Broadcast only once, 1970's poor quality tape of the BBC show, The Bronx is Burning. Engine 82 Ladder 31 South Bronx with Dennis Smith and the men featured in the book Report from Engine Company 82. BBC Man Alive productions 1972. Part 1
I meet eddie m in 1977durring the blackout was the nicest person the last time I saw him was in 2000 I was sad to read he passed rip eddie you will never be forgotten by me and my family
i couldnt believe my ears when they said people would cut holes in the floor so firemen woulf fall through and rig up piano wire, or fill water ballons with gasoline in fires...that is just a sick twisted thing to do
RIP Dennis Smith…report from Engine Company 82 was a great read and I had Dennis autograph my copy of it when I met him when my ship was in dry dock in the Brooklyn Navy Yard many years ago I met Arbuckle Mcfatty too😀
Well currently there are 6 on a truck and 5or 6 on an engine... back then who knows... between budget cuts and lay offs and they used to ride on the tail board too.
Family friend was a fireman and toward the end the lieutenant for ladder 31 from 1969 or 1968 to 1984, he’s not doing too well so I’m gonna try and get his story before anything with him gets worse
It's freakin amazing.These guys bust their asses and put their lives on the line daily and yet they get shit pay,shit hours and on top of that they have to pay out of their own pockets for food and drinks.I would think that would be a perk food.But when they have budget issues who is the first to get laid off.The Fireman.Also they close houses and transfer calls blocks away but yet response time is better.Can't figure that one out.
Had the opportunity to meet Dennis Smith. The firefighter, and author of Report from Engine 82 back then. Too bad the quality of this film is as bad as it is. This was all prior to the IAFF and Congress finally recognizing the dangers of Firefighting as other than men sitting around, waiting for a fire.
How fortunate for the FDNY, the City of N.Y. and U.S.A, that in the midst of this madness and despair, a journalist firefighter would emerge to chronicle this time for posterity. Watching this takes me back to those seemingly endless dark and overcast days of the 70's when hopelessness was rampant and urban decay the accepted norm. A lot has been written on the War Years, but you had to live it and be there to understand it. Thank You Denis Smith to Brian Sullivan for posting.
This is epic. I wouldn't even be a firefighter, more or less one in NYC, if it wasn't for me reading Dennis Smith's book, which I read while I was in high-school in 1987, two years later I flew out to NYC from my home city of St. Paul,MN and took the test.
The image stabilization filter is the WORST thing that ever happened to RU-vid! This was probably a VHS or Betamax copy of a 16MM TV print but watching software try to steady things like fire trucks moving or the title over a moving background is so distracting! Otherwise great film and thank you for uploading.
It was an 8mm film shot off the TV, then played on those reel to reel projectors on a white wall. Then years later that filmed by a VHS camera, which eventually we able to be digitized. I've tried for years to get a copy from the BBC/Man alive without success. It only aired once.
+steve1978ger I am pretty sure they were. I think the owners of these buildings often had them torched to collect the insurance money since they couldn't get any tenants in them. But it seems like NYC could have told these building owners to clean their properties up or they would be forfeited to the city.
