in with these high pressure hoses, and we would just hose this whole place down.

[A]

Y' all were just partying, probably. Yeah.

[B]

And then we'd oil it up with vegetable oil. It was a funny job.

[A]

Yeah, but what was that? What was the vegetable oil for?

[B]

Just make everything shiny and clean. Because we had on online, the inspectors were there. There was two inspectors every day, and they would inspect everything. Oh, so it was pretty. And if they didn't get their payola, then they would knock a machine down, and then they'd have to rope the whole thing off, and we would have to come in and clean the machine, and then they insp it again.

[A]

So it was a little bit of kind of a. Was it kind of a meat mafia kind of going a little bit mafia?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Was it really? Wow.

[B]

It was owned by two Jewish brothers, the Cohen. Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

So, you know, something. Something was afoot. You know, and so what makes you get out of there? Were your friends kind of graduating? Because I ended up working at Dude. Me and, like, five of my buddies worked over there at. Well, I think it was called Save a Center or something. It was a grocery or Winn Dixie, maybe it was called Dude. One of my buddies would come clock in, go home, and then he would wake up. Then he come clock out. Dude, he worked there for like. Yeah, he worked there for almost 11 months.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

Dude. And the rest of us were afraid to do that, so we'd actually be in there working. But we would during, like. But it was so much fun as having your bro. There was nothing better, I think, than that time if you were either, like, late years of high school or right out of high school and you got to work with, like, your buddies who hadn't gone all, like. Nobody kind of figured it out yet. You got to work with your friends.

[B]

That's what it was. Saturday morning, we'd all be banged up, you know, from being out drinking all night. We would just be getting home.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And we had to go in Saturday morning to clean to oil the whole place. Oh, so those were fun trips. We had oil fights. Get soaked in oil.

[A]

Oh, God. I think we might. We might pick up a new listenership during this episode.

[B]

Oh, man. We would have some good oil fights. Really should have these big squirt bottles. And then we'd have these 55 gallon drums of oil. What?

[A]

Yeah, it was seed oil.

[B]

Yeah, it was vegetable oil.

[A]

Oh, Lord.

[B]

We would even do the trucks in the vegetable oil. Looks like they got waxed. What? Yeah, they were all shiny.

[A]

And what vegetables was it coming out of?

[B]

I have no idea.

[A]

Look, a vegetable or what? I never even thought about that. What could even have that much oil? Maybe an eggplant. What is vegetable made of?

[B]

Vegetables, you think?

[A]

But what?

[B]

They squish them.

[A]

Vegetable oil is made from the oils extracted from various plant parts like seeds, fruits, nuts, and grains. Most commonly soybeans, corn, canola, sunflower, and palm. Because that's kind of the oil that everybody's kind of against nowadays, you know? But I guess you guys were just using it to keep stuff shiny.

[B]

Shiny. Wow. Yeah.

[A]

I didn't know people use it like that.

[B]

Yeah, we had these black trucks and they would look all waxed after we were done oiling them all down.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And it stunk too, you know, because it was. It was such a big place. And there'd be a lot of, like, the bones and the fat and you'd had to go in the pit. Sometimes it's like you would puke, it was so bad smelling.

[A]

What was the pit. It was kind of like below the floor.

[B]

Yeah, that's where all the water would drain into the. And every now and then our boss would have to go in there. I'd see him reaching in. He'd have, like fat on his glasses and shit. It was. Oh, it was gross.

[A]

Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah.

[B]

No, I didn't want to stay there.

[A]

God. Yeah, it was cold. It was cold in there too.

[B]

Oh, and there was freezers there. And the guys that worked in the freezers, you never saw them. It looked like they were from the Antarctic. They had these hoods and these parkers and they big boots. And you'd see them now and then. They were kind of scary. You know, you were a kid, you're like, there's the freezer menu. They never came out of the freezer.

[A]

Yeah, dude. Oh, that's fucking wild. Yeah, Be living in it. It's hiding from your wife and kids probably in there.

[B]

Oh, God.

[A]

That's when family life's bad. When you're like, I don't care how cold it is, I'll stay in.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah, that's bad. That's the last job you want is working in a freezer?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Oh, I think so.

[A]

That was end of the line. And what kind of guys would do it? Was it tough guys? Was it Russians?

[B]

Who Fucking guys. Butchers, psychos. They got their own toolbox of knives. You know, the big. Oh, a couple of times they would pick you up by your shirt, you know, because we were just the kids. You know, we run it around.

[A]

Any of them ever get arrested for crimes or anything like that? Like you think or any of them low key? Like Dexters are like kind of. That kind of guy.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, they were low key, but they were strange, some of them.

[A]

Yeah. Dang. That's why.

[B]

Then you had the women. They were the packers.

[A]

Oh, they were.

[B]

Yeah. They would like pack the chickens and all that rapid and everything.

[A]

Yeah, Women do better gift wrapping.

[B]

They had, like, tough women, too. They were. There was like, the boss of the women was a real tough broad.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

Some girl would have tattoo of Richard.

[B]

Den on us smoking. Everybody be out smoking. Yeah. Your smoke breaks. And the guy would come with the. The roach coach and call you out for your coffee and he would. Yeah, the coffee roach. You know, they were the roach coaches here. And everybody would come out. You know what a roach coach is? It's a coffee truck.

[A]

All right.

[B]

Back in the Day, they would come to, like, factories.

[A]

Oh. So it just pulls up and you go out and get your snack.

[B]

And they would be like, all right, the coke guys here. And everybody would be out a break, get their coffee, their lousy donut, whatever.

[A]

He had a little bit of a break. Yeah, I like that, man. Dude, we stop. When I was a kindergartner, they had.

[B]

Or.

[A]

I don't know what grade I was in. I wasn't even in a grade, but I. But they, they. It was nap time or whatever at kindergarten, but they would. I wouldn't sleep right. I would keep my eyes open because they had this. They bring in this other lady to watch us, right? And I was, like, kind of curious about her. So I would just kind of lay over there.

[B]

Eyeballing her.

[A]

Yeah, kind of eyeballing her, I guess, you know, because me and my mother are always on the outs. I was shopping around. So I. I remember, like, at a certain point, she'd come over and kind of kick me a little bit and she'd let me go outside and watch her smoke.

[B]

Ah, that's funny.

[A]

Oh, that was nice, dude. And she had pretty nice hair. She looked a little bit like a man. Yeah, but she was definitely. She probably.

[B]

What year was that?

[A]

Oh, this was probably 84, early 80s. God. Yeah, she looked like a man. But she's. She's like only the third woman I'd ever seen, you know, so at that point she was really good looking.

[B]

You don't know.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, she's beautiful to me, you know? Dang. You know, she was just stunning, dude. But yeah, she'd let me go out there and watch her smoke and she'd complain about stuff.

[B]

Oh, that's funny.

[A]

God, that was nice. Yeah, just getting a little break, you know. So that was like. It felt like it was my break from kindergarten. Like, we're on break.

[B]

Oh, I remember kindergarten well.

[A]

Really?

[B]

Oh, yeah. Nap time. That was the best.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

Snack and nap and then out to the sandbox and dig a hole in China.

[A]

Yeah, dig a hole down to a butcher shop.

[B]

They would always put like a cone in the sand. They'd be like, oh, you're almost in China. You know, I'd be like, yeah, let's keep digging.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, dude. And then some kid would get sand in his eyes and he would look like he was Chinese. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what I got. Good, dude. So, yeah, so take me out. How do you get out of the meat area into the. Into the fire? Like, take me out of the freezer into the fire, man.

[B]

Well, I went. I went before. After that, I went to a plastic mold injection factory job.

[A]

Did you?

[B]

Unemployment sent me to.

[A]

Oh, they did. They were. They were making body parts.

[B]

No, no, we were making. There was a game called Othello back then. It was like a. And white.

[A]

Yeah, I remember that game.

[B]

And we were making the chips and we made the colored beads. So it was all like these plastic mold injectors.

[A]

The color beads for like, what, Mardi Gras or something?

[B]

Yeah, or people just buy them for their crafts and stuff like that. All they're like 100 different colors.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I could never remember the color. After I backed. Boxed it up and get ready to send it. I'd be like, oh, amethyst brown, green. Oh, I put something down. And then the guy would come back. You can't be. Okay be yelling at me. You can't send these out. And I'm laughing. He's like, what are you laughing about? I mean, I'm making $3 an hour, dude.

[A]

I remember one time I ate a bunch of mushrooms or whatever after school.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I worked at this mail center. Right. My job was to mail out these insurance forms to these different companies around the country. Well, I'm in the mail room, dude. I'm not doing real good.

[B]

Oh, I could imagine.

[A]

Yeah. Well, my body had gotten really hot, so I took all my clothes off and I mailed my. Put all my clothes into a box. Mailed. Mailed them to.

[B]

My God. That's great, dude.

[A]

My first girlfriend, her mom got me that job. Her. Her dad, shout out Mr. Earl. He was a fire chief, actually.

[B]

Oh, really?

[A]

Yep. And. But anyway, I got laid off and. Yeah, the mother had to come. Thank God it was a day. It was raining because she let me borrow a raincoat she had so I could go. Go get in my car.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Wow. So anyway, we've made some tough choices over the years, but. But I did have. Have a good time. They were state. They had a firehouse down there on Chapatoulas in New Orleans. And it would be great because the Mardi Gras par there. So we go down there and the firehouse would be open on days like that.

[B]

And all this must have been an old firehouse too. It was beautiful.

[A]

Yeah, I think. Bring it right up. It's right down there. Off a chop of tulis over there. And that was it right there.

[B]

Oh, I see it. That looks like they made it into something.

[A]

Yeah, they made it into something.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

But yet. Anyway, it was a great time and it was a great time. We go over there, everybody's cooking hot dogs and just, you know, just having a great time, you know. That was a beautiful time.

[B]

Oh, the Cajun.

[A]

Yeah. We had so much fun, man.

[B]

I'll bet.

[A]

So how do you get into there, man? How do you get. So you're. You're over there making jewelry and stuff?

[B]

Well, the funny part is they sent me to this place called Stonewell Plastics in Mineola. And I go in and I got this little Mexican guy, he's doing the interview with me. He's got. He's like middle aged little guy, he's got a little pencil mustache. So I'm sitting there, I'm 18, you know, and he goes, so what's your name? And I said, tony Bonfiglio. He writes it down. He says, and how old are you, Tony? I said, I'm 18. Writes it down. He goes, antonio, were you born here? I said, no, I was born in New Jersey. He starts laughing. Oh, oh, you'll do. You'll do. And when I went back there, I realized I was the only American in the place. Everybody else was foreign.

[A]

So you're in there learning Spanish, huh?

[B]

Yeah, Spanish.

[A]

What languages were they? Yeah. Who was.

[B]

Who was mostly Spanish? Yeah, yeah, there was some black people, but. But even them I didn't understand because some of them from Brooklyn. I had one friend, he would drive me home, I would say, yeah, I'd shake his head and he'd shake his head, and we didn't know what the hell Eli was saying.

[A]

Oh, dude, I still can't understand.

[B]

He'd be like, hey, man, Salvatore Steel, My damn Paul, Sam, I'm there. I'll be like, yeah, yeah, motherfucker, yeah, dude. I mean, look, bro, I don't know what he said.

[A]

It's 40 years later, something's never changed. And maybe it's for the best, you know?

[B]

Could be. Yeah.

[A]

So you, so you're in here. Are you just like this in from me or how do the winds. How did the winds blow you over to the fire world?

[B]

Well, then I went. My father got me into the printing union, the Amalgamated Lithographers of America, Local 1. Wow. And I did that for about four years, but I took the fire department test when I was 18. I was 19, in like 78.

[A]

And was that part of school you had to take it?

[B]

No, my neighbor came over and he came in our back door with an application. Johnny La Lima, thank God. Johnny saved my life. Gives me the application. He says, you'll never get rich on this job, but put a roof over your head and food on your table. So I'm sitting at my kitchen table, I'm like, okay, Johnny, thanks. You know, I had no idea it was gonna be the biggest career move of my life, dude.

[A]

What? Yeah. What made him even come over there and do that on one night?

[B]

I guess he knew I was going nowhere because he was my neighbor, and they saw us all hanging out all the time. You know, he figured this kid be a fireman, It'd be all right, you know, so thank God. I mean, he saved me because I was going. The printing union was going south. You know, computers were coming in.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And, you know, they weren't printing anymore on these big printing presses, so. So I got that, and then about a year later, I took a physical test after the written test. The written test we took in a high school somewhere in Queens.

[A]

And was there a lot of people taking those tests at the 40, 000? 40, 000 people wanted to be firemen?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Because the. The job, I think in. In a lot of ways, it's a very family. Like, it's a. Like, it's a lineage job. It's like a lot of families do it, definitely, and there's a lot of esteem with it, you know, especially at that time. What was it like? Like, was it a very revered position? Do you even think you could get it?

[B]

Get the job?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah, I think I. You know, because I was 19, I was in great shape. And the physical test is really where they separate everybody. The written test was a joke. I mean, it was like a third grade questions, you know?

[A]

Yeah. Remember any of them, or.

[B]

No. Well, I. You know, I saw the. The sanitation guy, he was saying about the dirt and the shovel. That's exactly what it was. Like, what would you use a garbage truck, a plow, or a shovel and brew? But it'd be ridiculous if you got your name right, you know, that was it. So I got a 98 on the written test, probably the highest I ever got in any test in my life.

[A]

But what was the physical part like? Like, take me to.

[B]

My father took me to East New York to an armory in this real shit neighborhood. And he parked it. We parked his Buick Regal. It was like the nicest car my dad ever had. And I bought him these spoke rims for it for his birthday.

[A]

Oh, nice.

[B]

So we get there and he says, here, you take the keys. I'm running for the subway, and you take the car home. I'm like, yeah, you sure, dad? You want to? Yeah, don't worry about it. I mean, he's an East Harlem guy, so I wasn't too worried about him. So he took off. I go in this armory. It's like when you get in there, it's the size of a football field. And there's a hundred guys that day that are going to take the test. And they break you up into like 10, 10 men groups. And you go around all these different stations and you take different, different tests you had to run. One was a mile, one was an eight foot wall. You had to jump over the eight foot wall that was like the separator. Like if you didn't get over the eight foot wall, you went to the police department. Sorry, guys. But hey, that's what separated them.

[A]

That's what it is, man. Sometimes you gotta separate the beef from the pork, you know?

[B]

Well, the funny part is I got a zero on one of them. And if you get a zero on one of those stations, you're done. You're not gonna get. You're not gonna get hired.

[A]

Yeah, for sure. Which one was you?

