City Says Good-Bye to Another Firefighter

Firefighters and elected officials were at St. Patrick's Cathedral yesterday for the second funeral of a firefighter killed while fighting last Saturday's Deutsche Bank building fire. Twenty-three FDNY veteran Robert Beddia was remembered by his sister, who eulogized, "You are my friend, you are my brother, you are my hero... Remember those days of playing chess, Risk and Monopoly? Remember how many of my high school friends had secret crushes on you? Remember when you walked me down the aisle? Remember when you danced with me on my wedding day?"

As the city and state agencies face many tough questions about how the dismantling and inspection of the WTC-dust contaminated Deutsche Bank building was handled, officials promised answers. Fire Commissioner, whose resignation has been demanded by the Post, said, "We will continue to conduct an aggressive, comprehensive investigation and will follow it wherever it takes us."

Still, in the hindsight is 20/20 vein, the complicated dismantling project seemed doomed. An employee of fired-subcontractor John Galt told the Post, "Whenever an inspector would arrive, you could hear them on the radio saying, 'There is a cat in the building. There is a cat in the building.' It was like a game of cat and mouse. Then we would have to clean up the area where we weren't supposed to be working. Whenever the inspectors would leave, we would just operate like we used to." Further, the NY Times reports that the City's Department of Investigation "strongly cautioned Lower Manhattan development officials against using" John Galt for the job, but the LMDC decided to anyway.

On Thursday, two firefighters inspecting the Deutsche Bank site were injured when a John Galt worker dropped a 300-pound piece of equipment. One firefighter was released after a day in the hospital while the other will remain for many more days - he needed 100 stitches to close up the wounds he suffered. An angry FDNY official said of the subcontractor, "We're doing escort duty there. We're baby-sitting a construction company that's run by the Three Stooges."

Beddia was buried at Moravian Cemetery in Staten Island, where slain police officer Russell Timoshenko is buried. The officer's parents had attended Beddia's wake "in a show of solidarity." Beddia's Engine 24, Ladder 5 colleague Joseph Graffagnino who died during the same blaze was buried on Thursday.

Photograph of Beddia's funeral by ~Raymond on Flickr

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Jen Chung in News on August 25, 2007 11:42 AM

Comments [rss]

Reflect

Watch all you want. What are you gonna do arrest me? Internet = free speach ideas and perspectives. If you dont like it

guest

whatever, DH.

whatever. I'm watching you. you're not a nice person.

Reflect

The goal is to save people with the intention of helping your fellow man. Not to get paid not to brag about it. Real heros seek no adoration from people. Or join because they are followers. Real heros knew they wanted to be in it simply to help. Americans are success crazy.. Thats why you have people in the army and police force in it to say I have an important carreer. Then when there finised blowing some guys brains out because the law told them to. They realize hey this isint a carrer after all. These are real people. Wow who woulda thought. Humanitiy is not a carrer its a spritual life style.

Dave Hogarty

[8] Identifying cruel and insensitive behavior, i.e. mocking a sister's grief as she eulogizes her brother, makes me a conservative? Way to surrender the high ground. Tolerance of stupidity while identifying it as such is liberalism. Silent accedance to stupidity is a road to ruin for true liberals.

angry_pickle

Or because they want to get paid and have something to gloat to the girls about?

Nice. Do you even work? And if you do, do you work for free? I didn't think so. And if you don't love your job enough to work for free, maybe you should quit and find one where you would work for free. Ok?

Saving/ helping people shouldnt be done out of merrit or sucess.

This makes absolutely no sense. The goal is to save people with the intention that you will succeed. And why save people? Because in this society, saving people has high merit.

guest

wow, the passive aggressive DH is back.

whatever. shoot them all, let God sort them out,

if you're not with us, you're against us.

I never knew Gothamist hired new people with a conservative slant.

I miss Jake.

Reflect

The comments dont have to be. They could be. Im Just looking at what comes out of the simple minded americans mouths. And They would drag me out of my building because its there job. Did they join because they wanted to do that? Or because they want to get paid and have something to gloat to the girls about? Its like people that join the army.. Saving/ helping people shouldnt be done out of merrit or sucess. And thats all im trying to bring to light here. You should just be doing it. Period.

Dave Hogarty

Even after reading your comments Reflect, those "overpaid" and "underworked" firefighters would still drag your sorry ass out of a burning building. Whether it would be worth the personal risk to them in doing so is highly debatable.

guest

Why does his sister's eulogy have to be about "deep spritual (sic) truths"? Have you ever lost a loved one? In my personal experiences, it's often the day to day exchanges and moments that can otherwise be taken for granted that I've missed the most. Not ancient wisdom, but loss and sadness.

Jen Chung

#3 - Beddia's sister was remembering the brother the way she knew him. I was moved by her eulogy - mentioning the small moments adds this other dimension beyond firefighter.

guest

Jesus, Reflect, show a little respect. A man has died in the line of duty. what is your problem?

Yeah, paramedics and doctors do great work, but they generally do not place themselves in physical harm to do their life saving activities. How many of them enter burning buildings??

Beddia's MOURNING sister is sharing her personal anecdotes about her brother. Maybe you want to ease up on the judgments. They obviously don't have other immediate family members around and she has stepped up to the plate to memorialize her brother. And you are going to nit pick her choice of words? Nice.

Reflect

secret crushes? The games of Risk And Monopoly. Such deep spritual universal truths. This culture is so rooted in anchient wisdom.

Reflect

Firefighters are overpaid underworked. Most of them join for bragging rights to the girls. Others so they can jackoff to images of there own bravado. Paramedics save lives, doctors save lives, but you dont see them glorifing themselves. Get over yourselfs firefighters!