Firefighter Remembered as ‘Man of Joy’

Tearful mourners filled St. Patrick’s Cathedral today for the city’s second firefighter funeral in two days, with the FDNY commissioner promising in his eulogy to provide answers in last weekend’s tragic deaths of two firefighters in a ground zero skyscraper.Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta, addressing friends, family and colleagues of firefighter Robert Beddia, said that “an aggressive, comprehensive investigation” would continue into the blaze at the abandoned Deutsche Bank building.Mr. Scoppetta, for a second time in as many days, was joined by Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Spitzer at a funeral for one of last Saturday’s victims. Yesterday, Joseph Graffagnino was remembered at a ceremony in Brooklyn.The deaths of Beddia and Graffagnino were “a tragic loss of life that probably should never have happened,” Mr. Bloomberg said. The city is still probing the cause of the blaze and the failure of the building’s standpipe system, which could not supply water to fight the flames.This morning, the remains of the 53-year-old firefighter arrived atop a firetruck outside the historic Fifth Avenue cathedral. Thousands of fellow firefighters in dress uniforms stood outside, greeting the mahogany casket carrying Beddia — Bobby to his friends and family.“He was such a man of joy, such a man of conviction, such a man of love,” a fire department chaplain, Reverend John Delendick, said.Beddia “didn’t become a firefighter for the money, he didn’t become a firefighter for the glamor,” Rev. Delendick said. “He became a firefighter because of certain values.”The sad rite brought reminders of sorrow of six years ago, when 343 firefighters — including 11 from Beddia’s Greenwich Village firehouse — were killed in the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.And there were echoes of Graffagnino’s funeral, as bagpipers played “Amazing Grace” for a crowd of firefighting colleagues.Last Saturday, Beddia responded to a blaze at the former Deutsche Bank building overlooking ground zero — a 41-story highrise that was being taken apart floor by floor after the falling trade center towers tore a gash in its side and covered it with toxic dust.The 23-year veteran, along with Graffagnino, was battling the seven-alarm fire when the two became trapped amid the demolition materials.Beddia was “working the nozzle” — as firefighters describe the task of actually hosing down flames. Both men were overcome by smoke on the 14th floor, and went into cardiac arrest.Though he could have retired years ago, he kept working with the zeal of a rookie. He became a kind of big brother at Engine Co. 24 and Ladder 5, offering pointers to younger men to try to save them from dying on the job.Divorced without children, he worked as a part-time bartender at the historic Chumley’s pub in Greenwich Village, a favorite stop for fellow firefighters. At home on Staten Island, Beddia enjoyed working in his garden and polishing his black Alfa Romeo.He was to be buried in Moravian Cemetery, on Staten Island.

Firefighter Remembered as ‘Man of Joy’

Firefighter Remembered as ‘Man of Joy’

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