Cooperation urged for fix of BQE
When Firefighter Ronnie Gies is promoted to FDNY lieutenant Wednesday, he will dedicate the milestone to his father, whose dreams of moving up the ranks of the Bravest ended on Sept. 11, 2001.
Gies’ father, Ronald Gies Sr., had passed all the tests and was on the promotion list when he was killed as the south tower of the World Trade Center collapsed.
“I’m going to be thinking about him when I get on the stage,” Ronnie Gies Jr., 36, said the day before his promotion ceremony at the Christian Cultural Center in Brooklyn. “I’m going to let him know I’m doing this for him.”
The soon-to-be Lt. Gies was a sophomore at Calhoun High School in Merrick, L.I., when his 43-year-old dad died in the 9/11 terror attacks.
Gies was at home when he heard that two jumbo jets had hit the towers. A few hours later, he learned that his father was missing.
“I was a 16-year-old teenager having to become a man pretty quick,” said Gies, who joined the department in 2008.
His older brother, Tommy Gies, became a firefighter in 2004 and proudly wears their father’s FDNY badge number, 11524, as he battles blazes as part of Ladder 147 in Flatbush.
At the time of his death, Gies Sr. was a member of Squad 288/Hazmat 1 in Maspeth, Queens. Nineteen members from the two units were killed on 9/11, the largest loss of life suffered by any FDNY firehouse that day, officials said.
His son Ronnie has spent nearly all of his career at Ladder Co. 175 in East New York. When Ronnie Gies’ six-week lieutenant coursework is over,
The only way to fix a crumbling stretch of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway is for Gov. Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio to kiss and make up, a top New York City construction official said Tuesday.
New York Building Congress President Carlo Scissura told City Council members a new governing body must be formed in order to fix the dilapidated highway before it becomes too dangerous to drive on. He said it must include city, state and federal officials.
“The governor, the mayor, our elected reps from Washington must come together,” said Scissura. “Unless there is a true entity that has teeth, that has money and has actual power to build, nothing will get done.”
Scissura said Cuomo and de Blasio should model the new entity off the Gateway Development Commission, a new public authority formed by New York and New Jersey last year to try to build a pair of new Hudson River rail tunnels.
The repairs to the BQE must be made soon — engineers have warned the stretch of the BQE between Atlantic Ave. and Sands St. will be stable for just another six years if nothing is done.
City and state officials have for years played hot potato with the BQE work. The state took responsibility for the repairs from 2006 to 2011 before passing the project to city officials.