FDNY: Danny Boy
What Really Matters
The dapper commissioner and 53-year member of the Fire Department of New York, Daniel A. Nigro, is set to retire.
I rather like that he has a sense of fashion and style, befitting a player in America’s cultural mecca, able to rub elbows with the hoity toity of Madison Avenue.
But Nigro is also a “fire wars” veteran, having joined FDNY in 1969 when the City was down on its luck and burning up; his “hump” credentials can no longer be come by.
Nigro’s leadership spans the post-9/11 period as FDNY emerged from the Ground Zero apocalypse.
For sheer longevity and breadth of experience it would be hard to rival, much less exceed, Nigro’s time on the field as both player and coach.
He traversed the FDNY from hither to yon, was in the game during the most taxing period and helped to bring it back from its darkest days.
Interviewed by the New York Times recently about his tenure and reflecting on his priorities, he had this to say,
“I moved the department in the direction I wanted to move it: to better respect and integrate E.M.S. and to better diversify the department.”
Nigro’s aim aligns both with commonsense and every tenet of contemporary society as reflected in science, law and cultural norms.
- Create a fire and rescue organization which reflects the community it serves,
- Bind fire and EMS delivery ever tighter together for public welfare, effectiveness and efficiency.
Oh, Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling
From glen to glen, and down the mountain side.
The summer’s gone, and all the roses falling,
It’s you, It’s you must go and I must bide.
