Second Lives 25

I took the photo below in spring 2012 on the event of 343‘s arrival in the sixth boro. It shows (from far to near) FDNY’s John D. McKean, Kevin C. Kane, and Firefighter. None of these vessels is currently owned by FDNY. McKean has gone upriver to be converted into a museum, Kane has gone to Wisconsin to become a workboat, and so far as I know, our whole upriver alliance of traffic watchers–myself included– missed her passage to Troy and then the Erie Canal, even though I traveled on the Erie twice this past November. Did anyone catch photos of Kane and not post them, I wonder?

Firefighter has gone to Greenport on the North Fork to live on as a museum.

The next four photos were taken by Fireboat Firefighter Museum volunteers.

I saw Firefighter in Greenport on December 31, 2016, but as of today, she’s at Goodison’s Shipyard in Rhode Island,

where haul out and

hull inspection and repair and

repainting. This work was made possible by grants from the National Parks Service National Maritime Heritage program, as well as the NY State Office of Historic Preservation, and our supporters and benefactors who provided matching donations to allow us to access the grant funds. We’re still taking donations for shipyard work through our donation page on our website, and presently have a benefactor willing to provide a 100% match on any donations up to $50K received for additional yard work.

According to Mike Hibbard, VP and vessel historian at Fireboat Fire Fighter Museum, Firefighter will emerge from the shipyard “no longer be sporting the red coat of paint applied to the FDNY fleet in the 1960’s. We’re taking her back to her 1938 appearance – which means she’ll have a black hull, white topside house, black decks and a buff stack. All the monitors, bitts and nameboards will also be returned to their original polished brass appearance.”

Click here for photos I took of Firefighter in the KVK, when she still worked for FDNY. The next three photos come from the Goodison Shipyard FB page.