Residents want to reopen  
 FDNY company in LIC 
 U.S.  Rep.  Carolyn  Maloney  addresses  a  crowd  of  Long  Island  City  residents,  
 elected officials and members of the media in a letter to Mayor Bill de Blasio  
 to reinstate engine company 261. 
 BY ALEJANDRA O’CONNELL-DOMENECH 
 U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney joined  
 other lawmakers and Long Island  
 City residents Dec. 18 for a press conference  
 demanding the reinstatement  
 of Engine Company 261 — a Fire Department  
 unit  disbanded  during  the  
 Bloomberg administration. 
 Maloney held the conference outside  
 the headquarters of Ladder Company  
 116. In 2003, then-Mayor Michael  
 Bloomberg closed the fire engine company  
 and  replaced  it with  its  current  
 ladder company during a citywide  
 thinning  of  firehouses  amid  budget  
 cuts. Since then, the cramped neighborhood  
 — now the most densely populated  
 area in the country — must depend  
 on a firehouse half a mile. 
 This  is  because  ladder  companies  
 and engine companies have two different  
 purposes. The job of an engine  
 company is to suppress fires with hoses  
 while ladder companies are utilized  
 more for search and rescue. During an  
 emergency, FDNY ladder company 116  
 must wait to get hoses from neighboring  
 firehouses. 
 “Our fire engine should never have  
 been moved in the first place,” said  
 Maloney. 
 On Dec. 17, Maloney said that sent a  
 letter to Mayor Bill de Blasio and met  
 with him to discuss restoring Engine  
 261 to its full capacity. She referred to  
 the Bloomberg era cut as “a very bad  
 decision.” 
 “I think that the fire that we had recently  
 was a wake up call,” said Maloney, 
  referring to last week’s five-alarm  
 inferno on Queens Boulevard in Sunnyside. 
  “We know in a fire, seconds  
 matter and they can save lives.”  
 According  to  a  2015  community  
 health profile, Astoria and Long  Island  
 City are home  to about 201,400  
 people.  Engine  261  was  the  designated  
 firehouse  for  Long  Island  
 City and Roosevelt Island, which according  
 to  2010  U.S  Census  data,  is  
 home  to  roughly  11,661  people.  The  
 Roosevelt  Island  Bridge  —  the  only  
 vehicular access point to the island  
 —  connects with Vernon Boulevard  
 in Long Island City. 
 With the impeding arrival of Amazon  
 HQ2 and the resulting influx of  
 residents, Maloney and others said the  
 need for additional firehouse and fire  
 workers will only increase. 
 “It was Engine 261 that came when  
 my mom stopped breathing,” said  
 longtime  Long  Island  City  resident  
 Steve Morena. According to Morena,  
 it was the firehouse’s quick response  
 time that saved his mother’s life 25  
 years ago. 
 Not only do engine companies save  
 lives in fires, but they are also usually  
 first on the scene when an ambulance  
 is called. The members are trained to  
 perform life-saving techniques, and  
 have equipment to stabilize a patient  
 until EMS units arrive. 
 Without another engine unit in  
 Long Island City, Morena fears that  
 other families may not be so lucky in  
 the event of an emergency. 
 A City Council public hearing regarding  
 the potential reinstatement of  
 Engine 261 is expected to take place in  
 January 2019. 
 The Mayor’s office has yet to respond  
 to a request for comment. 
  
  
  
  
    
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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