[B]

I had this thing called a ledge walk. So you had to put on a turnout coat, a helmet, you had to put boots on, you had to put a mask on. And you went up on a balance beam next to a wall and you had a slide along the wall. Like you were shimmying along a ledge or it was called the ledge walk. I'm shimmying along this thing, I'm like, why the fuck would I be on a ledge? I mean, is this job that crazy? What am I, Batman? You know, I'm gonna be out on the ledge. And I went all the way down, I touched the line, I came all the way back. And the woman scoring me says, you didn't touch the line down there. What? I race all the way back, touched the line. I come back, she ran out of time, I got a zero and I was like, ah, that's it. Everything was down the drain. So come on.

[A]

You think she just didn't do it correctly?

[B]

I think, yeah, I do. I don't. I think she was there to knock some of the white guys out because there was too many white guys on the job, which they were complaining about. They wanted women, they wanted minorities. I think they were told, because I stepped on the line. She wasn't even anywhere near the line. No, but you know, it's like everything happens for a reason, you know? I mean, right?

[A]

And so you, you get the zero pissed. And so. But. And there's 10 stations you do find on the rest of them, you get out of there and are you then waiting for your grade? Like, do you even, like, yeah.

[B]

So now, now after you get all that done, everybody says their half assed goodbyes, you know, I went back out. Thank God my father's Regal was still there. Yeah, found the found. I got into Regal. I found I had a joint in my, my workout bag. I lit that sucker up and now I'm driving home. We had no directions back then, so I'm looking for signs for the lie and, and boom, get home. My dad was there. How'd you do? I said, yeah, I think I did all right. So now it's the girls have a lawsuit because 40 girls took the test, the first 40 girls ever, and they didn't pass. With 40,000 applicants, you know, none of them passed. None of them passed.

[A]

Were some of the women in there on that day you were there with that 100 people?

[B]

No, I didn't see any women that day, but we had a couple in my battalion when I got there. But, but so anyway, they had a lawsuit and this lawsuit went on for six years. So from that time I took the test. I didn't get a notice that I was hired for six years because it was because of the women. Because the lawsuit took so long. They usually hire about 2,500 people off the list. Now they had to go deep into the list and because of that zero, I was like 4300 on the list. So the women saved me. Thank God. Thank you girls. I appreciate it.

[A]

Yeah, because rarely does a complaining woman save you.

[B]

Oh, she say they saved me that day.

[A]

Brenda Berkman, right there.

[B]

Berkman. Everybody knows Brenda.

[A]

Pioneering female firefighter. She was the sole name class. She was a lawyer in the federal sex discrimination lawsuit that opened the fire department city in New York to women firefighters. After she won the lawsuit in 82, she and 40 other women became FDNY firefighters. Was that, was that a time where like, like, were people like supportive of the women? Were they against the women? What did that feel like?

[B]

Did it feel like they were totally against the women?

[A]

They were.

[B]

Oh, it was an old male place, you know, and yeah, and you know, I guess a lot of guys, they don't feel like they didn't mind the women that merely passed the test, but to just get on because you're a woman, that was not, you know, today, now they have girls, you know, there's so much into athletics and stuff. They could pass these tests now, but back then, you know, it wasn't like that. That.

[A]

So some of it, they were just kind of stacking the deck, like we're just going to put some extra girls in, because some of that's just a liability.

[B]

That's it. They want you. Well, yeah. Life and death, you know, and a.

[A]

Liability for their own life.

[B]

That too. Yeah. But I mean, if your kid is trapped in a fire, you know, you want the best person going to get that kid. Not, you know, somebody that didn't make it.

[A]

Yeah, for sure. 100. I agree.

[B]

But they saved me, and I'm the luckiest guy for that.

[A]

So you're in, huh?

[B]

I'm in.

[A]

You made it in.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And do you remember, like. Like when you do you get a letter? It's like, yeah, I'm in. You got it. And does it have flames?

[B]

My wife. My wife came. I come pulling up in the parking lot from the. Working at mastercraft Litho, and I had a little Chevette. We both shared this little Chevette car that my wife bought on her own when we were kids. And I see her coming across the parking lot with a wave in the. I said, what is it? She goes, the fire department watch. Six years Fire department watch. They're gonna hire you. I said, holy shit. I looked at it. Tony Bonfiglio, New York City fireman. Report to Randall's Island. 823 something. 84. I'll be there.

[A]

That's pretty cool, huh?

[B]

Yeah. Oh, my God. So happy.

[A]

Oh, well, she was happy.

[B]

She was happy. I was happy.

[A]

Where did you. And what did you. Where did you meet your wife Christine? I met her. I know she's here with us today. Where did you meet your wife at?

[B]

Well, I. On my block. I was walking up my block in our neighborhood, and her and her sister just moved in from the Bronx. They. They were in the Marble Hill projects. They were like the last ones out of these projects. And so I'm going up the block. I'm like 14 years old.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

They're coming down with one of my friends, and he's like, hey, these two girls just moved in from the Bronx, you know, Chris and Bernie. And I'm like, hey. First of all, I was like. Thought he was pulling my leg. But so that was like, why we met. And then, you know, we went through school. We didn't really date until we were like 18. There we are. Yeah, that's a great shot. Yeah. Yeah. I was like size 32 waist back then.

[A]

Hey, look, I'm looking at Christine. Okay.

[B]

Yeah, she looking good.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, you can say what, I'm not looking at your waist, buddy.

[B]

Yeah, we were, we were, you know, we were like 24 years old there. I was just getting out of the academy. That's graduation day. I'm graduated from there after six weeks of training.

[A]

Oh, that's nice, huh?

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

Dude, you look pretty pleased.

[B]

Well, the funny part is they give us your assignment, you know, So I get this thing, 34 trucks now like 150 firemen. Only 10 are going to go to trucks. The other 140 are going to go to engine companies. There's an engine company, they're the water. They got the hoses and then there's the truck. That's the ladders. And you know, they, they break down the doors. The ledge walkers. So I didn't want to go to a truck. I was like real. I didn't like the heights, I didn't like the ropes.

[A]

Yeah, look, I got a zero on the ledge walk. Yeah, you got the wrong guy. So, so, and why did they choose you for that then?

[B]

I have no idea. My father said they saw how good I was at breaking things, that they said, send him to the truck. So now I see a truck in Manhattan, I'm like, oh man. All right. So I tell her, I says, I got, I'm going to a 34 truck. They gave me a truck. She's like, they gave me a truck. I'm like, yeah. Because most guys are in the engine for like maybe five, ten years before they get to a truck.

[A]

And so in the engine means they're in the act.

[B]

Fire engine, they're in the engine and they're a separate company. You know, their engine A4. And we were Ladder 3. 4 was a big hundred year old firehouse.

[A]

And so a ladder, they do different stuff than the engine does.

[B]

Yeah, the engine puts the fire out.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

The ladder opens up, opens up the door, breaks the doors down, opens, cuts the roofs open, makes all the rescues and the searches. It's a lot more intimidating because you don't have the hose line. You're actually in there, there crawling around with no water. No water. Maybe a can on your back.

[A]

Oh, what?

[B]

Yeah, I was a can man for.

[A]

Quite a while and that's heating up quick, probably.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So you get in a ladder and where's the ladder at?

[B]

What's that like 161st street in Manhattan and on off of Amsterdam Avenue in a place called Washington Heights.

[A]

Washington Heights?

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

A lot of Dominicans up there.

[B]

Oh my God. When I got There they were just coming in.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And they took over with blood, man. They killed everybody.

[A]

Really?

[B]

Oh, they took over the drug business because that was the hub. You had the GW Bridge right there. You had all the parkways to head out to North Brooklyn, out to Long Island. So everybody would come in and buy their crack and their cocaine.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So it was badass. I mean, they would be shooting all day long.

[A]

Was it exciting?

[B]

It was, yeah. Oh, my God. And the place was so crowded. It was like full of people with these old, broken down tenement buildings. Brownstones, tenements, all broken down. Hundreds years old. The firehouse was 100 years old.

[A]

Did you. Was it exciting to go work there? Did it feel scary? Like, what did it kind of become for.

[B]

Well, the funny part I was gonna say is that I went with my wife from the graduation. I said, we gotta go. It's on 84th Street. I told her I didn't realize that was 84 engine when I read the thing. So I take her into Manhattan and I take her down 84th street and there's no firehouse. I go all the way back up to the west side. I come all the way down, there's no fire. And we're saying, wow, this is nice. Look at this. It's all money, Brownstones, high end stores. Finally, I go around 85th street and I find a firehouse and I got my uniform on. And they tell you to always knock on the door and say, probationary firefighter Bonfiglio. This old guy answers the door. What can I do for you, probie? He knew right away I was a proby. Just by looking at me with the stuff on. I said, I'm looking for my Firehouse 34 truck. They said, it's on 84th Street. He's like, why? Let me look at that. He's like, dude, you're in with 84 engine and you're on 161st Street. I was like, why? Holy shit. I had to get in the car and tell my wife, we gotta go up the water. And now we left the glitz, and now we're in this freaking rundown neighborhood. It was like, holy shit.

[A]

The music's a little bit better.

[B]

Oh, yeah. A lot of salsa blasting in the street.

[A]

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[B]

Truck company. Yeah, Ladder company.

[A]

You're in the truck company. You guys are the ones that go in. So you have more of an ax and you do a hose.

[B]

We got a forcible entry team.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

A roof man and another guy that's called the ov. He's the. He vents out the outside. He goes up the fire escapes.

[A]

Oh, yeah. Peeping Tom, probably.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're the guy, the first guy in to breaking the window in.

[A]

Yeah. Or just sitting there by it. You know, I won't say nothing. So you do you guys get there before the. The. The like an engine gets there or is it just does that try to.

[B]

Get there at the same time? You never know. I mean, if we're leaving quarters together, you know, we always let the engine take off first. Hopefully they go and find a hydrant.

[A]

Okay, got it.

[B]

And we try to get in front of the building with the ladder.

[A]

Okay. Okay, got it. So. So take me on on your first fire.

[B]

My first Fire. Well, I've been there. Like car fires, rubbish fires. We had water leaks, so many water leaks. Because it was such an old neighborhood, you know, when we go to a water leak, we got to find out where it's leaking. Sometimes we got to break into the apartment, gas leaks. We did everything, all the utilities up there. So I doing it for about three weeks. I'm still wondering, oh my God, what's going to happen with a job? Am I going to. What's it going to be like? I still have no idea. You know, I'm a can man. The probie gets the can.

[A]

Okay. And the can means what?

[B]

I got a fire extinguisher with a strap on my back and I got a hook. And I'm gonna be the guy that if I can put out whatever fire I can with the can.

[A]

Oh, is it actually helpful? Is the can helpful?

[B]

It'll put out if a good can man could maybe put out a room of fire.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Okay. You get your finger over that thing and you spread it around so it's real. It's real. Yeah.

[A]

Okay, got it. Do you remember the day that you get your first fire?

[B]

Yeah, it was like three weeks in, and I'm doing my first 12 by watch. So you have a house watch, you know, and you got a man. Somebody's got a man. It's. It's got a computer in there that comes on and tells you what your alarms are and you acknowledge them. You hit all the lights, you send the companies out. So I got to do my first 12 by. So I never done a watch alone yet. So the 12 buy was like, you know, it was a little scary at first.

[A]

And that's 12 hours.

[B]

No, 12 to three. You do three hour watch.

[A]

Okay?

[B]

So 12 o' clock came, I went in, I took the book over. It's midnight and I'm sitting there and it's like one o' clock in the morning. And all of a sudden, like 1:30, I start falling asleep. I'm like sleeping.

[A]

Look, I've had a job before. I know how it is.

[B]

I'm sacked out. All of a sudden the alarm goes off. The computer goes. It starts ticking out this alarm. I'm like, oh my God. I was so scared. I got up, I hit the house watch light. I'm looking at the ticket. It says, Engine A4, Ladder 3 4, First 2, Fire on an 8th Floor. So now I gotta hit all the bunk room lights. I gotta hit the intercom, say everybody goes. I gotta hit the three bells and then I gotta acknowledge on the computer, both companies, 10, 4. And then I gotta take the tickets and put them on the truck side and the engine side. And then I put my gear on and out the door we go.

[A]

Let's go, Tony. I'm amped up.

[B]

Oh, man. So now we get there, it's 3:30, quarter to 4 in the morning. And it's like a projects building, about 11 stories. It was pretty decent building, was on Amsterdam Avenue. And so we're the forceful entry team. Me, my lieutenant, who was this salty guy from the Bronx? Spinelli. He was like a real. I mean, he was. The war days, you know, back in the 60s and the 70s.

[A]

How salty?

[B]

Salty means, you know, like. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, he was salty. Burly mustache, unruly head, gout in his smile, huh? All bent and burnt, you know?

[A]

Yeah, dude, definitely great guy, though. Yeah, it was like he was raised in an ashtray.

[B]

Oh, yeah. Oh, oh, this guy. Yeah. So the forceful entry team's a Camman, an Irons man, he's got an axe and a Halligan and the boss, and we're the three guys. So now we go into the lobby door and we hit all the buzzes. 3:30 in the morning, and there's people in there sleeping. Yeah, no, they're in there. So all of a sudden they start buzzing. Who is it?

[A]

Who is it?

[B]

You're like, fire department. Open the door. Open the door. Fire department. So they buzz you in. Now they go in the lobby. Nothing's showing. Nobody's bailing out, you know, so I'm like, I don't know. So might not be it. Take an elevator to the seventh floor, because the fire was on the eighth floor. So we get to the seventh floor and you never take the fire the elevator to the fire floor for obvious reasons. So we take it and we take the stairs to the eighth floor and we get in this hallway, and now it's like a big projects hallway. I don't know if you've ever seen one of them, but they're painted green and they get like fluorescent lights and it's long. So we go to all the doors and we stick our noses in the jams, trying to smell smoke. We don't smell nothing. So the boss says to my friend Jimmy the Duke, he says, go up to the next floor and check it out. Calls down the battalion, says, yeah, we got nothing showing on the eighth floor. We're gonna check out the ninth floor. So with that, now we go into the hallway and my friend is on the top of the stairs and he says, lou, I think we got something. So I'm like, oh, shit, this is it. I'm in this project hallway, caught at four in the morning. I'm running up the steps with my hook and everything. And there I. And I said, the boss says, what do we have? And the Duke opens this door and I was like, oh, my God, if there was a gate to hell, this was it. Okay. Black shimmering smoke that looked like satin curtains just going in all different directions. And my first thought was, no way we're fucking going in there, right?

[A]

I see these guys, hey, look, let me see. A two bedroom. This won't work for us.

