This incident, now that you have provided the details in more graphic fashion, is reminding me of one of the darkest moments of my career. Back in 1975 the Second Avenue (East 13th Street) Central Office burned for two days. Like most Bell Buildings, the exterior was unaffected (built like the proverbial brick shit house), but the cabling and ironwork inside melted into pretzel.
The metalwork that supported telecom hardware provisions inside was actually undergoing meltdown into the evening of the second day of the blaze. The absolutely worst part of this entire event was this: About dozen NY City Firemen eventually died over the years from cancer that was induced by the smoke and PVC/PCB fumes that was pervasive throughout the neighborhood for weeks after the fire.
Logistically, 700,000 residents in Greenwich Village and surrounding 'hoods went without telephone service for six months. Con Ed's HQ building and primary generating plant in NY City was (and still is) located three blocks away at Irving Place. We had to run several 1800 pair cables over the pavement between the next closest central office (West 18th Street, on the other side of the isle) to the generating plant in order to re-establish and maintain load shedding coordination with the remainder of the Northeast Power Grid. Two blocks going the other way we had the NY Eye and Ear Hospital that was without service.
We had three Class 5 Central Office Switches airlifted from Chicago and Dallas (where they were slated for deployment at Illinois Bell Tel and Southwestern Bell Telephone at the time). Tons of channel banks and main distribution frame equipment and cabling were lifted from elsewhere. A heck of a way to upgrade a central office, but when all was said and done, this was one of the most up to date COs in the city.
On the morning that the fire broke out I was tapped by the COOs of ATT Long Lines and NY Telephone Co to be the liaison between the two companies (parent and offspring) for restoration of all Long Lines services entering and leaving the facility, which consisted of approximately 55,000 long lines services, mostly private lines.
There was only one PSC Complaint issued during this entire affair that I had to respond to. Greenwich Village's Village Gate jazz club had a gig scheduled with Miles Davis on the Friday Night following the blaze. The gig was to be carried live over two stereo program grade audio lines going between the Gate and Riverside Church up on 118th St. where WRVR had their radio studio (in the steeple of the church!). They were to air this event live, but couldn't because the non-loaded twisted pair audio feeds were toast. It was the radio engineer who filed the complaint.
Six months later, I actually had to climb a ladder to the top of this steeple inside this historic church up in Harlem and meet with this joker to apologize for the inconvenience. The PSC guy later expressed to me that I should have thrown him out of the steeple window, head first. |
