For Security and Sentimentality  Neighbors Angry over Losses

Looking relaxed and dapper in the late afternoon sun, the entire “4-to-12” shift from the NYPD’s Varick Street stables gently guided their horses into a neat row on North Moore Street, sitting high in the saddle for a group photo and then trotting out individually for the camera.

Posing for pictures is routine for mounted cops. But these were different—lasting memories they would keep for themselves of the stable, the neighborhood, and the camaraderie they had known in Tribeca.

“We’ve been here a long time, and we know a lot of people,” said one mounted officer, who didn't want to give his name. “It’s really a shame."

The official eviction order had yet to be delivered to the men and their 10 horses, but it was all but decided that no other location in the area could

accommodate the WTC Command post (WTCC) in time for the Sept. 11 anniversary. And so the mounted officers were waiting for orders to saddle up and ride out.

“I’ve been living out of a box,” one officer told the Trib.

The move, which the NYPD says is for about 18 months, comes at the vigorous objection of Community Board 1. Board members and residents are concerned that the command post could make the neighborhood a terrorist target, that the added officers will take away parking, and that once the horses are gone, they will never come back—depriving the community of a century-old tradition.

“Things happen, and then we never can change them back,” said board member Diane Lapson. “Now we are being told this is temporary which, I am sorry, I would love to believe. But I don't believe that anymore.”

Board members met with NYPD officials earlier in the month to try to dissuade them. When that failed, the board passed a resolution opposing the plan, which Police Commissioner Ray Kelly’s office defended on the basis of security.

“The department understands and appreciates your concern, but the relocation of Troop A and the temporary establishment of a World Trade Center Command in the vacated facility is necessary to advance the New York City Police Department’s mission to protect this city,” Kelly’s office wrote in a letter to the board.

The Police Department had initially planned to temporarily house 130 officers in the area by the time the Memorial opens in September, Inspector

Michael Yanosik, head of the NYPD’s facilities division, told CB1 at its meeting late last month. However, recent developments, including security issues surrounding the Memorial and revised calculations for staffing, had the police scrambling for a location for 230 officers. Earlier in the month,

CB1 had suggested a number of alternative locations for the center, including the firehouse across the street, a vacant floor in a city-owned building at 49 Chambers Street, and NYPD headquarters at 1 Police Plaza.

“Simply put, locating the WTCC in the Varick Street facility is the most cost-effective and fastest means of creating a critical base of operations,” the letter stated.

Locker areas for the 230 officers assigned to the command center will replace the first-floor horse stalls, and anticipated renovation costs for the department are around $100,000—far less than the estimated $372,000 it would cost to lease a location, the letter stated. The new quarters need to be constructed by mid-August, Yanosik said.

Yanosik acknowledged that the extra personnel would probably cause parking problems, but that officers would be encouraged to take the train.

The frustration many residents expressed seems to be exacerbated by recent news that the 106-year-old firehouse across the street from the stables is slated for possible closure in July, and by a feeling that the stable move was being swept under the rug.

“It seems like we all found out about this too late,” said resident Mick Cantarella, adding that he and other residents would have done more if they’d had more time. “This was kind of done stealthily and quietly.”

Yanosik said informing the community board was important to Kelly, but the press got to the story before Yanosik was able to call.

“They’re saying this is only temporary,” a mounted officer said, chatting with a resident who came over to say goodbye. “They’re going to spend $100,000 for 18 months? That ain’t happening.”

The officer sighed, and added that everyone would find out in a year and a half.

“Hopefully, we’ll be back and you’ll hear the click-clacking of hooves down the street again,” he said.

‘Ghostbusters’ Firehouse to Close?

 

Since the days when New York’s firefighting equipment was pulled by horses, firemen have been rushing out of Ladder 8’s stately red brick building at North Moore and Varick Street. It has been home to firefighters and ghost fighters, and survived being chopped in half in 1914 to make way for the widening of Varick Street. Tragically, it lost one of its own on Sept. 11.

 

But now, neither history nor fame may be enough to save Ladder 8 from the budget ax.

 

The ladder company and its firehouse, made famous as the “Ghostbusters” headquarters, is one of two Lower Manhattan fire companies on a list of 20 scheduled for closure by July 1, in a move that Mayor Michael Bloomberg says will save the city $55 million annually.

 

“It would be a tragedy for the community to lose the firehouse,” said Michael Connolly, co-chair of Community Board 1’s Tribeca

 

 

 

Committee, “for safety reasons, for historic reasons, for sentimental reasons—for the community overall.”

 

Bloomberg says safety will not be compromised. “Every time, people said the world was going to come to an end, and yet we’re a heck of a lot safer today,” he said in a radio address, adding that his administration has closed six firehouses since 2003, and that response times and fire-related deaths are at an all-time low.

 

CB1 has vowed to fight the closures and the Ladder 8 men want them to succeed. “I hope the community gets together and figures out a way to save it,” said one, who asked not to be identified.

 

“This is our second home,” said another.

 

Several firefighters, who asked not to be identified, said safety could be compromised if their house is closed. They said other companies, especially second responders in the event of a larger blaze, would have to travel from farther away, and could be delayed by Holland Tunnel traffic congestion.

 

According to a city analysis, first response time would increase from three minutes and 52 seconds to four minutes and 41 seconds. A second truck would arrive in six minutes, 33 seconds, up from four minutes and 41 seconds.

 

Ladder 8 is among the city’s less active units, according to the analysis, and  surrounding companies would be able to handle the additional workload.

 

The station is known for its role in “Ghostbusters,” and the film’s fans are frequent visitors. A “Save the ‘Ghostbusters’ Fire Station” page on Facebook had more than 2,500 fans by the end of May.

 

More important to locals, the firehouse is a 106-year-old institution. And for preschool students, like those at nearby Tribeca Community School, the loss would be  personal. They walk by the firehouse and police stables as part of their daily routine. On one recent unannounced visit, Ladder 8 firefighters handed the kids fireman helmets and let them take turns spraying water from a small fire extinguisher and sit in the fire truck cab.

 

“It’s what they know as their community,” said Emily Evans, their teacher, “because they see it every day.”