Monday, August 29, 2011

A Fire Department Under Pressure to Diversify

The New York Times
By
Published: August 26, 2011

IT was heaving rain two weeks ago when Salvatore J. Cassano, New York City’s fire commissioner, showed up on a Sunday to pitch his department to the congregants at Concord Baptist Church of Christ on Marcy Avenue in Brooklyn. No doubt because of the weather — people had stayed home at “Bedside Baptist,” the pastor joked — Mr. Cassano, gamely dressed in pinstripes, was confronted by empty pews. A trumpeter had just played hymns to some restless boys, a few old men and clumps of hatted matrons. From a microphone, the commissioner delivered to the half-filled room what had become the most important, and thorniest, public message of his career.

Full Story: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/28/nyregion/a-fire-department-under-pressure-to-diversify.html?nl=nyregion&emc=ura3

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