By: Dave Cooper
It is hard to recall when you first heard the nameAndy Fredericks, isn’t it? It is one of those names which has been synonymous with the fire service in New York City. It ranks among the likes of Dennis Smith, Vinnie Bollon, Ray Downey, John Norman, Paddy Brown, and Mychal Judge. They are names that belong to men whose legacy is woven not only into the fabric of New York, but into the American fire service in its entirety. Their legacies were here before an entire generation of firefighters came on the job and will likely long remain after the coming generations retire.
Like many of my generation, my introduction to Andy Fredericks was posthumously through his writing. The first article I remember reading was Andy’s account of the Father’s Day Fire that claimed the lives of three firemen in the Astoria section of Queens in 2001. A few short months after Andy’s emotional account of that tragic day, he himself would be among the 343 FDNY members who perished in the collapse of the Twin Towers. Since that time, the post-9/11 generation of firefighters across the country have come to know Andy through his technical articles and Fire Engineering “Bread and Butter” series videos.
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