Section IV: Chapters Thirteen - Sixteen

Chapters Thirteen - Sixteen 

P.218

Flood claims O’Hagan “went to great lengths to keep his fingerprints off the 1972 closings”. These cuts properly were announced by the Mayor and Commissioner, though it’s hard to imagine how O’Hagan wouldn’t be identified with the closings since he was the Chief, and implementer of those actions.

P. 218-219

Citing an unnamed retired chief, Flood asserts that O’Hagan changed when he became commissioner, talking less about “efficiency” and “modernization” and more about “power and “politics, things like that. His vocabulary was different.” Flood states that O’Hagan missed four of the first five funerals following his appointment as commissioner. He also quotes an unnamed aide as saying O’Hagan no longer wore a uniform but switched to a suit. Said the aide, “The politicians didn’t see uniformed guys as professionals, so he didn’t wear the uniform.” O’Hagan is quoted as saying, “They look down on you in the uniform.”

Following his appointment as Commissioner, O’Hagan placed the following in the Department’s Daily Order for October 11, 1973: “Today I have assumed the duties of the Fire Commissioner with a full awareness of the responsibilities that this position involves. The challenges facing our department are increasing in scope, magnitude and number. In facing these challenges I am encouraged in the knowledge that we have a department of dedicated men who have demonstrated a long tradition of devoted service. They are our greatest resource. I can assure you that in the conduct of my office I will continue to recognize this fact and endeavor to act in behalf of their best interests and the best interests of the people of the City of New York whom we are sworn to protect. In this effort I will need your continued support and assistance, which from past experience, I am confident will be forthcoming.” That doesn’t sound like a guy who changed.

For 14 years O’Hagan tended to injured firefighters and the families of firefighters who had lost their lives in the line of duty - usually out of the limelight and for long after the searing event had occurred.

As for the uniform, beginning in 1964 when dealing with civilians, O’Hagan didn’t wear a uniform. He reasoned he didn’t need it to assert his authority, some people looked down on the uniformed and others were unhelpfully intimidated by it. That said, included on this site are a few of the nine years’ worth of photos of O’Hagan wearing his chief’s uniform. Commissioners don’t wear uniforms.

P. 219

Flood states that O’Hagan, “still smarting from the TCU closings”, committed some unspecified “serious miscalculations” during the 1973 contract talks and thereby instigated the strike. He further states that following the strike, O’Hagan retaliated by closing two more second sections, including the one to which the union president who called the strike was assigned.

In truth, the only person responsible for the strike was the union president who called it knowing a strike had not been voted. Flood understates the impact the strike had on the department rank and file and upon the city as a whole. As noted above, the public supported O’Hagan’s post-strike transfers and he took public criticism when he declined to commence departmental charges against the firefighters. Only the president, who falsified the vote, was charged with a crime. Firefighters who struck were fined 2 days’ pay - the minimum penalty under the Taylor Law.

To say O’Hagan was “still smarting from the TCU closings” is silly. The TCUs had closed over a one year period ending in November 1972 - a full year before the strike.

P. 219 - 220 - Flood writes, “To that point, the RAND cuts had been a remarkably effective tool for O’Hagan.... they helped O’Hagan cut budgets, curry enough favor with Mayor Lindsay to pass Local Law 5 and become commissioner .... With the union on its heels and his job as commissioner secure, O’Hagan was ready to stop the fire company closings. Because their recommendations were so neatly aligned with his own interests, O’Hagan had shown more faith in the RAND models than perhaps he should have, but he was too savvy a fireman to think he could continue closing ghetto fire companies indefinitely while the neighborhoods around them burned .... Along with cutting more than a dozen companies and a 20 percent reduction in manpower thanks to the hiring freeze that had been in effect since 1971, the toll for years of shoddy upkeep on rigs, fire hydrants, and other equipment was finally coming due.”

Flood offers no clue about the time frame for this section. It appears to be 1973- 1974, though only one unit closed between early 1973 and late 1974 and there was no 20% reduction in manpower until 1975. Regarding Flood’s asserted budget cuts, even with all the fiscal restraints imposed since 1971 when Mayor Lindsay imposed a hiring freeze, the Fire Department’s budget increased annually going from $307M in 1971 to $395M in 1976. When Mayor Lindsay ended that hiring freeze in October 1972, the Fire Department had lost 3% of its uniformed force through attrition - some 429 men. Despite the 20% reduction in manpower between 1973 and 1976, during the worst of the fiscal crisis, the department lost only 7% of its company strength due to the adaptive response program, manning per company and company assignment changes. As stated above, from 1965 through 1977, cumulatively 23 companies were opened and 28 were disbanded, an overall loss of 5 units. Other discussions at P. 14 address the upkeep and hydrant issues Flood raises. What Flood means by “coming due” is unclear.