[B]

They're pulling their boots up and they're putting their air. They're turning air bottles on and everything. I'm like, oh, oh, this is it. So now we're getting down on our hands and knees and the Duke tells me, you. You hold my coat, okay? And I'm like, yeah, sure, I'm holding your coat.

[A]

So you're behind him, crawling behind the Duke.

[B]

The boss goes in first. Like this black abyss we just crawl into. On.

[A]

What are y'. All, what are y' all looking for?

[B]

The fire apartment. Oh, we gotta find it.

[A]

Oh, so you. This is just the hallway?

[B]

The hallway.

[A]

Oh, I.

[B]

Somebody left the door open.

[A]

Pull up that hallway you had, Nick. Is that the one from the actual building? Oh, this is a general one. Yeah. I think I know what you're talking about, though. It's narrow hallways.

[B]

Narrow hallways. Long green. Yeah, look at that color. Yellowish green. That looked just like that.

[A]

Oh, God.

[B]

So now we're on our hands and knees and I'm. I'm got his coat. I got the can on my back. I got my mask on and we're in total blackness. And I'm crawling down like a hundred feet. And I'm saying in my mask, I'm saying, what the fuck am I doing here? This is fucking crazy. I'm never gonna do this again. I felt so helpless. And what am I going to do? It's pitch black. We're crawling in a hallway we've never been before. So we crawl up there. Then all of a sudden we. The Duke stops and he says, we're at the fire door. And I'm like, okay. Can't see nothing.

[A]

Yeah, it almost seems like some kind of sex trafficking. Whatever's good anyway, whatever's going on. It sounds kind of out of sorts, you know, it's out of. So anyway, so carry on. Sorry.

[B]

So it's something that I never. I'm like, I'm not do. I'm quitting in the morning. I swear to God. I was quitting. I was like, what are we gonna do in here? Yeah, we don't. Can't see, I'm on the ground. So finally we call in and I crawl in and I hear the boss. He's up ahead of us in the apartment already. He says, bring the can in here. So now I crawl past the Duke, I'm on my hands and knees, and about 10ft up, I see the boss on his knees with a glow of the fire. He goes, you see the fire, it's to the left. And I look and there's a room on fire. It looks like cotton candy. The flames are like all over the place.

[A]

And how much is it protecting you? How much is your suit protecting you at that point?

[B]

Nah, nothing.

[A]

You didn't take it off, bro.

[B]

Yeah, no, they know they're just coats, you know, to keep you warm. Basically, you got your leather helmet on.

[A]

Keep you warm, but. And at that point, does it kind of take on it, like, do you start to feel a little bit more empowered kind of or something?

[B]

No, I felt. Felt scared. I just wanted to get out of there and get this fire over with. So now I see him and he says, do you see the fire? And I look to the left and I said, yeah, I see the fire. I'm in this mask, you know. And he says, hit it with the can. I got the can. And I'm on my knees and I. I go to hit it and nothing comes out. I hit it again. Nothing comes out. I didn't have air in the can. It's like a total fuck up for you.

[A]

Sort of put it in there.

[B]

That's my fuck up. Oh, my first job. So I said to the boss, I caught no air in the can.

[A]

I've used that excuse a lot of times. A lot of times over the years, buddy, I'll tell you that. And I want to apologize to a lot of those women out there. Yeah, that was nice use. I got no air in the can.

[B]

You know, That's a good analogy.

[A]

I got a ladder issue, but go on fully extended. You must have been embarrassed, huh?

[B]

I wasn't embarrassed, but yeah, I felt like, oh, man, I'm gonna catch some shit for this. Yeah, embarrassed everything.

[A]

Did you like just make a sound like you had Aaron? Like.

[B]

I didn't make no sounds. I could believe it because, I mean, you always check the can, you know, you gotta pressurize it, put a little water. So he says, all right, back out to the doorway. So I paired. Now the fire's coming out over our heads in the hallway. And I get to the door. We came in crawling. And the elevator was right across from the apartment. Fire apartment. And the door opens, and there's 84 engine without a mass honor. And they got. They took the elevator to the fire floor, and they got stuck. And they're going down on their knees, and they're trying to put their masks on. And I'm in the. I'm yelling in my mask. I'm like, get the line in here. Put the five. Screaming. I'm like, out of my mind now. So finally they get in the line. Now it's black again.

[A]

And the line is the. Is the hose.

[B]

The hose.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

And it's all asses and elbows. Now in this hallway, you know, that's what we call organized confusion. And everybody sort of bringing the line past me. I see him get up to the. Apart the room. And the boss says, there's the fire to the left. He crack. I hear the line crack. You know, get. The water comes up. He cracks it. And now he hits it, you know, and he starts pushing the fire in. And I squeezed past them because I got to search the apartment. That's my job.

[A]

And you're searching for. To see if there's anybody in there.

[B]

Bodies. Yeah.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

So now I'm searching along the wall and still can't see. And I'd get to a window, and I'd smash it out with my hook, and I would stick my head out the window. Cause this is the first time I could see again since we left that stairwell. You know, we've been in a while.

[A]

You gotta get some fresh air.

[B]

Fresh air and some view of something. Yeah. So then I go around, and then all of a sudden, the. They knocked it down fast. And I run into the Duke. The Irons, man. He's like, yo, Proby, you broke your cherry, man. Graduations. And I was like, wow. I took my mask off. It was kind of like still gray smoke and steamy. But it was better than the mask, you know, because that was so confined. So I said, yeah, Jimmy. I said, my first fire, but this might be my last fire. I said, I don't know if I'm doing this again. And there we were. We overhauled the apartment, and we threw the mattress out the window. We took everything out. Throw the street down into the street.

[A]

And who's down there catching that? He's hitting whoever that's free.

[B]

Back then, like, nobody here who gives a. Yeah. Just hopefully nobody's down there. You yell out, look out. And then you throw the burning mattress out the window.

[A]

Oh, I'll throw my ex wife out there. You know, don't let's take that out. Let's take that out.

[B]

And then I'm looking out this window and it's encrusted with all these embers and, you know, like gold and amber and everything. And it was like 5:30 in the morning and the Manhattan skyline was turning purple. So I had all this beautiful thing I was learning. I was like, wow, this is some sight, you know. Excuse me. Yeah, yeah, it was definitely rock and roll, man. I was like, yeah. So now I had to get back and I put the air in the can when I got back, changed all the masks and everything. Now I had to go up and see the boss, you know, take my medicine. So I walk up to the truck office and I knock on the door. It's open. He says, yeah, come in. He's wiping his face down with a towel. He just came out of the bathroom. I said, I made like puppy eyes. I said, lou, I'm sorry about not having air in the can. And he's like wiping his face. He goes, yeah, don't worry about it, kid. Shit happens. And I was like, oh, oh, wow. Thank you. I was 23 years old, you know, so now I'm walking out and he goes, hey, kid. And I turn around, he goes, you did a good job. And I was like, oh, wow.

[A]

Wow, that's awesome. Yeah.

[B]

And then I'm driving home saying, am I quitting this job? Because it was like, it was like nothing I've ever experienced. And I, I. Growing up, I did a lot of crazy things, but this was the scariest thing I ever did. But yet it was so exciting and thrilling. I mean, I got home and. And the grass was so greener, the sky was so blue, and the air that I was breathing was so appreciative.

[A]

You were alive.

[B]

I was alive, man. It made me. I was like, wow, that was, that was something. Of course, that wasn't my last job. I won 21 years, more after that.

[A]

So what kind of like made you decide or you just have to go back to work? And it just kept being like that.

[B]

Or like, yeah, no, I, you know. Yeah, you know, we were busy truck back then because we had a lot of fires, a lot of occupied fires, which are really, they're a lot more intense than a vacant fire or, you know, something like that. You know, you got a lot of people bailing out and they're. Sometimes they're trapped. You know, you got to get to them in the truck. That's their job.

[A]

You know what's. Almost hearing you say this and, like, thanks so much for your time. Tony, too. I appreciate it, man.

[B]

Thank you for the. This is like, an honor.

[A]

Oh, thanks.

[B]

Kidding me.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You guys are pioneers. You know, you're the millennial pioneers with entertainment these days. I think you changed the whole scene.

[A]

Oh, well, I just. I think it's like, people just. We got to find more humans that have the best storage, you know?

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

It was so crazy. We're just like, we're coming to New York, and we just get an email from. For me, the other day that you had seen that we put out a thing about. About looking for somebody that works in. In a fire department. And my producers actually forwards it to me. He's like, can you believe we just. This guy. We're gonna be there. I was like, wow. Seems really interesting.

[B]

So I think it was meant to be.

[A]

Hey, I think so too. And I think I was about to say, I think it was meant to be that your first fire didn't have any. Nobody was in it. Yeah, because that would have. That could have been super scary, huh?

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[A]

Take me through, like, some of the times where there was somebody in there. Like. Like, how much of a different scenario is that? Is the energy different when you get there? Who lets you know if somebody's in there? Or do you even know? Like, take me through that process of, like, right when you get there, and then take me into one of, like, a fire where it was inhabited.

[B]

Well, one. Well, this one fire where I. We. We lost this little girl. And that. That one really hurt me a lot because we got to the apartment, and my lieutenant, he was a little Irish guy, the bravest guy I've ever met. Lieutenant Maloney and I would chase him up to the fire of the door, the caller, and he would knock on the door with his little crowbar. Fire department open the door. You know, he'd sound like some cartoon. You know, the Irish broke. So these people open the doors, and we walk in, and there's a card table sitting there. There's about eight people playing cards. They're eating. We're standing in the kitchen, the three of us, and we're like. My lieutenant says, what the hell? Did you call the fire department? So they're looking up. They're like, yeah, something's burning in the back. It was a big apartment. So we're, like, looking at each other. Something burning in the back. What the hell is this? So now we go down the hallway. My lieutenant's cursing under his breath. You know, he's all, these are these motherfucking sucking fucking shits.

[A]

They're still playing cards.

[B]

So now we get it.

[A]

Fun, though. Cards can be fun.

[B]

They were. But we get into the living room, and there's like these French doors. I don't know if you know the French doors. Probably from. Is it like that kind of glass paneled? And they. They're like two doors you open to a room. They're called French doors.

[A]

And you think there's going to be somebody French in there, but there ain't.

[B]

Yeah, no French people.

[A]

There never is, dude. That never is typical French. You'll send the doors. We'll be there. They're not typical French.

[B]

So anyway, I opened the French door, and the room is on fire. Like, holy shit. Close the door. We get down on our knees, start putting our masks on, and we're calling 1075. That means we got a working fire. He's telling the battalion. You know the engine now. They're coming up with the line. So right before they got the line, I says, all right, guys, it's right here. I put my mask on. I said, showtime. And I went to open the. The French doors. And I get a call over to handy talkie. There's a kid in the room, my friend. The OV is with the mother out in the street. Oh. So now we bust into these doors. They're hitting. Thank God we had the water hitting her. And I'm frantically looking for this kid in the dark, in black smoke. I'm on the bed. I'm feeling all over the bed. I gotta find this kid.

[A]

And is it mostly feeling? How far can you see?

[B]

I don't see anything. You don't put tape over your eyes. It's nothing.

[A]

And you're feeling with gloves on, too?

[B]

Yeah, sometimes gloves. Sometimes you forget your gloves, but yeah.

[A]

What?

[B]

Yeah, yeah. You know, back then we were like, less you, less equipment, better. You want to get in. You want to get in. You want to get out quick, too.

[A]

No, that sounds like a guy who forgot his equipment.

[B]

Ah, yeah, that's always put air in the can.

[A]

Yeah, put some air in your can, Tony. That's always that guy's excuse, you know?

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

But that's a great attitude to take. Like, nah, guys, if there's air in his cam, we're gonna have to be here all afternoon.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

We're in and out of this cam.

[B]

I could have probably put that. Maybe put it out with the cam. But anyway, so the engine, I'm in there, I'm going around. And finally I'm going around the wall. I could feel I'm. Oops, sorry. I'm under the bed, feeling around, trying to find this kid. And I get to a window, I break the window out, and I look out the window and I see my irons. Man that was with me, he's in the street with the kid. A limp, limp kid, you know, and they taking the kid, they open the battalion car door, they go in there and they rushed off the. The Columbia Presbyterian.

[A]

How'd the kid get out?

[B]

No, he carried. She was unconscious.

[A]

Oh, he found her.

[B]

She didn't make it. She didn't. The kid was dead. Unfortunately, she was burnt. They tried to revive her at the hospital, but it didn't work. So I'm overhauling now, and I see my lieutenant and I said, I just saw Jeff in the street with the kid. He's like, ah, Anthony. The kid was right there behind the door. And I was like, oh, I was crushed, man. I shut that door. I felt like I killed that kid, you know? So we go to Presbyterian. Oh, so before we leave now, the deputy shows up because now we got a 1045, which is a body. And he's like, what happened here? We're in this apartment. People are still playing cards. So my lieutenant says, well, we came up to the apartment and I said, I'll tell you what happened. And now the deputy looks at me, you know, I go, you see these motherfuckers over here? I said, they didn't bother to fucking tell us there might be a kid in that back room. And I'm throwing F bombs at him. And the deputy says, lieutenant, you better control your man. So the boss puts his arm around my shoulder. He says, come on. Come on, Anthony. He called me Amphony. That's Anthony in a brogue. Amphony. Let's go down to the street. You know, we went down to the street and we went and we picked up my friend Jeff at the hospital. I said, how'd they make out with the kids? He said, they were trying to revive her. They were bringing her to the burn center. So that was the last we heard of her. But I.

[A]

But there's no way you could have known that, right? Because you go in and the kid was hiding behind the wall.

[B]

You think somebody would tell us there could be a kid back there?

[A]

It's heartbreaking.

[B]

Oh, man.

[A]

Do you ever find out why they wouldn't let you know what was going on there?

[B]

I guess there was like an SRO bid or something. They were renting out that little back room to this woman and a child, you know, so it was pretty bad. And I had a few of those. I mean, right after I got over, was getting over with that one, I had another one where we showed up without our masks on because it was the middle of the day.

[A]

Yeah, no, I get it.

[B]

There was nothing showing. We get out and the guy says, yeah, they're working on the oil burner all day. And we had a lot of oil burners, you know, they would smoke up. So we're like 1020 says on the box, which means all the other companies, take your time, don't blow the red lights and shit. So now we're heading up to the stairs to the caller's apartment. It's forcible entry team, me, lieutenant Clipper and this guy Jimmy Lynch. And we get to the door and the woman opens the door and we own the apartment. And it's like a slight smoke condition in there, but slight. So we're like, what do we have here? So my boss says he was a smart fireman, he was from rescue too. He said, I think we got something above us. Usually it's below us, you know, but this, I guess, because the light, the smoke was so light. So now we get up, we don't have no masks or nothing. We get to the. I see smoke coming out of the doorway, you know, the locked door in the hallway. So I turn around, I donkey kick the door open, like three kicks. It kicks open and we got a black wall of smoke. We're like, holy shit. Now we got. After the 1020, we got to give it 1075, which means now we have a fire. Oh, so now we're crawling in, no masks. No masks. We're on our bellies.

