Copyright 2006 Newsday, Inc.
DENNIS DUGGAN
By Newsday (New York)
More than a year later, the exact cause of death of Joan Sclafani’s firefighter son is still a mystery.
Richard Sclafani, a strapping man of 37, died in the basement of an East New York house trying to rescue children from a fire. But his mother says the Fire Department isn’t sure what, exactly, caused his death, according to a memo received by the family six months ago.
“They told us there were several possible reasons,” his mother, Joan, says. “His mask might have fallen off and he died of carbon monoxide fumes, or he bumped into a fellow firefighter and fell down the stairs, where he was knocked unconscious. We still don’t know exactly how he died.”
What they do know is that something went terribly wrong on Jan. 23, 2005, when Sclafani and two other firefighters died in separate fires in the Bronx and Brooklyn on what is now called “Black Sunday.”
Tomorrow, the firefighters from Ladder 103 and from Engine 290, where Sclafani had worked since 2000, will honor him with a plaque and a dinner afterward. In coming days, a street sign will be placed at the corner of 49th Street and 30th Avenue in Astoria, where Sclafani is a neighborhood legend for his athletic abilities playing football and baseball in the community leagues.
It will read “Richard Sclafani Way,” and his boyhood pal, Peter Booke, 39, a freight elevator operator in the Graybar Building on Lexington Avenue, in Manhattan, says “no one is more deserving of it than Richie.”
Tom Butler, a spokesman for the United Firefighters Association, played on local baseball teams with Sclafani and recalls that he had a “devastating fastball. You didn’t look forward to batting against him.” Butler grew up on 49th Street, two blocks from where the Sclafani family lived.
“I still can’t believe he is gone,” says Booke, who has lived in the same house in Astoria for almost four decades. “When the call came that he had died, I was watching a football game on television and I thought that this couldn’t be true. Then more calls came and I knew he was gone and I remember my son, who had played street hockey with him, saying, ‘Dad, bring him back.’”
Yesterday, I talked to Jim Schwicke, 49, on duty inside Ladder 103, who said Sclafani “was the kind of guy who stepped up no matter what. He taught the young guys the ropes and there isn’t a day that goes by that we don’t think about what he meant to us. His experience and his heart just can’t be replaced.”
After graduating from Bryant High School, Sclafani joined the Fire Department at the urging of his father, who told him a city job would provide security. His first job was at Squad 18 in the West Village, but he wanted more action, so he moved to the East New York firehouse, where firefighters wear T-shirts reading, “World’s Busiest Firehouse.”
His death has left his family inconsolable despite the medals, the plaque and calls from his fellow firefighters inviting them to events.
“I got a call from Fire Commissioner [Nicholas] Scoppetta last Mother’s Day,” says his mother, Joan, “and I can’t say enough about how we have been treated by the department, but all the medals and plaques and the street signs aren’t going to bring Richie back to us.”
His sister, JoAnn Sclafani-Asch, 34, a mother of three children, inherited Sclafani’s year-old Boston terrier, Mugsy, given to her brother at Christmas, just a month before he died. She echoes her mother’s grief and her focus now on trying to get better equipment for firefighters.
“I still don’t understand why my brother wasn’t pulled out of the basement faster than he was. He was there for 22 minutes. These firefighters deserve our attention not just after they are killed. New Yorkers need to pay more attention to them while they’re still alive,” she says.
After her brother’s death, JoAnn went to his Bayside home to pick up some of his belongings.
“One of the things I found there was his last paycheck. It was for two weeks and it came to $1,300, so he was earning just $650 a week take home. Some of these men have to work two jobs to make ends meet, and I don’t understand why we pay athletes and movie stars millions of dollars and so little to the people who work in a dangerous job, trying to protect the rest of us from danger.”
JoAnn’s love for her brother reaches back to their childhood growing up in Queens. “I felt safe with him. He was my big brother and even though he tortured me, making me tell jokes that weren’t funny, I always knew he loved me.
“When he went on a spiritual retreat in 2001, we were asked to fill out a questionnaire titled ‘Who is Richard?’
“My answer was that Richie was kind, intelligent, handsome and generous. I said a lot of mushy things about him that I haven’t even told my mother about. But that’s how I felt about my brother.”
That’s how a lot of the 9,000 people, including Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who attended Sclafani’s funeral at Our Lady of the Sea Church on Staten Island, felt about this man, who had a zest for life - whether he was zooming around the city on his beloved Harley motorcycle or throwing fastballs past hitters.
His mother, Joan, recalls her son’s wake at a funeral home, where she was not allowed to see her son.
“I told them I would wear a blindfold,” she said, “but they still would not allow me that final look.”