by DON SINGLETON
Ask any kid why he wants to be a fireman when he grows up, and he'll tell you. One, he wants to slide down the brass pole, that exciting express conveyance from the living area of the firehouse upstairs down 20 feet or so to the street level, where the big rigs await the call to action.
Two, he wants to ride in a fire truck and spray water onto a fire through a hose. And three, on the way to the fire, he wants to ring the bell and sound the siren. The pole has always been associated with city firehouses, the classic three- and four-story firehouses, some that date back to the turn of the last century. While there is a nationwide trend toward elimination of firehouse poles, they remain fixtures in New York City - in fact, all but two of the New York Fire Department's 238 firehouses still have poles. FDNY spokesman Jim Long said only two recently built firehouse - one of them a one-story facility - are without poles. "There are no plans to have the poles removed" from any of the other 236 firehouses, Long said. This is just fine with the vast majority of New York City's Bravest, men - and women - like 12-year veteran Firefighter Al Kessner, 43, who works out of Engine 290/Ladder 103 in East New York, Brooklyn. "We were taught in probie school how to slide the poles," Kassner said. "They get us to the fires faster."
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