[A]

Was it better or worse without a mask in this?

[B]

Worse. It was worse.

[A]

Yeah, because you could feel the heat.

[B]

Yeah. You know, back in the day when they didn't wear masks, like in the 60s and the 50s, everything was wooden cotton. Then once the 60s and 70s, and everything's vinyl and plastic and it's a whole different smoke. You know, it's poisonous. So it gets.

[A]

That's a great point. Right?

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Back then you could suck the cotton and the. And the wood, you know?

[A]

Yeah. It's like. Yeah, you're probably.

[B]

Yeah, you're like smoking a pack of.

[A]

Cigarettes or you're like, hell, shit, I wish somebody I Wish somebody had a couple tobacco plants in here. Crawl around for another two minutes exactly.

[B]

That's what it was like.

[A]

And things would burn slower back then, too, wouldn't they?

[B]

Well, back then, yeah. Plastics will take off a lot faster.

[A]

God.

[B]

So anyway, he crawls in, and we're like, oh, shit, we gotta go in. Jimmy goes in ahead of him, and I'm the last guy in. We're like, almost on our bellies crawling in. And I hear the horrible words, we got bodies. I'm like, oh, my God. Now we gotta give 1040 fives. So we had 10, 20. That means don't come. Take it easy. Getting there. Now we went 1075. Now we got two 1045s, two bodies. So with that, I get a body. A little girl come to pass it back to me, and I cry. I, like, shimmy out of the apartment.

[A]

Cause you don't know if she do, you know?

[B]

I don't know any. I can't see nothing yet. I still can't see nothing until I get to the stairwell. I knew I had a kid in my arms. I see it's a little girl, you know, the face is all dark. And so now I'm like, oh, shit. I'm gonna run her down to. The ems is gonna take her in the street. And I go running down to the street, and there's nobody there. And all the people are screaming. You know, they're yelling and screaming. And I'm holding this kid, and I'm looking around because we gave the 1020. There was nobody there yet.

[A]

Yeah, they're at the malt shop.

[B]

I put the kid down. I do CPR on this little girl, and I, you know, I put it down, I cup her head, and I. Pretty much. All I knew was like a 15 and 2. You know, you get two breaths into her and then you give. And this went on for, like, 10 minutes before I got relieved. And the sound that she was making when the air would come out, they call it machine gun breath because it's like. And the smell. Because I had the smell of burnt lips. So finally somebody came over and they started taking over. And then the EMS came. After 10 minutes, they let me go. So now I'm like. I'm walking around the sidewalk. All these Dominicans are very emotional. They're all screaming and yelling and crying and everything. Some of them probably pray and everything.

[A]

Yeah, for sure.

[B]

I figured, let me go back up to the floor because my. The other two guys were working on the mother. And when I got there, the EMS already Took over. And I was like, holy shit. And it was like the first fire we had where the windows didn't break open. They were the new windows that the Gambino crime family put in in all of Manhattan. And they didn't break like the old windows, so it never got air. So it smoldered. And they died from the smoke.

[A]

God.

[B]

And that stayed with me for years. I would, like, sometimes I would smell and taste the burnt lips and everything, and. Oh, it was horrible.

[A]

That's heartbreaking. They're like, who do you even talk to about that kind of stuff? Do you guys go to some of the services? What is some of that like?

[B]

I got back in the firehouse. The guys were listening up. They knew I took my turnout coat off, and I just went in, I took a shower. We all took showers. And then the boss says into the office, you know, let's talk about it. So he says, you know, we did everything we could. There really wasn't nothing else we could do. I mean, not having the mask didn't hamper us at all because we still got the bodies. And so then I went home. My wife heard about it already on the news. And so when I got home, they all greeted me, and that was pretty much, you know, all I got was some nice hugs and some tears at home. Yeah. Yeah, you get over. You know, it takes a while, though. I mean, I had a couple of things. I had this. This junkie that we kept. Called three times. We got called to the sixth floor. He kept lighting fires to stay warm in the winter. Yeah, you know, he was a young black kid, you know, and so we would have to climb up these vacant stairs. I had to pop a hole in the. In the cinder block walls to get in. Vacant building.

[A]

And a couple times it's happened.

[B]

Yeah. Oh, well, it's the first one. We go up, sixth floor, dark, cold. It's icy. It's about 30 degrees out, and nice kid. I have no idea. I got to the back with my. And I see my Irish lieutenant yelling at him. He's like, what the fuck you doing? You can't light a fucking fire.

[A]

Blah, blah, blah.

[B]

And he was sitting there, and he was in the corner, and I came in, I put my flashlight on him, and he was looking at me with these eyes, and I was like, God, he had, like, tombstones in his eyes. And he was only about 16, 17. So we put the fire out, we leave. Two hours later, we get called back again. Go up all. Got to climb these stairs. Six floors, no steps, just Risers and no lights. It's dark. So now we climb all the way up again. We go through the thing. He lit it up again. Bosses, yo, you can't fucking do this. He's yelling at him and shit. I got the light on him. And the funny part was we just had. We just broke into an entryman's cake at the firehouse with the vanilla icing that we would keep in the fridge. Get it nice and stiff. So as my friend Jeff, in the dark, he's putting the fire out. I put the light on him, and he still got the vanilla icing on his mustache.

[A]

Someone took a piece for the road. Jeff. Huh?

[B]

The boss is yelling at him.

[A]

That's why he was pissed. This guy interrupted his dessert.

[B]

Three companies and a battalion are responding to every time. And we got chains on. It's snowing. It's not like. No, right.

[A]

So you get out there.

[B]

So the third time, I hear, we just. We just got back from something. We went in our bunks, and we get in the bunks, and we're like a little pillow talk before, everybody was sleeping. And then before you know it, beam. Boom. Same box. Here we go again. I hear the boss yelling, fuck. Shit, I'll kill that motherfucker.

[A]

Dude, let him cook.

[B]

At this point, we're sliding down the poles.

[A]

This guy's trying to get to heaven. You guys keep. Oh, my God, you guys keep coming in and ruining his trip.

[B]

Third time. So we're in the rig, and I said to my friend Jeff, I says, let's tell the boss. Stay on the. Don't even come up the stairs. We'll take care of it. And surprisingly, he agreed. So when we got to the door, I says, lou, we'll take care of you. You stay down here. So me and Jeff go up my light. My die hard battery died on me. So I had, like, no light left. I'm trying to follow Jeff's light. And we're going up just on the rises. And then there's no platform, so you got to, like, lean over your step to get on. And when you get to the fifth or sixth floor, you're looking down at this skeleton staircase.

[A]

What?

[B]

Yeah. So now we go in, go through the dark apartment again. He's in there again. Now he's got candles burning because we broke his bucket up, smashed it all up. So we're like, holy. So now Jeff is, like, leaning into him and he says, listen, you can't fucking do this anymore. And Jeff's like the good cop, you know, I'm the bad cop. So I lean into him, I look at him, I says, we come back here again, I'm throwing you out that fucking window. And he just looked at me, you know, and that was it. That was the last time we went back. We left there, we took his candles. But years later, I would see that kid's face looking at me and it made me feel so bad. A wasted life like that, you know, Heroin, he had the, the works. Everything that's scary.

[A]

And the fact that he kept going back to do it, it's just that power of addiction, you know.

[B]

It was cold.

[A]

Oh, I guess they keep you warm.

[B]

He was in a vacant. Yeah. Oh yeah, A lot of like that bacons were disgusting.

[A]

Because it's just anybody could be doing. They're doing anything, huh?

[B]

Squatters. Yeah. They're shitting on the floor, drugs, needles. And you're crawling around in there because you still have to save them. Oh yeah, yeah. Vacant fires.

[A]

Yeah. Do you start to develop a certain like attitudes towards humanity or drug users or society?

[B]

Absolutely. Call them skulls. They're all skells.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

To us back then, you know, and matter of fact, on my block, we had a tight block, 161st Street. And we had a bodega, a gypsy cab dispatcher, a whorehouse and bunch of drug apartments. And it was a busy block. And we had two guys on the block that were almost there the whole time I was there. And they were the lookouts and one guy was bald and we called him eight ball. And the other guy always had a hat and we called him the hat. And the funny part was they would watch our cars for us, so nobody would break into the cars and. But you know, I mean, I would see every agency there is come down and radar block through the years I was there. Atf, Manhattan Tactical north, the CIA. I mean everything I tell you who was the bit the worst ones was the FBI. Yeah, they come down with machine guns and I've never seen anybody that. And then they cleared a street. They, they hit all the apartments. It's amazing.

[A]

I bet they were all just visiting that whorehouse.

[B]

Yeah, I would, I would inspect it now and then. I'd go in there with my hat and that thing and they'd all be looking at me and I'll be like, what the you want? You know, like I got to inspect this place, you know.

[A]

What was it like in some of those joints? Was it interesting in there? Was it just women trying to just survive?

[B]

Most of those types, some middle aged, young, not too young, Dominican Women, I guess they took care of the cab drivers and stuff. And they had the different rooms, you know, everybody had their little bed in there.

[A]

Just trying to.

[B]

And I would inspect it, you know, I got you. You got condoms. The condoms are here.

[A]

Making sure the alarm works. Ladies.

[B]

Yeah, they would be like, come on. Some of them were, you know, the prostitutes would be like, get the out of here, man. You know, they'd be up all night. They didn't want nothing to do with me.

[A]

Oh, I'm sure. Yo, fellies, fells, fellas, boys, guys, you know what time it is. It's time to level up and get that wiener up. I'm upstairs. Blue Chew just dropped something crazy. I'm talking next level championship belt. Gold plated energy. Blue Chew gold. It's the newest innovation for the number one chewable Ed brand. This ain't your grandpa's little blue pill. This is the four in one beast that's setting the gold standard for performance. They know how to do it. Blue Chew gold dissolves under your tongue and it works in as little as 15 minutes.

[B]

Bam.

[A]

Papa got that board on him. That means you can get it on quicker and stay in the game longer. Elevation without hesitation. Make life easier by getting harder and discover your [e-mail] and we got a special deal for our listeners. Get 10% off your first month of BlueChew Gold with code THEO. That's promo code THEO. Visit bluechew.com for more details and important safety information. And we thank BlueChew for sponsoring the podcast. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. You know, sometimes it can feel like everyone else has it all together in their love life, whether they're married or dating or single. The truth is that most of us are still figuring it out and we're finding our way. Sometimes I'll think back, like, oh, these people got married right out of high school. They did it perfect. Or these, this person moved to another country and they found a lot and they did it perfect. No matter where you are in your romantic journey, therapy might be able to help you find your way. With over 30,000 therapists, BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform, having served over 6 million people globally. And it works with an average rating of 4.9 out of 5 for a live session based on over 1.7 million client reviews. Bam. That's a lot. Sign up and get 10% [e-mail] Theo. That's better. H e l p.com t h e O that would be the wildest thing for me would just be, like, the access you could see. Dude, I remember one time, I'm in Kansas City, right? And I guess somebody started a fire, right? And I'd like. As a comedian, you go to different hotels. You're always in hotels over the years, years. And I got to the point where every now, like, you know, every seven weeks, somebody start a fire, pull an alarm, right? And so in the middle of the night, you got to go downstairs and be outside. So I finally decided for myself, I'm.

[B]

Gonna wait because, yeah, I'm not going out there.

[A]

There was never. It was never a good fire.

[B]

Right, Right.

[A]

So I was like, I'm waiting out there for 45 minutes or whatever while they see if there's a fire or not. So I finally said, I'm staying in the room until I smell smoke or whatever. So one time I'm in there, I just made this big sandwich. Dude, it was really good. It was. I was one of the better ones I'd probably ever made in my life. And a guy, I remember this big fireman with an axe comes in, just opens my door, and the alarm had been going off for a while, and he's looking. He's looking for me. And I was like, is there a fire?

[B]

Did I miss something?

[A]

Yeah. He's like, you got to get out of here. I was like, bro, I. Every week they doing this. I'm not going.

[B]

Right. I hear this all the time. But that's the cry wolf thing, too, though, you know?

[A]

Oh, for sure. I knew it was on me. I didn't know, hey, if it's bad, come back.

[B]

Right, right.

[A]

And I think he's like, you know. You know, I don't blame him.

[B]

Yeah, that's. That's a fireman attitude.

[A]

Yeah. And it should. It should be, hey, come back if I'm gonna burn, you know?

[B]

Yeah, exactly.

[A]

Yeah. There's just a lot of pressure. Yeah. Like, immediately I was putting all the pressure on this guy, but. Yeah. What. What were some of the environments you went into? Like, did you ever just walk into an environment like the old. Well, this is crazy. Or like. Like a drug den or like a.

[B]

Oh, plenty of drug dens. I mean, every building had a drug apartment where they would sell drugs. Oh, yeah, yeah. But this one fire that I went to, it was a. It was in the middle of the day. It was like the second floor. We pull up fires, blowing out four windows. I mean, it was going good. And so we run out. Now we're second due, which means we go to the floor above the fire. So the first two trucks has the fire floor. Second dude goes to the floor above, which the floor above is really shitty.

[A]

Because that's where the heat's going up.

[B]

That's where everything's going, you know. So now we get up the staircase and it's starting to bank down and get dark. And I see a guy runs past me, no shirt on, no shoes. He's got like a 3 year old kid under his arm and a Hefty bag.

[A]

Oh, yeah. So a politician probably.

[B]

So he slips by us, you know. So now we're going to take the door in the hallway above the fire apartment. And it's getting smoky and my boss puts his mask on, but we have to take the door. So I wanted to see a little bit. So I'm hitting the, you know, the guy's got the halligan and the door jam and I'm smashing it with an axe and he's trying to get a bite on the jam to bust the door open. So finally we get it, we bust the door open, we put our masks on and we go in and we crawling around. And the engine company did a good job. They knocked the fire down pretty fast, you know. So as we're crawling around, it's starting, the black smoke starting to go away and it's getting lighter and I'm. I'm on the floor and I bump into a dresser. I'm like, oh, now I could start to see a little bit. I put my light on the dresser, all the drawers are open. Stacks of hundreds and $50 bills. Every drawer. I mean, no twenties, no till. It was all coke money.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I'm like, oh my God. You know, I'm still like a, I'm like my one year there. So I'm. Oh, yeah, I'm a junior man.