P. 221 - In the next few pages, Flood criticizes O’Hagan and RAND in general for the condition of the alarm system and specifically for the deployment of voice alarm boxes. Regarding the latter, he asserts that (1) the monies expended could have been better spent at a time when budgets were strained; (2) the boxes were defective when installed; and, (3) the boxes constituted an attractive nuisance that encouraged false alarms. Flood also notes that due to the high level of false alarms “dispatchers began ignoring ‘no voice contact’ alarms altogether. But this led to many legitimate fires’ being missed or ignored, including one fatal fire when a deaf and mute child in East Harlem was unable to communicate through the voice box and no fire crews were sent.”

This section illustrates an area where Flood could have offered a sophisticated, informed analysis of a complex infrastructure problem. The manual alarm dispatch system was antiquated and strained well beyond its capacity. It consisted of paper index cards for each alarm box inscribed with rules that dispatchers pulled when directing units to respond to an alarm. As the annual number of calls dramatically increased, eventually reaching more than 450,000 in the mid-1970s, the manual system could no longer keep up and the time between calling in the alarm and sending the unit increased. In additional to the operational demands on the system, as documented in an article Flood cites, its infrastructure was outdated. Many boxes were unreliable due to grounding issues and the age of the wiring - 50 years. See New York Times, 12.20.1974. P. 302n.

Each Annual Report has a separate category for communications and communication expenditures. In 1969 alone, the creation of new units and redeployment of others required no fewer than 13,600 changes in the dispatcher system. See 1969 Annual Report, p.10. Equally daunting was the size of the alarm system. In 1974, there were 14,795 street boxes and 1,432 boxes in hospitals, schools etc. Another 1,433 new voice alarms were installed next to the old manual boxes. In addition, the system was run on 30,507 miles of above- and below- ground conductor wire and 13,363 miles of above and below- ground circuit mileage. Cable mileage accounted for another 1,964 miles. See Annual Report, 1972, P.30.

A computer system that incorporated the rules more accurately and effectively assisted the dispatchers in handling the calls. Replacement of the system was a high - and expensive - priority in the 1960s through 1970s. RAND’s analysis of the dispatcher system enabled economies of time to be developed sooner than the implementation of a new system would require. Implementation of alarm boxes also enabled a dispatcher to speak with the person calling in the alarm. Based upon that information the dispatcher could assess the type of unit response, thereby reducing the strain on units and facilitating their response to actual fires.

As the Times article recounted, though installation of the new voice system was not smooth, there was no choice but to develop a new technology. Neither the mechanical failure of the new boxes nor the increase in false alarms was foreseen. As the article pointed out, the manufacturer replaced the equipment and alternatives were developed to address the false alarms. A program in the South Bronx was implemented whereby an unmarked police car with two officers and a fire marshal responded to “no voice” alarms. Of 196 responses, 190 were false alarms and 24 people were arrested. The civilian deaths attributed to the problems with alarm boxes were tragic; O’Hagan never said otherwise.

It’s an interesting point of information that the elimination of all street alarm boxes was publicly discussed at that time. Using Los Angeles as the example, Clark Whelton wrote an article in the Village Voice in 1976 advocating that the boxes could be eliminated with no adverse effect. It’s a topic still debated today.

P. 222 - 223 - Here, Flood appears to pick up the thread of his “coming due” thought - but maybe not. Flood writes, “In New York’s poorer quarters, fires were morphing from a serious problem to a defining element of life. ... Something needed to be done, and, given the adequate time, incentives, and money, there was no one more qualified to handle the problem than John O’Hagan. But that was not to be the fate of the commissioner, or the poor neighborhoods of New York.

“To Beame and the county Democratic organizations, O’Hagan was an ideal commissioner: a respected, competent administrator who had paid his political dues, could be counted on for a favor, and knew how to play the game of municipal politics. What’s more, he was ambitious.....As a chief, O’Hagan had wanted to be commissioner and had proven himself amenable to political influence, and as commissioner he was still short of his goals. He wanted to see his reforms enacted across the bureaucracy, and to attain the kind of power necessary to do that, he needed to move on from the fire service. O’Hagan would have to start relatively low on the totem pole (deputy mayor in charge of the civil service, city council), but, to make even that first step, Beame and the machine knew he needed their support and thus could be counted on to remain loyal, to go along to get along. Facing a growing budget gap in his first year in office in 1974, Beame called on his fire commissioner for help....O’Hagan was forced into a role he’d always disdained, a political commissioner trying to prevent cuts and still maintain his power within the machine.”

