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Landmark 3rd generation of black firefighters

WHEN George Hargett stepped into Engine Co. 252 in Brooklyn for the first time as an FDNY probationary firefighter, it was March 1967 — just three months before the “long, hot summer” where 159 race riots exploded across the U.S., including in New York City, Detroit and Newark.

A year later, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. would be assassinated in Memphis.

It was a tough time to be black — and it was tougher to be a black firefighter in New York, where the FDNY was seen by many as a symbol of the white status quo.

Never in his wildest dreams did Hargett, as a busy probie in Bushwick, think that his son would follow in his footsteps — or that 51 years later, his grandson would, too.

But to his great surprise, the Hargetts have become one of the first black multigenerational FDNY families.

“I never thought about it like that,” Hargett, 82, told the Daily News. “(My son) Dennis went to school, so I never thought that he would go into the Fire Department, but he passed the test and he got appointed.”

Last month, his grandson Michael, who was already an EMT with the department, graduated from the Fire Academy.

Both Hargett and his son, who retired in 2007, stood proudly in their dress uniforms as Michael crossed the stage at the Christian Cultural Center in East New York.

“I told my family, if they see any loose coat buttons on the floor, they’re mine, because my chest is swelling up with pride,” Hargett said.

There are a handful of black families that have two members in the department — but it is still rare to find three.

The Hargetts are one of only two black FDNY families where three generations — grandfather, father and son — have served in the department.

The other family, the Tylers, also welcomed a third member into its ranks at the same April 18 graduation ceremony.

Retired FDNY Lieutenant Nathaniel Tyler, 83, and his son, retired Capt. Hector Tyler, 60, cheered as Hector Tyler Jr. was congratulated by Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro.

“It’s definitely an honor,” 27-year-old Hector Jr. said. “I’m proud to be here and continue my legacy and the family name,” he said. Tyler is starting out his career at Engine 257 in Brooklyn. His father started his career at a ladder company in the same firehouse at Ladder 170.

“Definitely there are a few guys there who remember me coming there as a child,” he said.

Firefighter Michael Hargett is also starting out in the house where his father cut his teeth as a probie — Engine 235 in BedfordStuyvesant, Brooklyn.

“It’s powerful to be where my father started,” Hargett, 26, said.

Tyler’s grandfather Nathaniel joined the department in 1963 — four years before the elder Hargett — and retired in 1990 as a lieutenant while his son retired as a captain.

Currently, the FDNY says it has 2,100 minority and women firefighters, roughly 25% of the department’s firefighting force.

Still, the number of blacks in the FDNY never rose above 650 in a force of about 11,000 until about 2002, when the FDNY’s Vulcan Society, the association of black firefighters, filed a landmark lawsuit charging that blacks and Latinos were subjected to disparate treatment in the almost all-male and predominantly white department.

The eldest Tyler remembered working through some of the riots of the 1960s — but the job and the country has changed, he said.

“I was never a victim of discrimination,” he said. “I knew it existed, but it didn’t directly affect me. When I was there, a woman coming onto the job was a big hassle. There were times when I thought that I would never see my son or my grandson on the job, but things leveled out.”