[A]

You're like, I got to get something for Christine.

[B]

Well, that's it, you know, I got an angel and a devil on my shoulders and they're fighting it out. You know, I'm looking at, we're in smoke. So I mean, it ain't like a setup. Nobody's ever gonna know. So I'm thinking, oh my God, I could buy myself a new Harley with that money, you know? And then I was like, the, the angel be like, oh, you buy the new Harley and you're gonna crash and you'll, you'll get paralyzed. And I'm like, oh, yeah, could happen. So now I told the senior man, I said, eddie, come here, look in the straws.

[A]

Yeah, Bring another guy in.

[B]

Now, senior man, you know, he's like, holy Tony. He's like, what are we going to do here?

[A]

Oh, Eddie setting you up again?

[B]

Yeah. I'm like, you're the senior man. You tell me what this is.

[A]

Dirty Tennessee.

[B]

I could have been stacking thousands in.

[A]

My pocket if Eddie would have been like, hey, let's take a little. You. You have to, huh?

[B]

I would. Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. You got to, I think, just to even make sure that it is what it is. Get it back home, right?

[B]

I know I was young. I. I had this. Oh, it's dirty money. It'll bring me bad juju.

[A]

It could have.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I mean, I think that the karma of it. Who knows? Yeah. You don't know.

[B]

So the boss walks in, you know, the lieutenant, and he's like, what do you got? And I was like, we got all this drawer full of mud, dresser full of money. He's like, oh, I don't see nothing. He was like, I don't know if you ever see Schultz on Hogan's Heroes. He's like, I see nothing. He turns around, he walks away, you know, like. So now we go out, and it's still a little smoky, but we could see we don't have our masks on. And there's another room with a padlock on the door. So he's like, take the door. So he puts the ads end of the Halligan, and I whack it with the axe. Yeah, the door would bust it open. And Theo, I'm telling you, there was, like, half the coke in Manhattan was in there. Bricks all the way to the ceiling on all sides of the walls, a pile of cocaine about 18 inches high on the table. We were like, holy shit. So the boss gets on. Tell the battalion we got a drug apartment. Send the PD up. So now we're, like, waiting for the PD to come. We wanted them to come before the drug dealers got back. So finally, two NYPD guys show up, and they're like, here, guys, what do you got? I said, well, go in that room and go in that room. I said, that's the money room. That's the coke room. So they both go in. And at the same time, they go, holy shit.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

They call a backup, you know? So now we're like. My boss is like, all right, we're out of here. You know, we. We don't want me. Nothing part of this whole show here.

[A]

I'd have stuck around, man. You know, like Joey Diaz says, every now and Joey, every now and then, you bump into A Colombian.

[B]

You know, I love Joey.

[A]

Oh, he's the best.

[B]

Oh, my. He was a fireman in Colorado or some shit. Denver.

[A]

Was he a fire?

[B]

Yeah, but he was selling blow. He said all they had was a pickup truck. I don't know if you ever saw. I think it was on Rogan, maybe.

[A]

Yeah, it sounded like.

[B]

Yeah. He said I was just selling. It was an easy way to sell coke. He said, I'll go around.

[A]

People call the fire department.

[B]

Sorry, Joey, but you did tell that story.

[A]

No, people call the fire department. He shows up in a pickup truck selling coke.

[B]

He says it was a ski lodge place. There was never any fight.

[A]

Oh, yeah, that's a great idea, actually.

[B]

Yeah, the ski lots always were perfect for him.

[A]

Yes. Joey Diaz has talked many times about having been a volunteer firefighter, which is really a drug dealer in Aspen, Colorado in the 1990s.

[B]

Can you imagine him doing that?

[A]

I bet if you were anywhere with Joey in the 1980s, every place was Aspen, Colorado. Dude.

[B]

I go to a restaurant he recommended in Jersey. A Chinese restaurant is a good spot, King. Oh. He says, oh, dude, this is the real deal. This is the Chinese food. You know, he talks, right? So I go there, and the guy's name is Freddie, the Chinese guy. I'm like, freddie, Joey Diaz sent me here. He's like, oh, yeah, Joey Diaz. He said, he popular. I said, yeah, he's pretty fucking popular. He's like, oh, I didn't know food was excellent. Thank you, Joey. I love that food Joey has.

[A]

It's like, bro. I'd be like, dude, my friend died last week in Buffalo, New York. He's like, oh, next time you're in Buffalo. Yeah, it doesn't matter. Your friend died. It matters. You gotta walk 11 blocks to get this prosciutto, right?

[B]

Prosciutto.

[A]

He's like, the only way you get there is by foot. Right. It sounds very alarming, but, dude, he's always got the best food recommendation.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

He just loves life, man. He just always has a connection.

[B]

Oh, man, what stories. He's so funny.

[A]

He's one of the best.

[B]

I love him.

[A]

Yeah. I don't know anybody like him, but I bet in your line of work, you probably met a lot of guys. Not like him, but with similar energies like him.

[B]

Oh, crazy people.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

When I got on in 83, we still had Vietnam vets that were in the fire army, you know.

[A]

Really?

[B]

Today, it's more college kids. You know, they came out of college and they get. They take the test.

[A]

Yeah, A lot of guys that want to be in the calendar.

[B]

It's a whole different thing, you know, nothing to the new guys. You know, they're all great and everything, but it was a different atmosphere with the vets guys. And plus back then, you know, they didn't have computers and, you know, there was no cameras. It was bc. So you got away with a lot of shit.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Today you're on Cat. You go on YouTube. They see you fighting the fire, the ov, the roof, man.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

If you fuck up, people are seeing it right there.

[A]

People in the chat are like, get rid of this guy.

[B]

What's he waiting for? Why doesn't he go in? Where's the hose line? What's taking him so long?

[A]

Yeah, yeah, dude, that's comments. Yeah. Like, Caruso's a P, you know, like. Like, dude, he's his first day on the job.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

Dude, that is crazy that that's how it's going to be. Everything's going to be streamed and people will be able to comment.

[B]

That's a whole bit. And the other day I was watching the. Had like a. Some kind of iPad thing or something, and they had a drone in the air and the thing was showing them all the roof, the holes, the fire, the back. It was like a 3D thing. It's like everything changes, you know?

[A]

Yeah. There's already a real estate agent there.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Everything's changed, changes.

[B]

So, you know, when I got on, the guys from the 60s and 70s, they were tough because so some of.

[A]

Them come from, like, come from war.

[B]

Actually, and big time.

[A]

And this was just another place where they at least had like, camaraderie. They had a brotherhood.

[B]

Exactly. Because it was a paramilitary organization. So, you know, you had your lieutenants and your captains and your chiefs.

[A]

Did the stress of the job ever affect guys too much? Was there scenarios like that that kind of happened or.

[B]

Not really, no. I think most guys love the job.

[A]

What made you end up kind of loving it? Like, what made, like, what kind of changed for you? Like, or when you look back.

[B]

Brotherhood.

[A]

Really?

[B]

Oh, my God. Like family.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah, that's. That's why, you know, I did 15 years in 34 truck from a probie. I did 15 years. I think I left there in 98. But yeah, I mean, I had a lot of friends that I'm still today. You know, we're all together. The wives, the kids. The kids are on the job. Some of them are already captains. Wow. Yeah.

[A]

Yeah, I guess that's something that's so nice is just that that's One thing that's harder I even notice about life, even just like. Like, as you get out of times in your life where you're either in. In school where you have, like, teams that you're on, or, like, your buddies are always around, or in the college, you don't really find a lot of places where there's that much camaraderie anymore. You just don't find it.

[B]

No. And that was it. That was it there, big time. We'd make the meals. Yeah. See, this is a. The two probies are coming off their probation. So when you come off probation, you throw a big party in the firehouse, and they all got lobsters and filet mignons, and they have a big celebration. It's a lot. I remember my probie meal. It was a lot of fun. I came off with another guy, Richie, who. We both came out of the academy together.

[A]

Oh, that's nice.

[B]

But, yeah, I know all these guys, like family. A lot of them aren't even here with us anymore.

[A]

Really?

[B]

Oh, yeah. And that pick, that's old.

[A]

A lot of him who's gotten older passed away even.

[B]

Or passed away. Yeah. Some of them. I don't know. Somebody might even passed away on nine, 11.

[A]

Oh, yeah. Huh?

[B]

Yeah. That's a great shot.

[A]

That's awesome, dude.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, you could just feel so much excitement.

[B]

Oh, my God. The fun we would have and the meals that I would make, really incredible.

[A]

That's why they kept you around, huh?

[B]

Oh, I was a good cook.

[A]

Were you?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

First meal I brought in, my mother made meatballs and sausage and a whole Sunday gravy. And I bought gabadil, and I brought it all in with the bread and everything. And the guys loved it. You know, the Irish guys call it red lead. That was what they call tomato sauce. I make red lead tonight. Yeah, Red lead. They loved it. They were like, man, that was so good and everything. But you know what, kid? You gotta make it here next time. So I was like, ah, I get it. You gotta make the meal in the firehouse. Cause that's part of it. Everybody comes together, you know, because it could be all over the firehouse. But. But that's where everybody. Who's chopping this, who's cooking that, who's sauteing things.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Who's doing the entertainment, the camaraderie. I would put my Louis Prima on the stereo, and we would just be going, you know, jump driving whale, and I'm just a gigolo. And place would be hopping.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Oh, it was Fun.

[A]

Oh, that's nice.

[B]

And great meals. About 11 guys would eat at the same. You know, we'd all eat at the same time, and then everybody checked chips in at the end of the meal because, you know, city doesn't pay for anything. We pay for everything.

[A]

That's crazy.

[B]

All our tv, all they get paid for is the firehouse. Everything else we have to buy.

[A]

Really?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Is it still that way?

[B]

Yeah, still that way.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

Well, when I was on the job, you. You bought your own turnout coat, and you had a helmet. I brought some helmets here, too. And the helmet fit perfectly to your head. They made it a mold to your head so you didn't need a chin strap. It just stayed on there. And then when Giuliani came in as mayor and we had a couple of fires where guys got killed and everything, and he couldn't believe how shabby we looked because we had. Nobody fixed their gear. Nobody gave you new gear. So you. You went years with this gear, and it looked like the coats were all ripped up. And, you know, it looked. I loved the way it looked like.

[A]

The Blaze News Bears, huh?

[B]

And all the other fire departments around the country, and they already had bunker pants and bunker coats, and they had hoods. You had to wear these. I hated all of that. I hated the bunker pants. I hated the hoods. And so that. That changed right there from the uniforms. And then they gave us a new helmet. Three sizes small, medium, large. And they had to have a damn chin strap to hold it on. It was a lot heavier. I hated it. Yeah, but you get charges if you didn't wear it. You know, if you took your old helmet and you got caught with it or you got caught without your bunker pants on. Because it was like the. The takeover. You know, it takes a few years before the old timers really give in to all the changes.

[A]

Everything takes a few years to kind of seep in.

[B]

Oh. Especially in the fire department. It's all tradition.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah, dude. That was one of the nice things. Even, like, whenever I would go with my. It was my first girlfriend, her dad. Whenever I'd go over there, it would just be nice to see the guys all spending time together, you know? Yeah. And they would know other fire departments around the city. It was just like. There was, like, definitely a. It was like this kind of secret society that was a little bit. It was a little hidden kind of. Because you don't really think about the fire department all the time, you know, I didn't, but. Yeah, but they're right there, dude.

[B]

Yep. Yep.

[A]

And they're the first ones that you have to get involved when things get bad.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know. Yeah. If it's okay to talk about what, what, what were things like during 9 11? Like, what was. I mean, I know kind of like what some things were like, but when you look back on it, like, ah.

[B]

Well, I got there, I got off work that morning. I did a 24 hour tour on the 10th, and I just got home and I had a power wash and painting business on the side.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

And I had my Dominican helper waiting for me at home, you know, So I got home, I. We came in, I'm making coffee and my wife calls me, she's at work and she says, you see what happened? They flew a plane into the towers. I'm like, you're kidding me. I put a little TV on that I had in the kitchen and I'm like, holy. I'm like, what happened? The guy have a heart attack that, you know, I thought it was like a single plane that the guy just flew in by accident.

[A]

Yeah, Some guy fucking just couldn't get a ravioli down.

[B]

First one, you didn't know it was terrorists. So then I take you, we get to the paint store and the guys are all around the counter with a tv. And I come in and the guy Tony turns around, he says, why the fuck is they fucking terrorists flew planes into the fucking towers. And I'm like, holy shit. Now I see both towers going. Now I know, you know, it was an attack. So I says, all right, we got to get out of here. I got, I had to paint a rabbi's house in Woodmere. So I got this painting truck with ladders, Tony's power washing and paint. I raced. On the way there, I hear the first tower collapses. So I'm like, I'm cursing. I'm like, motherfuckers. My Dominican guy don't speak English. He doesn't really hear, but he knows something bad. He knows the towers. So now I get another 20 minutes, 10 minutes later or whatever, and I hear the second tower come down. And I, I was at a light, I put my foot on the brake and I just started crying. I was on the, on the steering wheel because I knew how many guys just got killed, you know, from this whole deal. Oh, oh, I was crushed.

[A]

So you like. Yeah. At that point, did you know because you were privy to the information of. Or you just knew how it.

[B]

Just knew the way it works, you know, they, they, they called in everything once those planes hit, you know, could.

[A]

You have gone back in or you weren't. You weren't even allowed to go in when, like, at that moment, since you had just gotten off of a shift.

[B]

No. Well, now I'm. I'm. I raced to the. The rabbi's house. I throw the ladders, the paint. I knock on the rabbi's door. I says, listen, Rabbi, I'm a fireman from New York City. I got to go to the Trade Center. I knew he knew it because I could hear the TV on inside. So he was like, okay. I said, roberto's going to take care of everything. I told Roberto, listen, and I don't know when I'm gonna see you again. But he's like, no worry, no problem. My boss, I take care. He was such a great guy. So now I'm racing with my van, and I'm going in and out of the L. I don't know, the elevated train. And I've got my hand on the horn, and I'm pedal to the metal. And everybody's probably looking like, what the fuck is with that painter? I'm in on the wrong side of traffic. I'm just lean, like the French Connection. I'm in and out of cars. I get to the firehouse, and it's chaotic. Everybody's running in. What we're gonna do, who's going? How are we gonna get there? One guy said he was taking a boat. Cause my firehouse in Howard beach was on a canal. Yeah. So my friend Whipper comes in, he's got a Suburban. And my friend Bobby comes and he was like, I'm going in with my Suburban. Whoever wants to go, I'm leaving now.