This section is fabricated. There’s not a hint of fact to support it and not a single citation in the notes. O’Hagan declined to run for Congress and discouraged discussions about appointment as a deputy mayor. He intended to retire at the end of 1977 and laid the plans to open a consulting business. Mayors Lindsay, Beame and Koch knew these things. And, had Flood asked, he would have known too.

What Flood means by “...given the adequate time, incentives, and money, there was no one more qualified to handle the problem than John O’Hagan” is impossible to discern.

P. 224 - As he has throughout the book, P. 179, 217, and now in the context of the 1974 company closings and relocations, Flood argues that the effect of the company closings should be examined according to the changes in the comparative rankings of the busiest units. As explained above, the comparative rankings list is useless as a measure of the work performed by a company.

P. 225 - Flood writes about the 1972 and 1974 law suits the unions brought against the Fire Department, the Mayor, and, in the case of the 1974 suit, Governor Malcolm Wilson, “As they had with the 1972 cuts, the unions sued, saying they were racially targeted. And just as with the 1972 suit, testimony and reports from O’Hagan and RAND won the day.”

Flood mis-describes the law suits, of which there were several in state and federal court. The suits that garnered most attention were the federal suits: Maye v. Lindsay, 352 F. Supp. 1120 (S.D.N.Y. 1972) (Docket No.72 civ 4912) and Towns v. Beame, 386 F. Supp. 470 (S.D.N.Y. 1974) (Docket No.74 civ 5411). In each case the judge denied the plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction that would immediately halt the closings and relocations while the plaintiffs proved their claim that the City’s action was racially motivated. However, those denials did not mean the cases were over. Each judge ruled that the suit would continue so that plaintiffs could prove their claim and ultimately win a permanent block of the closings and relocations. In each case the plaintiffs pursued the case for a few months - in Maye, until June 1973 and in Towns until February 1975. After those respective periods, the cases lay dormant for many months until the plaintiffs filed a stipulation - i.e., an agreement between the plaintiffs and defendants - effectively withdrawing the case. In Maye, a stipulation of dismissal was filed in April 1974 and the case was dismissed May 21, 1974, 18 months after it had been commenced.. In Towns, a stipulation discontinuing the case was filed with the Court on December 3, 1976, two years after the suit had been commenced.

P. 228 - Flood states, in recounting the Lindsay administration’s budget management, that “... O’Hagan and the compliant fire department ... largely acceded to Lindsay’s budget cut requests.”

O’Hagan, as the Chief, did not directly report to Mayor Lindsay. The chain of command was through the Fire Commissioner; moreover, agencies don’t have the option to not follow the direction of the Mayor and the Mayor’s budget office - as most agencies learned during the 1970s.

P. 241 - Flood asserts that city policymakers purposefully pursued a “shrinkage policy” in poor neighborhoods. In support of the argument he cites Felix Rohatyn as “float[ing] a similar plan to bulldoze and ‘blacktop’ most of the South Bronx. In this, he puts his own words into Rohatyn’s mouth.

The New York Times article Flood cites Rohatyn, in his role as chair of Big MAC, says, “Take a 30-block area, clear it, blacktop it, and develop an industrial park with the whole package of tax, employment, financing incentives already in place.” The article goes on to say that Rohatyn cited this as “only one of a number of unusual ideas that, by force of the city’s desperate situation, he and his aides would study. Rohatyn also said he planned to invite 95 corporate heads of companies still in NY to suggest “what incentive and reforms are needed to improve the city’s business climate.”

P. 243 - Flood claims that O’Hagan “boasted” he could run the department with 7,500 men. Despite recounting this “boast”at least twice, Flood includes no citation for O’Hagan’s statement, nor does he provide the context in which it was made. P. 192. Tom Henderson says a fellow Bronx politician once told him O’Hagan made a statement to that effect at a city council meeting. Henderson does not know what the meeting was about, the context of the statement or the year in which it allegedly took place.

In truth, Flood himself cites an article in which O’Hagan stated the optimal number for him to run the department was between 11,000 and 11,500 men. New York Times, 6.16.77. P. 305n.

P. 244 - Flood writes, “But O’Hagan had options besides just going along quietly with the cuts, or resigning in protest to be replaced by a political flunky; he had the soft power of his own impeccable reputation and years of careful alliance-building within the bureaucracy and the city’s Democratic clubs. Corruption, kickbacks, and payola were rife in Beame’s clubhouse- dominated administration. Of the tens of thousands of city employees laid off, scores of clubhouse hacks were rehired under one guise or another. Some money could always be found when powerful people needed it, but O’Hagan never fully expended his political capital to claw back whatever funds he could for his department.”

