Exclusive | FDNYs ancient firehouses about to collapse, need hundreds of millions in repairs: union

The city is putting its own firefighters at risk unless it pours hundreds of millions of dollars into renovating the FDNY’s century-old firehouses – including 23 with rotting roofs requiring immediate repairs, union bosses claim.As Mayor Adams and the City Council iron out a new budget, the Uniformed Firefighters Association recently compiled a list of 23 buildings in urgent need of a combined $81 million in roof-repair work alone.Many of the firehouses are plagued by cracked and moldy ceilings and walls and other foundation issues, the UFA says.“We might be the greatest Fire Department in the world, but it’s based on pure grit and determination because we are way, way behind the times,” said UFA Vice President Bobby Eustace.  “We’ve been fiscally abused for decades.”Failing to fix the FDNY’s archaic buildings could lead to emergency response times continuing to rise because many firefighters and medics would have to continue working in unsafe conditions or relocate to other buildings, Eustace added.Adams and the City Council struck a tentative agreement Friday on a budget for the new fiscal year beginning Tuesday that includes $2.6 billion for the Fire Department, but it’s still a $1 billion short of what council members had initially demanded for the agency – mostly for infrastructure repairs and replacing outdated equipment.Council Minority Leader Joann Ariola (R-Queens), who chairs the fire and emergency management committee, said she visited many of the buildings on the list and was “shocked by the deplorable condition they were in.”“There is a cruel irony to the fact that the brave men and women we ask to save New Yorkers from buildings that are about to collapse are being forced to work out of dilapidated and unsafe buildings that in some cases are about to collapse,” she said.“The FDNY is facing a facilities crisis that is impacting everything they do, from fire prevention to inspections to training, and we need a significa...