[A]

And were there some guys that did not want to go? Did not want to be involved?

[B]

No. Everybody went, wow. Yeah. So we grabbed our gear. A lot of guys went to a staging area. They made that mistake because they got stuck at the staging area. We took the. We took my friend Suburban right to the pile right there. I mean, we. We. We were heading down Woodhaven Boulevard, and I'm like.

[A]

And there was no traffic.

[B]

It was traffic. I mean, every. You know, the shit hit the fan already. So the Whip is driving crazy. My friend, the Whipper, and he. I'm like, whip, don't get anybody killed or any people already, you know, Slow down a little. So we get to the LIE and the cops have it shut off the entrance to the Long Island Expressway. So I stick my turnout code out the window, and they. They move the cop cars and they wave us in, you know.

[A]

So that had to feel crazy. Was there some. I mean, obviously there's excitement, probably a ton of adrenaline.

[B]

Adrenaline. What are we going to do when we get there?

[A]

Right?

[B]

We said we're going to be an ambulance, we're going to take bodies and we're going to rush them to the hospital. That's what we figured. So now we're racing down there, and we get to the Midtown tunnel, and my friend Whip is a driver, man. He's the best. We're doing a hundred, and we're going through the Midtown Tunnel, and it's like a time warp with the lights and the yellow bricks. We're doing 100 miles an hour. We come out, we head downtown by the Midtown tunnel. We head down. He takes us right to the rubble, and we get out of the car. And now it's dark, like an eclipse. And all the stuff is coming down on us, all the paper and the ash. It was dark. That walls were standing still.

[A]

Did it look something like this or.

[B]

It looks like that, Only now that's a few days, a week later or whatever, maybe, but it was dark. And when we got out of the car, we couldn't breathe, so we had to rip up T shirts and we put them around our faces to breathe. And then I noticed there was an old hardware store right across the street with, like, a glass door. So I grabbed the tire iron, I went over, I smashed the door open, and we all went in. We grabbed ropes and masks and sledgehammers, whatever cops came in behind us, everybody was grabbing shit. So now we start to climb, you know, and it was like the top of the Trade center was only about six stories high now, you know, and we were climbing and there was nobody around. It was quiet, dark, eerie. And we heard all the pass alarms going off that, when firemen aren't moving, makes a screechy noise. And you could hear that all around, you know, and there was maybe one or two other firemen. We were the only ones there. And we were going in and out of voids, in and out of voids. Can't anybody hear us banging on shit and waiting to see if that happens? And nobody. Nobody. Finally, we worked our all the way up to the roof of the Trade center, which was AstroTurf. And now you could see, and it looked like it went off for a mile, you know, it was like a movie set, it was so crazy. And on one side was the EAB bank and it was on fire. And they had. Excuse me, they had mesh, like the black mesh covering it. And all you saw Was the black mesh and the flames coming out. It was like satanic. Oh, it was so creepy. And so when I were climbing all around, inside, in and out of voids, and we did this for like maybe about 1 o', clock, we got there at 11:30 and my friend Bobby says, tony, my throat's closing up. We gotta get water. So I said, whip, we gotta get water. We gotta head to the street now. Now it's like one o'. Clock. People are coming in from everywhere. Firemen from cops, firemen, the National Guard was coming in. So we worked our way to the street. And then we needed water. And there was a guy, a Wall street guy with expensive suit on, covered in cement dust. And he had a bottle of water, you know, like big bottles, the big bottle. And he was going around giving everybody water and, you know, trying to wash their eyes out and shit. And we were just waiting our turn to get some of that water. And as we were doing that, these four women, they come out of nowhere. They set up two barrels, a piece of plywood. They had wonder bread and peanut butter and jelly, and they started making sandwiches out of nowhere. It humbled and I got a little emotional because it was like, you know, to see all these people coming together right at this time, no matter what your race, creed, color, working together. So we passed the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, we had the water and we went back. But before we got up, a deputy gets up on a car and he yells to whoever can hear, you know, and it was like, six truck. We just got a call. They're trapped. They're in a shaft and we're gonna find them. We were like, this is the first time we're hearing anybody's alive. We're like, yeah, yeah. So everybody starts running for get gear, and there's a rescue truck that was crushed. And we ran over to the rescue truck and we started opening up compartments. I grabbed a jackhammer, we grabbed some big ass jackhamme, hammer bits, bottles for air. And now we start heading out to look for them.

[A]

At least you had a mission.

[B]

Oh, we were on a mission. Now, you know, now we're looking for it. So now another two hours climbing up and down these. But meanwhile, Building 7, which is the big building everybody talks about, was on fire from the moment we got there. Every floor really burned. Every floor.

[A]

And what caused that fire?

[B]

Just the collapse, you know, they had the two trade Centers. Oh, the collapse right in front of them. Yeah, right. There was a lot of buildings on fire. So now we're working up and down. And I take a fall. I fall into a void. And I fall on my right shoulder. And my Bobby comes running over. He's like, kiddo, you all right? I said, yeah. Fucking hurt my shoulder. He helps me up. I take the jackhammer, I throw it into a void. I'm like, fuck this shit. We had no radios. We didn't know if they found anybody or anything. Oh, excuse me, my pig.

[A]

It was almost impossible.

[B]

It was impossible. Finally, we threw all this shit down because it was a couple hours already climbing again. And when you're climbing up these big jagged pieces of concrete, in and out, in and out. And we made our way into a store, like a high end store that was maybe three stories up. And we went in through the window because.

[A]

Three stories up what high?

[B]

Because the rubble was that high. So we crawled into their window, and it was a high end women's store. And it's dusty and dark and. And we're crawling around. I'm looking under all the clothes to see if there's any. Anything. We're yelling, anybody here? Anybody here? Nobody there. So we worked our way back out, and now we went to the Marriott, which was a hotel right there. And we came in one of these big broken windows.

[A]

It was right there at ground. It was right there at ground zero, huh?

[B]

Yeah. And we climbed down the debris into the lobby of the hotel with the only ones there, you know, so we're like, holy shit. Look at this place. You know, we're looking around and it.

[A]

Was kind of kept.

[B]

Okay, it was a big lobby. No, there was ash and broken glass and shit. But it was. It wasn't collapsed, right? So I said, look over there. I see a fireman sitting at it. One of those little desks in the lobby. We're like, holy shit. So we go running over first fireman we're seeing, you know, and he's covered in shit, you know, no helmet. He's like pale white. He's in shock. And he's sitting there and we're like, holy shit, buddy, you okay? Okay. And he turns and he looks at me, and it's one of the young guys that got on rotation. He just left our house. And I sent them to Manhattan. We called him Monkey man. Wow. I'm like, holy shit. Monkey. What the fuck? And he just. He looked up at me and he. And he said, all my guys are dead. They're all dead. And we were like, oh, shit. I'm like, kind of rubbing his shoulder. My other guys are like, monkey, monkey. All right, all right. And he was in shock, you know. So we're like, look, monkey, we gotta go, man, you know, you're okay. We're gonna leave you here. It was funny cause the phone was on the table with the little messenger light blinking. It was the weirdest sight, you know. And we left him. We climbed back out, out the window, back onto the debris. It's a long day. Yeah, we were there till like 9:30 at night, from 11:30 in the morning. So we were going along, we found a hose line, believe it or not, a hose line all the way from the Hudson. And there was a big opening with a, like a void that had. Black smoke was pouring out of it. So we had the line and for about an hour and a half we just sat there with Building 7 about 100 yards away from us, burning. And we sat there and one guy would go around through the voids and the other two guys would just hold the hose line, pouring it into this hole from hell. I mean, it was like, like, it was horrible. So all of a sudden we're doing that and we see this chief and he says, he starts yelling at us. He's between us and Building 7 and he says, drop that line, get out of here. This building's gonna come down. So we were like, holy shit. Okay. We cracked it open a little, wedged it into some rocks so the water would keep going down the hole. And we took off. And we were like, hey. It was like five o'. Clock. We're like, we're hungry, we're thirsty, we're tired, we're covered in shit. Let's go back to the rig, his Suburban and we'll go uptown and we'll get something to eat and then we'll come back. So we, we get off the pile, like, where's the car? I think it's a few blocks this way. So now we heading down and there's nobody around still. I mean, as far as, you know, besides firemen coming in. So I don't know if you ever heard of Penny Crone, but she was like a popular reporter on Fox News. She was a real tough girl. She was, yeah, Penny Crone. And I don't know if she was Fox, but there she is. Very well known New York reporter.

[A]

She was out there on the street.

[B]

She was in the street when we were walking. And she had a microphone and a cameraman and she came running up to us. She's like, guys, guys, can you give me some information? What's like down there? So the three of us are standing there and she puts this big microphone in front of me. And she goes, can you tell me? I said, oh, it's bad. Really bad. Put it in front of my other friend, Bobby bad. He says, horrible. My other friend says the same thing. She's getting nothing out of it. She's like. She pulls back, you know, they ask us another question. And I'm like, holy shit. Look over there. And there's this Asian woman, covered in dirt, bleeding from her head, and she's got a suitcase in her hand. So, like, we run over to her. We're like, man, ma', am, are you okay? She was in shock or whatever, and she just kept, like, looking. And my friend went to take the suitcase. She yanked it back, you know, and then she just walked away. And we were like, holy. Holy shit. That was weird. What do you think's in that suitcase? My friend said, money. The way she had that grip on that day, it was full of money.

[A]

Batch of yen in there, I bet.

[B]

A lot of yen. Wow. Some egg rolls, I don't know. But we got to the Suburban, and it was covered now. It was green. It was now gray. So we all get in, and it was like, theo, the seats. The leather seats were like, oh, we're squishing our backs in, you know, getting comfortable. I was almost 40 at that time.

[A]

I can't even imagine. And the fact is, you're alive. Like, you've been through the. I can't even imagine, like, what your body's going through.

[B]

Oh, we were beat and we covered in. And so it's funny because he put the. He put the car on, and he started up, and he put the air conditioner on, and it blew smoke. It blew dust at us like Lily Munster's vacuum cleaner. I'm like, oh, everybody's getting the choking. The thing's blowing smoke out all the dust. We're like, thanks. We needed that. Now we're heading uptown. Even with the windows open, the dust is flying off the rig. And we go up to 16 truck up in Midtown somewhere, and we take a break. I go in, we get a drink of water. I call my wife.

[A]

What has she been thinking?

[B]

I don't know. It's like, you know, 5:36. Oh, I forgot to say. Before we got to the car, building seven collapsed. Oh, we just missed it. We heard a roar. My friend said, seven just came down. So you're like, holy shit. We just. We just missed it.

[A]

But you've been near that all day down there.

[B]

All day. It was burning because there's a Lot.

[A]

Of speculation about Building 7 over the years.

[B]

It's all bullshit. You do? Because I was there. Yeah. I mean, it's. It kind of gets me a little because I don't know what really happened that day. You know, who knows? You know, who was involved, whatever. I have no idea. Right. But all I know is Building seven was burning all day long from first floor to the top floor, every window. So, you know, people were saying there was explosions and.

[A]

But you saw firsthand that it had been kind of cooking.

[B]

All the firemen that I ever talked to that were there that day, no one. Everybody says there was no fucking explosions, but. And they have all these things. Like, the other day, I thought I saw an AI Bullshit thing about guys saying they heard explosions. Like, they're putting that out on the Internet and it looks real. You think they're really firemen? You got to be careful today. You never know it's real.

[A]

Oh, yeah, I agree with that, that you can't tell anything.

[B]

You almost tell a little bit today, but imagine a few years from now with the AI, you'll never be able to tell. Yeah, you'll need, like, an AI detection kit.

[A]

They probably will have that.

[B]

Maybe we can get in on that. We could come up with it first.

[A]

Yeah, okay, sure. I mean, if that's what we met for today, to be able to start that and. And like, keep that out of that.

[B]

World, save the world.

[A]

What about over time with 911? There's been a lot of conspiracy theories and stuff like that. Has any of that grown in the world of the. Of the fire department culture or anything like that? Or is it person by person or. Because you guys were one of the most affected groups.

[B]

You know, 343 men we lost that day. It's hard to even get over that number. Yeah, it was a lot. And we knew it was a lot when we got. We left 16 truck. We stopped at a Genovese drugstore and somewhere in Manhattan, and we went in and we got a couple of bottles of water, about four giant Milky Ways, and some batteries for our flashlights. So now we're covered in shit. You know, we're up at the counter and the young girl's ringing us up, and she goes, you guys come from the Trade Center? So my friend Bobby said, what gives you that idea? So she just, like, looked and grinned. She's all right. No charge for you guys. So we took off. We ate our Milky Ways, we had our water, and then we went back to the pile.

[A]

Is there a picture from that day? Nick, do you have it? What were we do.

[B]

Gonna.

[A]

If you have that, just pull it up. Don't even wait for me to see that.

[B]

That's my two buddies. That was like a couple weeks later.

[A]

That's Whip and the other guy.

[B]

That's my friend Andrew and Marty, that's back. You know, you would have to go down and work at the Trade Center.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And it was very unhealthy. A lot of guys got cancer. A lot of guys died after the Trade Center.

[A]

We just had a breathing expert in the other day, this guy, James Nestor, and he has a New York Times bestseller, a book called. Called Breath. And he talks about. Is it ground Z, Glass zero. Ground zero lung.

[B]

Oh, okay.

[A]

He talks about ground glass. It's a condition that. That happened to a lot of people who were first responders at Ground Zero. Have you heard about this?

[B]

Yeah, well, I never heard about the ground glass, but of course, the breathing. Everybody was in. You know, you. If you were there for like a month or two, some guys were there two, three, four months. My friend Bobby was there the whole time. You know, he. He just got his nephew on the job. It was his nephew's first job, and he was in the trouble. He was there every day looking for his body, day and night, looking for his nephew. Nephew. Yeah. For his sister. Yeah, it was.

[A]

God, that's heartbreaking, huh?

[B]

Yeah, he was a good guy. He's a great guy, too.

[A]

Who, his nephew?

[B]

No, my friend Bobby. This is his. He's the boxing. He runs the fire department boxing team.

[A]

He is. Bring him out. Let's get a picture of him.

[B]

Bobby. You see him there? Bobby McGuire, FDNY Boxing. He's a Golden Glove champ.

[A]

Is he a pretty interesting guy?

[B]

Oh, oh, you wouldn't. I don't know if you know the Knicks, but his uncles are Dickie McGuire and Al McGuire and Marquette and the Knicks. Yeah.

[A]

Oh, there he is.

