The abandoned Deutsche Bank building was filled with hazardous chemicals, holes in the floors and a maze of plastic sheeting that made it a virtual death trap for firefighters.
Yet the New York City Fire Department did not have a contingency plan for fighting a fire there, as is required for every building in the city, city and fire officials said Wednesday.
The building's central water pipe, which was disconnected on Saturday, the day of the fire, and is one of the factors being blamed for the deaths of two firefighters, also was not being inspected regularly as the law requires, city and fire officials said.
"Things didn't go right," Steve Cassidy, president of the Uniformed Firefighters Association said Tuesday. "In the end, we lost two firefighters in a toxic building that's about to be torn down. It's unacceptable that it happened."
Both Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau and state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo launched investigations into the fire this week.
Meanwhile, a controversial subcontractor in the project, the John Galt Corp., was let go Wednesday, days after it was revealed that both the city and federal governments had issued it numerous violations for problems including holes in the floor, falling debris and sparks flying near combustible material.
The Fire Department is still investigating how the deadly blaze started Saturday afternoon, city officials said Wednesday.
The firefighters killed, Joseph Graffagnino, 33, of Brooklyn, and Robert Beddia, 53, of Staten Island, will be buried Thursday and Friday, respectively.
Cassidy said for more than a year before the fire, local firefighters were not allowed into the building to do regular inspections because of the poor air quality there. He is asking who was doing the inspections, if not the local firehouse.
Fire Department spokesman Jim Long said the department is looking into why there was no pre-fire plan for the building and why the department was not inspecting the water pipe regularly.
However, even if the fire department was not doing regular inspections of the water pipe, the city building department was, city officials said. According to building department records, only the day before the fire, an inspection showed that the pipe was assembled properly and seemed to be working.
When it was taken apart -- part of the pipe was found lying on the floor after the fire -- remains a mystery, city officials said.
Work on deconstruction of the building was stopped immediately after the fire, and now that John Galt has been taken off the project, it isn't likely to resume soon.
In a letter to John Galt explaining why the company's contract is in default, James Abadie, the principal-in-charge of Bovis Lend Lease, the primary contractor, said: "The numerous citations issued with respect to employee safety and the failure to properly maintain all required site safety precautions are only some areas of concern."
