Gotham Gazette

The Place for New York Policy and politics

FDNY

FDNY

  • Police Have Removed Over 1,300 'Emotionally Disturbed People’ from Transit in 2022; Where Did They Go?

    Mayor Adams on the subway (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography office)


    In the first 11 months of the year, the NYPD removed 1,300 people suffering symptoms of mental illness from the city's transit system, often against their will. The city is unable or unwilling to say what happened to them next.

    "Dealing with people who have mental health illnesses must be a focus of any plan moving forward," Mayor Eric Adams said at an October 22 announcement of a new subway safety campaign with Governor Kathy Hochul, dubbed Cops,

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  • Mayor Adams Yet to Name a Fire Commissioner

    Acting FDNY Commissioner Kavanagh with Mayor Adams (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)


    Over nine months into his tenure, Mayor Eric Adams has yet to appoint a permanent commissioner for the New York City Fire Department, leaving Acting Commissioner Laura Kavanagh in the high-profile role dealing with some of the city’s most pressing emergencies and emergency services. 

    It is highly unusual for a mayor to take this long to name a commissioner for any city agency, much less a uniformed department with an established chain

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  • Enough Talk, Time to Give FDNY EMS Their Due

    enough talk op

    Mayor de Blasio visits with EMS (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)


    The coronavirus pandemic has compelled us to take stock of the racial and socioeconomic inequities that have burdened our city’s more than 5 million New Yorkers of color for generations. These obstacles to their upward mobility exist not only in health care, education, and housing but within our own municipal workforce.

    The most glaring among them happens to also be one of particularly cruel irony given COVID-19’s onslaught on the city’s 9-1-1 system and related services: the unequal pay

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  • Sirens and Suffering: Rethinking the Soundtrack of the Coronavirus Crisis

    nys gov ac james com

    Sirens and the city (photo: Benjamin Kanter/Mayoral Photo Office)


    A beautiful, clear April evening in Manhattan. No traffic, which is down 84% overall in the city, says StreetLight. Out of nowhere a screeching siren pierces the air. Many minutes later an ambulance appears—SeniorCare—blaring a siren that measures 124 decibels, higher than a jet takeoff or a thunderclap, the loudest natural sound on earth. The few people on the street cover their ears in pain as

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  • Racing to the Scene of the Wrong Emergency

    maybdb greet

    (photo: Demetrius Freeman/Mayoral Photography Office)


    The New York Times recently published a two-column editorial advocating that the city’s emergency medical technicians (EMTs) and paramedics be paid close to or as much as its firefighters. Far easier for the Times to virtue-posture by supporting more pay for hard-working, largely of color EMTs than to address how the increased expense should be funded or how to remedy the astonishing imbalance in resources

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  • Killing of FDNY EMT Spotlights Issues for Unsung Profession

    ;fdny ambulance and hats

    (photos: @FDNY)


    Of the city’s various uniformed workers, some dominate media attention and public awareness. Along with the historical presence and mythology of firefighters and police officers, corrections officers have been in the news recently, mostly for the wrong reasons, while New Yorkers rely on sanitation workers for a basic essential of city life.

    Public soul-searching over questions about broken windows policing and the future of the Riker’s Island jail also have many New Yorkers thinking about

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  • The Week That Was in New York Politics, Dec 7-11

    week in review bus readers

    photo: Stanley Kubrick via Museum of the City of New York


    Gotham Gazette's Week in Review, Friday 

    PHOTO OF THE WEEK: Mayor de Blasio signs legislation creating the city's new Department of Veterans' Services, via Joe Bello, @NYMetroVets

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  • The Week Ahead in New York Politics, November 23

    New York City Hall

    New York City Hall


    What to watch for this week in New York politics:

    Thanksgiving week will see just a few days of political activity, but the beginning of the week is looking busy. Highlights include closing arguments in Sheldon Silver's corruption trial; the continuation of Dean Skelos' corruption trial; the release of the Public Advocate's "worst landlord list"; several City Council hearings and a full-body "Stated Meeting"; two public meetings of the city's ...

  • The Week Ahead in New York Politics, August 17

    New York City Hall

    New York City Hall


    What to watch for this week in New York politics:

    This week may be one to really focus on the fact that New York's two baseball teams are both in first place. With the Mets and Yankees atop their respective divisions, there's a lot of buzz in the air about Big Apple postseason baseball. It could be a fairly quiet week in New York politics - though this is never something the smart money is on. But, the City Council has no public hearings on the calendar this week

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  • The Week That Was in New York Politics, August 3-7

    week in review bus readers

    photo: Stanley Kubrick via Museum of the City of New York


    Gotham Gazette's Week in Review, Friday August 7

    PHOTOS OF THE WEEK: Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams and others carry a symbolic casket as part of an anti-violence campaign, via Ross Barkan; Mayor Bill de Blasio

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  • How We Got Here: New Law Aims to Increase Transparency and Diversity at the FDNY

    fdny medal day

    2015 FDNY Medal Day at City Hall (photo: @FDNY)


    "Diversity is strength – and the world's greatest fire department will grow even stronger when it more closely resembles the city it serves." -Mayor Bill de Blasio, June 2, 2015

    On June 2, 2015 Mayor Bill de Blasio signed into law Intro. 0579-A, allowing for greater transparency into the New York City Fire Department application and hiring processes by requiring that an annual report be made with regard to the racial and gender makeup of applicants. The bill,

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  • City Includes $1 Billion for Overtime in 2016 Budget

    bdb budget 

    Mayor de Blasio presenting his preliminary budget (photo: @NYCMayorsOffice)


    Some of the most prominent city agencies will again spend considerable portions of their budgets on employee overtime in fiscal year 2016, set to begin July 1, 2015. The allocation of $1 billion toward personnel overtime raises questions around optimal staffing levels and balancing cold fiscal calculation with whether understaffing might impact performance and well-being of employees.

    City officials argue that staffing levels are mostly

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  • Memories of a Fatal Fire Inspire Generations of Reformers

    mmv

    Speaker Mark-Viverito at the fire commemoration (photo: @IvanLS24)


    New Yorkers Gather to Honor the Triangle Factory Dead and Rally for a Living Wage

    Dozens of cut-outs of cloth shirtwaists fluttered in the air on Wednesday outside the gray brick building near Washington Square Park. Some of the blouses were patterned, others were adorned with chantilly lace and intricate embroidery. All were affixed to wooden poles and branded with the name and age of a victim of the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, which occurred

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