[B]

His father was John McGuire, and he was like a big guy in New York. Jimmy Breslin actually called him the. The King of Queens because he opened the first gay bar in Queens back in the day.

[A]

Oh, that's incredible, man. Oh, yeah, he sounds like an interesting guy. Yeah, I bet he's got some great stories, too. Just from the boxing history of it. You know, Joey Diaz used to. He used to shovel ice out of James J. Braddock's driveway over in Jersey.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, I heard him say that.

[A]

That's pretty wild.

[B]

He'd give him side of like a couple of bucks.

[A]

Yeah, give him a couple of bucks and Joey, like this guy's been punched in the head so many times he thought he gave me a five, he gave me a 10, so. But that's just a wild story right there.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

So go back and show the guys. That's Marty right there.

[B]

There, that's Bobby, Bobby McGuire.

[A]

Bobby McGuire. And what was his, his nephew's name? Do you remember?

[B]

No, I don't remember. My wife might, but I don't.

[A]

Alan, right?

[B]

Allen. He was a, a lifeguard in Rockaway.

[A]

The kid, his last name was Alan and he just started on, he just started.

[B]

It was like his first job and Bobby was there and I know his breathing is, you know, he's had a lot of breathing problems once you're there too long. So anyway, they're having a fight in Madison Square Garden in March. They, we fight the cops every year.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Called the Battle of the Badges.

[A]

Who's won over time, over the years? Who's won the most you think is.

[B]

Well, you know, the cops are double the, the amount of pool that they can get. They're twice as big an organization as us. You know, we're like, we're like 30,000, they're like 60,000. But we still, we get, we get some good fighters and we beat them quite a few times. We fight. They fight everywhere. They fight in England, they fight in Ireland.

[A]

Oh really?

[B]

Yeah, they'll fight any fire department, any cops.

[A]

So Bobby and his gang, they kind of, this is like a thing they do all year.

[B]

Oh yeah, yeah. Oh, he's so busy.

[A]

So he runs this, the FDNY Boxing Club.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Oh wow.

[B]

They raise like hundreds of thousands for Tunnels to Towers every year.

[A]

And what is Tunnels to Towers?

[B]

That's with the, the like World Trade center foundation where the, the guy's brother ran through from Staten Island. He ran through the tunnel to get to the Trade center and he passed away. And so they started this organization and it's huge.

[A]

Oh, that's beautiful, man. We'll make a donation to him.

[B]

Oh, that'd be great.

[A]

Yeah, right here. Born from the tragedy 9 11, the tunnel to Towers foundation carries out its mission to do good by providing mortgage free homes to gold star and fallen first responder families with young children and building specially adapted smart homes for catastrophically injured veterans and first responders. Wow.

[B]

They ran through the tunnel with their gear on to get to Manhattan.

[A]

The FDNY Boxing Club is comprised of active duty members, FDNY and EMS who train on their own time. Established in 1982, FDNY Boxing has spent 40 years raising funds for worthwhile charities through spirited competition. Yeah, man, we'll make a donation to them.

[B]

Yeah, I'm going to.

[A]

Bravest boxing team will defend the Big Apple in the second international battle of the badges. Huh?

[B]

The funny thing is the best fights are in the crowd. The cops and the firemen going at it. Holy shit, the brawls. One time I was there and this girl cop, you know, she was bad mouthing some firemen and she threw a soda at the guy and the one fireman says, hey, you know I don't hit firemen. The other fireman said, I do. And he clocked her.

[A]

Oh, yeah. Boom.

[B]

She went flying over the date. Whole fight broke out. It was crazy.

[A]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

I mean, once you throw a soda at you.

[A]

Yeah. And with all the people getting sex changes now, you don't know who's got what on them.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

You know, I'm not frisking you first. Yeah.

[B]

What are you packing?

[A]

How is the. How has the department changed since you got involved in now?

[B]

Well, from when I was got on and then in like in the early late 90s, mid-90s, computers came in and that changed a lot. Computers and now digital things. We had fax machines and computers and that changed a lot of things. Before it was just writing in a book, you know. Now more things are more digital, so they had a little more eyes on you, you know, you couldn't get away with as much. Right.

[A]

A lot more technology stuff.

[B]

Yeah. Because back in the day, you know, the bosses ran the firehouse. There was nobody else that knew what was going on. Whatever they put in the book is what it was.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Matter of fact, when I bought my house, it was a funny story. I was 24 and I told my boss, I told the bank, yeah, this is where I work if you want to check on my employment. And I gave him the number to the truck office. So I said, this is what I make, you know. And it was like twice what I was making. He's like, ah, you can't say that. I said, just tell the bank, don't worry about it. And it worked.

[A]

What? Yeah. What did Christine say when you called her? That it must have been crazy.

[B]

Oh, yeah. Well, her sister answered the phone. Bernie. And I was like, bernie. And she's like, tony, how the fuck are you? What's going on? I said, oh, my God, we just got got firehouse. We're taking a break. We're all okay. And. And I'll talk to my wife, tell her, you know, I love her and I'LL see you in a bit. I'll call her later. So hung up and we went back to the, we went back to the pile. So now we get back on the pile, it's like, what do we want? We. First we're walking along and guys are like seeing other guys that, you know, you're hugging. So my friend Bobby sees a guy, they're hugging and I'm standing there like on a plateau. And this guy hits me, another fireman. He goes, buddy, you're standing on somebody. And I was like, oh shit. I looked down and this guy in this three piece suit, he's like part of the ground. He's looking up at me and I'm like, oh my God. That was the first body I saw all day. Yeah. So now we're like, okay, so now we're moving along. What do you want to do? They started a bucket brigade. I don't know. We must add a thousand Home Depot buckets. And you would pass a bucket and, and take a bucket, move some water along for like hours we were doing that, you know, and it was starting. Yeah, it was getting dark out, you know, the day was getting. It was like around 7:30, 8 o'. Clock. And so now we're doing this for hours. My back is killing me and all of a sudden we hear all this yelling. Everybody's yelling and cheering. It's 9:30 at night. You know, at 9:00 o' clock we're like, what is that? What is that? My friend Bobby goes, look, look over there down there. We look down and here comes a parade of iron workers with heavy machinery cranes. They got their hard hats on, cut off shirts. Everybody's got their fists in the air. They're all hanging off the machines. Everybody's cheering like we won the Super Bowl. It was like it was a drop in the bucket. But they got right to work, started taking off all the heavy shit, you know. I mean, it had months, almost a year to go, but oh, it was just a start.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And it just felt so good, like.

[A]

We had a chance.

[B]

Yeah. And then finally we were like, you know, let's start heading home, you know. And I met a few guys heading home. And I was thinking in the back of my mind all the guys, you know, that, that got killed, we had no idea how many yet, can't even imagine. And I run into a friend of mine and he was off in a rescue company and I said, hey, John, he said, tony, how you doing? He goes, you know, Tony, Jerry was working. And Jerry was like one of my Best friends. And I was like, oh, God. I just, like, stepped back, as I know he was. He was in Rescue. Rescue 1. I was devastated. My friend Whip. Sorry. And he put his arm around me. He said, come on, who knew? Let's go, let's leave. And I was like. I was. I'm still emotional over.

[A]

It's heartbreaking. What was his name? Jerry. What?

[B]

Jerry Nevins.

[A]

Jerry Nevins. Let's see a picture of him.

[B]

Huh?

[A]

Huh?

[B]

Funny story. When he told me he was going to leave to go to rescue, I was like, you motherfucker. Are you fucking kidding me? It was like, as everybody was leaving, you know, I was there 15 years. I was losing guys left and right. They were getting made. Lieutenant, he wanted to go to a rescue company. We used to bash rescue all the time. Rescue's like a special company, you know, when. When a. When a truckee or a fireman gets in trouble, they send a rescue guy to get him. They're like, expertise.

[A]

They're like the Marines or whatever kind of.

[B]

Or no, they're like, well, the Marines, but they're like, special specialist.

[A]

Is that Jerry?

[B]

Yeah, it's Jerry.

[A]

Oh, there he is.

[B]

And they were on 42nd Street, Rescue 1. So they're right in the middle of Times Square.

[A]

Oh, they were there.

[B]

Oh, he made so many rescues. It was amazing. Wow.

[A]

So he enjoyed it once he got over there.

[B]

Oh, I used to go to some metal days and. And he'd be there and, you know, two, three medals, you know, hanging off of buildings, scaffoldings. He say, you know, it was a lot of times in Midtown, the scaffoldings would break and they'd have to go over ropes and get these guys. And, yeah, he was just a great find. But when he told me he was going to rescue, I was crushed. I was like, you got to be kidding me. He told me in the middle of a box. We were checking out a building. So now I get back in the rig, and we're going down the St. Nicholas Avenue. And I turned the ladder all the way out, so now it looks like a square, you know? And I'm like this way, looking at him. He's looking. He's like, what the. I'm like, fuck you. And. And I, we. We straighten it out. Now we're crossing over Amsterdam Avenue. And I seen him put the lights on, like, okay, we're getting a run. I see the boss on the phone, you know, and he's. He's taking down the information, puts his arm out like, we gotta run. Sounds like a job. Numerous calls. Numerous calls means you're going to work. That means people are calling. You know, I see a fire. I see a fire. I see a fire.

[A]

It's not just some weirdo with a Ouija board.

[B]

Yeah, no Ouija boards, no fake alarms. You hear numerous calls, you know you're going to work. So now we go around Broadway, and I see. We come up, and it's the second floor. It's blowing out, like, four windows. And there's an awning with off the fire escape on the second floor. And it's still not fire at it. I gotta get in there. I'm the O.V. that's my job. So now I'm getting a ladder out. I'm putting the ladder up. The Dominican guys in the street, they're helping me place the ladder into the thing. I climb up the ladder, I smash the window out, I put my mask on, and I drop in. Now it's blowing all the other rooms. This room is getting ready to blow. You know, it gets hot. So now I'm in there and I'm searching around, and I get lost. I get a little. I get pumped into a bureau on my knees, and I get disorientated. And I'm getting scared because my ears are starting to burn. I know it's going to light up, up. So. Which is crazy. I got caught in a closet. You'd never think, how'd you get caught in a closet, right? But I'm crawling in, thinking it's an opening, and I turned in there, and I'm in this closet. Now I can't get out of the closet. I'm going around in a circle. My ears are burning. And all of a sudden I hear Jerry. He came in behind me. Jerry had a bite bar, which was, like, totally legal. Instead of having a mask with a. A net on, it was like, you had a little bite bar in the mask. So you didn't need that. You just held it with your teeth, which was totally outlawed, but it made it easier to take it on and off. So I hear him say, tony. I'm like, jerry. He's like, you got to get out of here. It's. It's going to light up. I'm like, I can't find my way out. I was, like, taking my mask off, calling for my mother. I thought. I thought I was. I was a dead man. And then all of a sudden, I heard the engine at the door, and I heard this guy McCarthy yelling, kick its ass.

[A]

Kick its ass. Hit it.

[B]

Hit it. And I heard the water coming in and I was like, oh, it was music to my ears. I was gonna live again. And then after that, when I was in the street, I was like a zombie, you know? And Jerry was like, yo, what? What the fuck's wrong with you? I said, dude, that was fucking close. He just laughed, you know? But that was it. He went to rescue the next day. I never even thanked him for coming in after me that day.

[A]

Oh. Oh, man. Yeah, I mean, it's just. Even the stories are so, like, exhilarating. I can imagine. Like, I can't even imagine what it's like, really.

[B]

We were putting a fire out. I made a cover of a magazine. I think you could bring it up. It was called Fire Command. I didn't know what it was, you know, it was like one of these buff magazines. Yeah, that's me in the middle in a neck brace. Yeah, I look like an Italian organ grinder monkey, man.

[A]

I thought you were gonna send me, maybe made the calendar.

[B]

I got the little ringlets in my hair. I got the bow ties on. And the friend next to me, Kenny, he was a proby. So, funny story. We had to take this line up the fire escape because we got called in as an extra engine. It was a lot of fire people were trapped. They were having a hard time putting the fire out from the inside. So we're taking the line up the fire. Now I'm in the engine. I'm detailed. I'm never holly in the engine, so. But when they need a guy and you got an extra guy, you go across the floor. Now I'm in the engine and we're taking this line up the fire escape to the fifth floor. And the boss is yelling. This Boss, there's Joe McLaughlin. He's yelling, Richie, get in there.

[A]

Hit it, hit it.

[B]

Finally, we get a charge the line, we tie it off to the fire escape. I mean, there's a lot of water going up that high. Yeah, he's hitting the water. The guy right here, Richie, that's squinting his eyes and he's hitting the water and we're pushing our way in. We made it up to the fire floor escape. We push the fire in and now we're crawling in. We're climbing in through the window. The boss is yelling. They're looking at us, Richie. They're looking at us because we're outside on the fire escape. We get in, the ceiling comes down on our heads. All this hot plaster and shit fucking burn my neck. So now we're getting in. We get to like the engine on the other side is coming, and they're making a good push. They're putting the fire out. We're putting the fire out. So now we're at this, like, wall with a window, and I'm. I'm on top of something. Me and another guy were, like, kneeling. I thought it was a pillow from the couch. So the boss tells the probe. He take the line and shoot the water out the window. And it'll take a lot of smoke, so we could start to see what's going on here. And as they're doing now, you can start to see a little. The boss takes his mask off and he goes, holy shit. Look what you're kneeling on. I look down and we're kneeling on a corpse with no head, no legs, and no arms. And he's all like a crispy, burnt.

[A]

We're like, ah.

[B]

We all jump off. We're like, holy shit. I thought it was a couch piece, you know, and it was. That's what happened. They killed this guy. They cut him up and then they lit him on. They lit the place on fire. That's why there's so much fire. You get a lot of fire in the middle of the day. It's usually Austin. Somebody poured gasoline or something. Yeah.

[A]

So that was a murder, huh?

