After leading his company into the building to begin fighting the flames, Nappi "became overheated and collapsed," the FDNY said in a statement. Taken to the street by fellow firefighters, he was at first conscious and alert, but went into cardiac arrest after being placed in an ambulance. He died at Woodhull Hospital.
Check in here to read updates on City Limits' investigations, get in-depth information on stories making headlines, and read news from the five boroughs you won't find anywhere else.
Advertise »
Current Issue
March/April 2012
Advertise »
Blog Contributors
Jarrett Murphy
City Limits
Helen Zelon
Johann Hamilton
Neil deMause
Heart Attacks Are Biggest Threat to Firefighters
Forty-seven-year-old Lt. Richard Nappi of Engine 237, a 17-year veteran of the FDNY, was felled by an apparent heart attack Monday after battling a warehouse blaze in Bushwick.
Related topic categories: Activism and Volunteerism, Health and Environment, FDNY, Firefighter Fatalities
Hope for Relief from Flooding in Southeast Queens
Despite a warmer than expected winter with a limited presence of precipitation, rising waters in Southeast Queens continue to be a major community concern. In the years since the Jamaica Water Supply Company shut down area wells, the ground water has been rising. Residents have been plagued with flooding in their streets, homes and businesses. The New York City Environmental Protection Agency had no plans to start pumping the water until 2018, a timeline residents felt was too far in the future.
Read More»
Related topic categories: Activism and Volunteerism, Health and Environment, Waterfront, Sewage
Hope, Hesitation as Waste-to-Energy Gets New Look
Coverage of Mayor Bloomberg's state of the city address focused, as the speech did, on the mayor's raft of education proposals, with some additional attention to his mentions of police corruption and the minimum wage.
But the mayor's reference to a once-controversial notion—"the possibility of cleanly converting trash into renewable energy"—passed all but unnoticed. Read More»
Related topic categories: Green, Health and Environment, Energy Policy
Is NYC Going Solo on Solitary Confinement?
One thing is certain: New York City is building more cells for solitary confinement on Rikers Island. Whether that's a good idea or not depends on what you read.
Mainstream coverage has it that the new private rooms are a necessary response to increased violence at Rikers.
But a new report by Solitary Watch notes that “Once the expansion is complete, New York City’s island jail will have one of the highest rates of solitary confinement in the country,” and that New York is bucking a national trend among corrections officials who have recognized the adverse affects of solitary confinement—which, the report points out, is used to address not just violence but a wide range of misbehaviors. Read More»
Related topic categories: Health and Environment, Justice, Corrections
Survey: NYers Satisfied, But Some More than Others
Most New Yorkers know how to get involved in their community. But they don't have the time to do it.
Most New Yorkers are satisfied with the city they live in. But the degree of satisfaction depends on their borough.
Most New Yorkers favor new parks over other development. But nearly half don't use the parks we have very often.
Those are just a few of the findings in the second annual Survey on Livability released by the Municipal Art Society on Thursday.
The la Read More»
Related topic categories: Health and Environment
Energy Nonprofits Chilled by Obama Budget Move
With the fall season already here there are only weeks before New York City has to prepare for another winter – one that many are hoping is going to be more merciful than the last. The harsh weather visibly affects the city on the outside, but many New Yorkers struggle privately to keep warm and survive through another winter in their own homes. And now a program designed to help low-income families enjoy the lower costs and better health associated with well-insulated homes is facing severe budget cuts—a victim of the stimulus package's end, deficit-reduction ambitions and reports of inefficiency in the program itself.
Read More»
Related topic categories: Health and Environment, Energy Policy
Watch a Wind-Driven Fire
A line-of-duty firefighter death is never a simple case of cause and effect. In the dozens of fatality investigations that City Limits reviewed for the September/October issue of our magazine, it was never possible to isolate a single factor that solely and completely explained a death. An illegal conversion, for example, may have trapped firefighters in an apartment on East 178th Street in the Bronx in January 2005, but problems with the hose line, confused communications and a lack of escape ropes helped turn a very dangerous situation into a deadly one for two firefighters. And the fire was fueled by a steady wind.
Read More»
Related topic categories: Health and Environment, Government, FDNY, Firefighter Fatalities
Decision in the Rockaways: Stay, or Go?
In the calm before the storm early Saturday morning, Neville Plumber marched his family up Edgemere Avenue in Far Rockaway. With his wife and two sons behind him, Plumber pulled wheeled luggage and a leashed dog to the A train at Beach 36th Street.
The night before they had seen Mayor Michael Bloomberg on TV announcing the mandatory evacuation of their neighborhood before the arrival of Hurricane Irene. “We knew we better leave,” said Plummer, a cabdriver who walks with a cane. His wife’s mother would take them into her Flatbush home. Many of his neighbors, however, were staying put. “They think the mayor’s just trying to make up for missing the snowstorm last winter.”
Related topic categories: Activism and Volunteerism, Health and Environment, Hurricane Irene
Out of Media Glare, the Bronx Faces Irene
While southern Queens wears the yellow and amber code of the city's hurricane map like a sunburn, the Bronx's risk profile is like a minor case of acne--a few trouble spots on a skin of relative safety.
Even far outside of the Zone A areas, there were signs of the impending danger, though they were subtle. At Lehman College, one of the city's evacuation centers, miles from any of the evacuation zones, a police officer said at 1 p.m. that only two families had shown up to stay. Empty school buses stood out front. A few blocks away and a short time later at Dewitt Clinton High School, staff said that 18 people were there--one family of 13 among them. The sign-in table there included a sheet of rules that barred "alcohol, drugs and weapons." IS 201 in Hunts Point has capacity of 2,000, but only had one family registered as of 2:30 p.m. Nearby, an outdoor religious service boomed through a PA in Spanish and English.
Related topic categories: Activism and Volunteerism, Health and Environment, Hurricane Irene
Mideast Politics Weigh On Park Slope Co-op
Between the bright array of locally grown peppers and boxes of soy chips on the Park Slope Food Co-op's shelves sits a few all-natural products that are pulling the community apart.
The heated editorials of the Co-op's Linewaiters' Gazette evidence the dissension that Dead Sea salts and Israeli-imported persimmons are creating among members.
While Israeli and Middle-Eastern politics have been debated in the Gazette for over a decade, the proposal to stop selling Israeli products in compliance with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement is far more recent. The move, which could be put to referendum in the coming weeks, has sparked debate at co-op general meetings, dozens of letters to the Gazette's editor and blog postings touting the opinions of both sides (like stopbdsparkslope.blogspot.com/ and psfcbds.wordpress.com/).
Thoug Read More»
Related topic categories: Food, International, Health and Environment, Justice
