by Hilary Potkewitz
With City Island, a movie about their small community starring actors Andy Garcia and Alan Arkin, now in theaters, residents of the little Bronx island could easily be focusing their energy on preparing for a bumper crop of summer tourists.
Instead, they're staging protests and rallying local politicians in an effort to save the small island's lone firehouse from city budget cuts.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg's preliminary budget proposal in February called for a reduction of up to 20 fire companies across the city, good for an estimated savings of $20 million. Last year, when the mayor identified 16 fire companies to be axed, City Island's Ladder 53 was among them.
In the end, the City Council managed to scrape together the $14 million needed to keep them open, but that feat is unlikely to be repeated this year. The final list of targeted fire companies is expected to be released by mid-May.
"I have every reason to believe that City Island is going to be on the list again," says City Councilman James Vacca, whose district includes the island and its 4,500 residents.
Not only was Ladder 53 on the chopping block last time around, but the island's station was one of just four firehouses citywide to have its services reduced to part-time for part of last year.
"A tinderbox"
the island is connected to the mainland just below Orchard Beach by a narrow bridge that has just one lane of traffic in each direction. City Island's maritime history stretches back to the 1700s, and the fishing-village atmosphere still lingers. The main drag, City Island Avenue, is packed with more than 40 res-taurants, most of them seafood places.
The warmer months of April through September are the busiest for island businesses. The crowds peak on the weekends, when Orchard Beach, locally known as the Bronx Riviera, can draw well over 100,000 people each day.
"All you need is one kitchen fire, a gas fire or a grease fire, and it would be devastating," notes Kenneth Kearns, district manager of Bronx Community Board 10. "This island is all old, wood-frame construction. We'd go up like a tinderbox."
Losing the ladder company would be a big problem for a community full of two and three-story structures that have restaurants on the first floor.
The nearest firehouse off the island is in Co-op City, with an estimated response time of nearly 10 minutes.
"And that's assuming no traffic and that the drawbridge is down," says Mr. Vacca. "If there's traffic, you're talking about extensive property loss."
He says that each time there's been a fire, the off-island ladder companies have arrived several minutes after the island's own company.
A Fire Department spokesman says that the list of firehouses slated for closure is still being finalized, and that "nothing's been set in stone either way." Ladder 53 stands out as one of the least active units on the force, according to department statistics, having handled only a couple of fires per year for the past few years.
But residents and business owners are not about to be swayed by statistics.
"Being without a ladder company is a cause of great concern," says Mort Ellis, who owns Midtown Antiques on City Island Avenue with his wife, Violet.
Fire contained in 2009
in january of 2009, for example, a two-alarm fire swept through a beauty salon, a deli and the apartments above. The island's fire company was there to put it out, and only half a block was lost.
"It's especially dangerous here because you get a nice wind coming off one end of the island," says Ms. Ellis. "It just blows right through, especially in the winter." ?
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