[B]

It was a murder. So anyway, before that, Kenny's a probie. He's probably about 21 years old, and he was in softball, and he hurt his leg sliding into second base. So we were on inspection. I said, kenny, what happened to your leg? He said, oh, I caught it on softball. I said, oh, that looks fucking terrible. Then we got that run to the fire. So now we're leaving the fire. We're going down the steps. I said, we're all going sick. We're tapping out, right? So I said, we're gonna go with our necks from the ceiling coming down. I said, kenny, take that bandage off and tell him you got burnt on your leg. So we get in the street. The street's busy. It's all fire department cops. There's reporters in the street and everything. And the fire department doctor comes running over to us. And I said, yeah, the ceiling came down on our heads. And he's like, oh. I says, and this guy got burned on his leg. And he looks. He. Kenny's leg up. He looks at the softball injury and he goes, third degree burns. Patch this man right up. So I look at Kenny because he didn't know, you know, it was his first take. So now we. They take us. We're on the wall, like on Malcolm X Boulevard. And they take us to. We said, where's the boss? We don't know where Joe McLaughlin is. So we see a bunch of people like standing around. Somebody's on the ground, they're taking pictures. I go, we go over there and we see the boss. He's on the stretcher, getting his head taped down. And they're all taking pictures of him. We're like, lou, Lou, you okay? You okay? And he looks up, he goes, get the fuck out of my pictures. He says, we're like, he's okay. So they put us in the bus. There he is the best, Joe McLaughlin. CPO Joe, he was, you know, he was in the 17 truck in the Bronx in the war years. So he was like, he was a well rounded fireman, a tough as nails. Wow. Yeah. So he says, get the out of my pictures. So we're laughing, everybody's taking pictures of him. So now they take us to the hospital, you know. So we're in the emergency room in Columbia Prez and the young nurses are patching up on and they're laughing with us, you know. And it's a busy emergency room and Kenny's got his thing on. And so all of a sudden this like middle aged head nurse comes in, you know, good looking woman, probably 40 or so. So she goes to Kenny's leg and she moves the bandage. She makes a face, you know, she's like, when did this happen? And the kitty's sitting there, you know, he's like, oh, we're all looking at him like laughing, you know. And she just like patches it up. She goes, you're lucky. We love you guys. And we're like, oh, we love you too.

[A]

You know?

[B]

Busted. So about a week or two, a couple of weeks later, I come into the firehouse and this guy says, hey, here's one of the superstars. I'm like, what are you talking about? He's like, you made the COVID of a magazine. So I'm like, holy shit, you're kidding. So now I go in the kitchen and everybody's clapping and everything. They already have the picture in a frame, right? But they changed it from report on firefighters injuries. They put report on firefighters faking injuries. So. So they put captions on everybody. So you see the woman with her arms crossed in the bandana, her caption said, I know those motherfuckers are faking. And then there's a cop like walking here and he goes, yeah, Chief, I got those fakers right here. And then this Salty Harlem fireman. He's looking at us and his thing says, you guys disgust me. Look at that sad face. Oh, my God, that ringlet hair.

[A]

I love how you guys already have.

[B]

Your neck braces on.

[A]

Oh, yeah, I kept that in my back pocket.

[B]

Well, we had a prop. Prop closet at home. You know, canes and braces.

[A]

Oh, that's hilarious.

[B]

Yeah, so that's. That was that. We made that the COVID I still have that hanging today.

[A]

Oh, it's just. Just yet to go down. There's a memory lane, man. Just to think about different things and just to hear about the camaraderie of what, like, the lifestyle was like. Bring up the part about the ground glass lung. Is that what it's called? I just wanted to make sure that we. That I mention it on here so that people know about it. Let me see. Ground glass lungs. Refers to a radiological finding on CT scans showing hazy opacities and the lungs often linked to inflammation or fibrosis from inhaling toxic dust at ground zero. Pulverized after the 911 attacks. The dust cloud contained over 2,500 contaminants. 50% construction debris, 40% glass fibers, 9% cellulose. Inhaling the dust led to World Trade center lung injury, which firefight with firefighters losing up to 12 years of lung function. 70% of workers showed respiratory decline.

[B]

Yeah. The longer you worked down there, the worse it was.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because the dust really never settled for you for months.

[A]

Yeah, it's just. It's. It's so crazy to think that it created a new disease.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, probably.

[B]

Well, you know, think about all those offices, all those fluorescent lights, all those computers that just got pulverized to a dust. That's why everybody was covered in. Between that and the cement.

[A]

It's a lot, Tony. Yeah. There's so many more things I want to talk to you about. Maybe we could have you come back sometime, anytime and. And talk about other stuff.

[B]

You know, maybe I'll bring Bobby McGuire with me.

[A]

Dude.

[B]

Very interesting, man.

[A]

Is he.

[B]

Oh, my God.

[A]

No, he seems very interesting, and I want to get a picture up, too. Is this his. Is this Richard Allen?

[B]

Yeah, that's his nephew.

[A]

That's his nephew.

[B]

Right there's.

[A]

Son of Richie Allen. Yeah, that. That's awesome, man. We'd love to.

[B]

Maybe every year they acknowledge him in Rockaway. They have a big thing with the lifeguard and everybody. Yeah, surfer. He was a big surfer.

[A]

Oh, wow.

[B]

Yeah. Oh, yeah, I got plenty more stories there. What was the. Oh, the murder. That was a Good story. You know what?

[A]

I think I want to save it because there's. There's even some basic. There's like, basic questions. Like. Like, is our can like somebody leaving a candle on? Is that like the number one cause of a house fire, maybe?

[B]

House fires, probably. Bad electrical work and a lot of off fires. Arson? Yeah, big time.

[A]

Those space heaters.

[B]

Space heaters? I don't know if you ever heard of the Happy Land Social Club?

[A]

I don't know. It depends on which one you're talking about.

[B]

I was in the Bronx. Yeah, it wasn't that kind of happy.

[A]

There's a lot of different versions, but.

[B]

Sad story, but I think, like, I'm not sure the name, but you could look it up. 87 people died from a gallon of gas in a match. Oh, yeah, it was horrible.

[A]

You had to respond to that.

[B]

I didn't respond, but my friend Sully did. He was detailed out to the Bronx, and they were one of the first trucks there. And when they got in, they were crawling up the stairs and they didn't know what they were crawling over. And when they finally found out it was all bodies. It was like crazy. He had happy lands.

[A]

And so a lot of times you don't know what's going on, or it used to be you didn't know what was going on until you got in there.

[B]

There. No, probably not. You don't know who's who said it. You just. You're just. The adrenaline is running, man. Oh, my God. Your hearts are pumping. And thought you never get it never gets like, old, you know? Oh, I bet how many years, like they would say, we get there and be a top floor fire. Now you got to carry that mask, all your gear, everything. By the time you get to that sixth floor and you got to put a mask on, on, you're sucking air. You're like. Now you got to put this little men in baskets like the man breathing so you only get air. And I'd be in my mask. Like, I'm getting out of this city. I'm going to Queens. I thought Queens would be an easier job for me.

[A]

Westchester, send me to west anywhere.

[B]

You know, I'm getting out of this ghetto. Wow.

[A]

Well, yeah. Tony, thanks so much for your service, man. Yeah, I would love to just have you come back sometime and just be able to. To just go down like, there's some other roads I want to go down and learn more about it.

[B]

Oh, that'd be great.

[A]

And just. But yeah, I think today we just got a really good idea of Just kind of the brotherhood of. Yeah. Just what your. Your journey has been like. Kind of getting involved with fire departmenting. Oh, what did your wife end up getting a job in?

[B]

My wife? Yeah, she was. Worked for a printer and then she worked for a dentist.

[A]

Oh, yeah?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Dentalist. Like dental assistant and kind of.

[B]

No, she was. She ran the whole, like, you know. Yeah. Took the phone call calls.

[A]

Oh, yeah. Keeping everything organized.

[B]

Yeah, she ran it.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah.

[B]

You know, my wife was a hard worker.

[A]

Yeah. That's nice.

[B]

Like I said, she bought her first car when, you know, we were 17, with our own money. Four grand. She bought a Chevette. Red Chevette.

[A]

Oh, dude, if I saw a girl with a car, yeah, I'm going with her.

[B]

Yeah. I was like, wow, this girl's got her own car on her own money. No, mom didn't buy it.

[A]

You know, that's my. I think the number one thing I'm looking for in a spouse is hard working.

[B]

Yeah. Oh.

[A]

Cause life's hard work.

[B]

Yeah. You can't try. You can't do the door lock anymore. Right. Cause now they're all electric. Right. You always used to say, if the girl don't open, gets in the car and don't open your door, she's out. Yeah. So there's all these little tests, but yes. My wife was a hard worker and a great mother.

[A]

Yeah. It's a nice thing, too.

[B]

Oh, yeah. It was funny because she knows. All them years of being in the fighter, I'd come home sometimes and say, oh, my God, I had a fire. Top floor was burning this in the mouth. I'm telling them all this stuff. And then. Sure. Like, did you remember that we have to go to school tomorrow? And I'd be like, I just told you this whole story. It seemed like it went right over your head.

[A]

You're like, blah, blah, blah. We get it. Yeah.

[B]

Every fire you've been to, matches, go spit that black tar in the sink again like you always do.

[A]

Oh, yeah. Behind every good fireman, huh?

[B]

Oh, yeah, it's the wives. I got. Got some pictures of the fire department wives and.

[A]

Well, look, you can show me that. As long as they're appropriate. You can show me they're appropriate.

[B]

Okay. Good girls.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Wild. You know, a lot of them are Bronx girls.

[A]

Well, look, these days. Oh, yeah. Tough women over there.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

That's what you need in the world. You need a good, strong lady. This is your book right here. Tales from the Tiller.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

I didn't even know you had written this.

[B]

Yeah. I wrote this. It just came out in September last. Really? September? Yeah. Great book, dude.

[A]

Congratulations.

[B]

Yeah, A lot of good stories in there. And I got recipes in there. Lot of good meals. Clam Sauce Casino. I think you might like that, bro.

[A]

I'll tell you this. I took a gal out the other night, went to a place, they had clams and white wine sauce.

[B]

That's kind of like. Oh, you would love the Clam Sauce Casino.

[A]

Really?

[B]

Well, you know, Clams Casino, you know, they put the peppers and the onions and a little bacon on it, and then they bake them.

[A]

No, I've never had that.

[B]

Louisiana didn't have clam sauce. Casinos, they might have had it.

[A]

We had macaroni.

[B]

There it is.

[A]

Oh, yeah, that looks good.

[B]

So I make it this guy that got in trouble and was sent to our firehouse, and it was one of his meals, and I took it from him. And we make it with the spaghetti, so we put it over with the peppers, the bacon, the onions, breadcrumb, and the clams.

[A]

Oh, I want that. I'm a clam guy. Have you seen that kid that says that?

[B]

That.

[A]

No, bring up that clam kid. I love this kid. But of course, that a fireman's book would have fires with recipes thrown in.

[B]

Yeah. You know, so it's funny because some of the stories are like, tragedy, and then it goes right into the. The recipe. It's, like, a little weird, but. No, no, that kid that does the Italian words.

[A]

No, no, I'm looking for the kid. Yeah, this kid's hilarious. But the. What did I just ask you for, Nick? Yeah, yeah, I'm a clam guy. Kid. Have you seen this little. No, I'd see this kid. They interviewed him. We'll finish on him.

[B]

All right.

[A]

I'm a guy who only basically likes clams.

[B]

Really? I'm a clam guy. Yeah, I like that kid.

[A]

That's all I do. All these.

[B]

He looks like it.

[A]

Clams are awesome. This is crazy. I hated oysters. Oysters kid's getting a little bit weird. But, yeah, that guy's a clam guy. You know, he's getting a little weird. But I could see you guys just, like, you guys show up at a five fire, but you also brought, like. But you also brought dinner. That has to be preheat. That has to be heated up. So you're, like, taking it up to the fire with you, leaving it on the ledge.

[B]

As soon as you. As soon as you sit down to eat, the tone alarm goes off.

[A]

Oh, every time, huh?

[B]

And what happens Is they. We have a big thing of foil paper and one guy just starts cutting the foil papers off and the other.

[A]

Guys start wrapping it to go.

[B]

Otherwise the cockroaches will walk away. We had so many cockroaches in the firehouse. Oh my God. You can never get rid of them.

[A]

Oh God.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

We'll have to hear about it next time you have a book. Tales from the Tiller. The true stories of her.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

True stories of heroism, heartbreak and humor. The luckiest guy alive in his journey in the fdny. That's awesome.

[B]

Starts with some of my jobs before that and then right through the academy and. Right.

[A]

Who helped you put it together?

[B]

Just me and my son.

[A]

Oh yeah.

[B]

And my wife. Yeah.

[A]

Oh, that's excellent.

[B]

It was all in house. And my brother in law who's in Utah, in Seattle, he worked for Microsoft off and he did all the proofreading. Funny story. Is it, you know, he threw his shoulder out working the mouse doing all my corrections because every, every chapter had like a thousand corrections on it, so.

[A]

Well, that sounds like an insurance scam. But that'll be the next book. You know, people are already telling me.

[B]

When are you going to write another book? I'm like, well, I'm just trying to get this one out now. You know, it's hard. I go on the Instagram. Instagram, that helps.

[A]

And some is always some. You write one book, it's like, when's your next book coming out? That guy, he hadn't even. He can't even read. It's always people that can't read.

[B]

Yeah. What's my next one going to be like? More Tales from the Till. You go, hey, hey.

[A]

If it sells, you never know, man. Well, I've enjoyed your time today, man. Thanks for thinking about just kind of taking us on a little bit of a journey. Yeah, I. We have. We had so many questions for today, so I'd love to be able to get to more to more.

[B]

I can't believe how fast it went.

[A]

Another time.

[B]

I know when you're having fun. Hey, you're the man.

[A]

I'm just glad we're not on fire in here today, man. I really am. Dude.

[B]

Checking this lobby out over here too. It's about a thousand years old over here.

[A]

I know. This place is pretty cool, man.

[B]

Yeah, it's cool.

[A]

Have if you get to go to there's like a bar over there and a restaurant just at each end.

[B]

I went and I looked at them.

[A]

Yeah, it's just cool.

[B]

It's funny because I've been in, like, big hotels in Manhattan before, and the lobbies are, like, tremendous. You know, I mean, there's stores and restaurants, so I thought it was going to be. I never been to the Chelsea.

[A]

Yeah, this is a nice place to come if you just come for a meal or something. Like, they went to the bar last night. It's nice in there, huh?

[B]

And this is the suite.

[A]

Yeah, this is one of the sweets. And it's. But, yeah, it just feels like. I don't know, to me, it just feels like a lot more chill here.

[B]

Yeah, definitely.

[A]

And relaxed. But thank you for your service. I want to say that thank you for coming today and helping to share memories of. Of some of your comrades that have fallen over the years and that have also served. And we appreciate it. And we appreciate your wife and son, Dominic. We'll have to put a picture of all of all of them together at the end of the episode. And. And thanks again, man.

[B]

Thank you.

[A]

Yep. We had a good time.

[B]

Pleasure, man, and an honor.

[A]

Well, I appreciate it, Tony. Thank you very much.

[B]

Thank. Oh.

[A]

But when I reach that ground I'll share this peace of mind I found.

[B]

I can feel it in my bones but it's gonna take.