Morale Decline

Why aren't we hearing the right-wing punditry howling about this? Talk about eroding our finest American traditional values...

In New York City's firehouses, veterans have a deep affection, even a zealous sense of protection, for their poles. But now, the department has begun shrinking their number sharply as it builds new firehouses and remodels old ones to bring them up to current building codes. In many cases, ventilation systems have been installed where the poles and their surrounding holes used to be.

The trend is no different around the country, as cities build one-story firehouses and update older firehouses. "It certainly is without any question that firehouse poles are becoming, with each new firehouse, a thing of the past," said Harold A. Schaitberger, the general president of the International Association of Fire Fighters. "The new firehouse or station would be built with stairways and no poles."