In truth, Flood himself states that in 1974 O’Hagan persuaded Beame to reduce the cuts from $26.9M to $8.3M and he quotes O’Hagan as telling the press he couldn’t guarantee that the cuts wouldn’t result in a loss of life. P. 224 -225. Newspaper accounts further describe O’Hagan’s efforts to minimize his department’s losses. After Mayor Beame had publicly announced that twelve Fire Department companies would be cut, O’Hagan persuaded him to accept the closing of only eight companies in exchange for cost reductions in auxiliary units, including disbanding two small fireboats and several units that performed air tank refills, departmental property and apparatus inspections and, mobile communications. Also eliminated was a program whereby a man from a slow company was reassigned to a busy company. See New York Times, 11.28.1974.

Over the years, O’Hagan was successful in reducing the scope of reductions imposed upon the Fire Department, especially in comparison with the police department - the measure, according to the New York Times article, that union president Vizzini preferred. Consistently, the reductions were not so deep and recovery was faster than in many other agencies, including the police department, as noted below in the discussion of the 1975 crisis.

Here again, Flood’s point is hard to discern, except for its negative implications. Is he saying O’Hagan was, or was not, steeped in club politics? Is Flood claiming O’Hagan participated in political corruption, or that he should have, but didn’t?

Following the July 1975 cuts, O’Hagan worked to rehire the laid-off firefighters. In December 1975, O’Hagan rehired 150 of those laid off by securing a HUD federal grant. Another 101 followed in March 1976, with monies secured from another HUD grant. Fire Bell Club News Notes, March 1976, p. 2. On June 22, 1976 The Daily News reported, “The city is recalling 223 more of the firemen laid off last year, using money from two federal grants. [The] president of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association actually was incensed that firemen were being rehired but not police officers ... Municipal officials properly exercise their management prerogative to... beef up a badly undermanned Fire Department .... The decision also was an acknowledgment of the excellent job Fire Commissioner John O’Hagan has done in coping with the problems created by fiscal austerity...” By December 24, 1976, O’Hagan had rehired all but 83 of those who had been laid off. Fire Bell Club News Notes, January 1977, Vol. 9, No. 1, p.1.

P. 244 - Flood writes, “O’Hagan knew the authority the RAND models held in the minds of the uninitiated. He also knew that the models were easily manipulated, and had fudged the data himself to avoid cuts in politically powerful neighborhoods ... Initially there were twenty-six companies closed, but thirteen of the more politically powerful ones were reopened within a week when some spare change was found under the municipal couch cushions, and more were reopened a few years later, after neighborhood protests and persistent hectoring from influential local politicians .... But with ..... some of the most powerful people in government convinced that the ghettos should be allowed, even encouraged, to die, closed companies in places like Bedford-Stuyvesant, the South Bronx and Harlem weren’t coming back.”

Flood’s assertion that O’Hagan “fudged” the RAND results and his claim that the companies closed in July 1975 were closed and reopened according to the relative political clout of the residents’ in each area are both unfounded. The allegation that O’Hagan “fudged” RAND results is addressed at p. 40. The allegation about relative political influence determining closings is addressed above.

In addition, on July 2, 1975, at the start of a new FY and the height of the fiscal crisis, 1,600 firefighters were laid off and 21 companies were closed. Two days later state money arrived and 14 companies were reopened. Two weeks later the remaining 7 companies reopened. In all, 700 firefighters were rehired. The distribution of the affected companies was: Bronx 1, Brooklyn 6, Manhattan 8, Queens 4, and Staten Island 2. The addresses of these units are on the list and ranged from the affluent Upper East Side in Manhattan to poor neighborhoods in Brooklyn, and Far Rockaway in Queens. Only one unit in the Bronx was affected.

In November 1975, 7 companies were closed: Bronx 0, Brooklyn 2, Manhattan 2, Queens 2, Staten Island 1. The addresses of these companies, places where the impact of closing would be least, are included in the list of fire units that comprises the Appendix and is discussed above.

P. 250 - Flood states that as the mayoralty transitioned from Beame to Koch, O’Hagan was investigated for having a charity foundation pay his tuition for MBA classes and sending assistants to take me to school in Massachusetts. Though he cites an article in which the allegations were reported, Flood neither mentions nor cites the article published three weeks later that reported O’Hagan was cleared of a conflict regarding the foundation and forfeited vacation days for the trips to Massachusetts. P. 308n. See New York Times, 11.23.1977, 12.16.1977.

P. 252 - Flood concludes the book with a reprise of the 1978 Waldbaum’s fire, which he describes as “the last great fire of the War Years.” A tragic fire it was for sure, but it did not signify the end of the war years. False alarms exceeded workers every year until 1997. Workers didn’t fall below 100,000 until1983 - it was the first year since 1967. Civilian deaths per year didn’t fall below 200 until 1991. Numbers aside, firefighters from that time say the war years began in 1968 with the assassination of Martin Luther King and ended in 1977 with the city-wide blackout.