By Hayley Gorenberg
September 24, 2024
James McHugh is a New York City firefighter with Squad 1 and a beekeeper with a taste for the Coop’s chipotle mayo. (“And the hummus is very good, too!”) He pops by to shop as a member of a unique group of Coop “permanent guest” members—the cadre of firefighters at the firehouse next door, on Union Street.
Not only does the Coop feed the firefighters today, but it turns out that, a half-century ago, the Coop was key to Squad 1’s very survival.
McHugh, 37, gave an interview while on the road during vacation. He enthusiastically carved out a bit of time to reflect on how much he enjoys the special relationship Squad 1 has with the Coop.
Not only does the Coop feed the firefighters today, but it turns out that, a half-century ago, the Coop was key to Squad 1’s very survival. As Engine 269, the firehouse closed in the early 1970s. Park Slope activists rallied, and it reopened in 1977 as Squad 1. “So, the only reason we really exist,” said McHugh, “is because of the community.” Now Squad 1 and the Coop are old-timers in the area, he observed. “The only people left on the block that are original are the Coop, the firehouse and Dixon’s bike shop!”
A Day at the Coop
Day-to-day, Squad 1 firefighters vary widely in their use of Coop shopping privileges. “Some people never go next door. But a lot of our younger firefighters are aware of good, organic produce and not-garbage food,” McHugh said. “The Coop has things nobody else has, which is nice.” And McHugh appreciates the quality: “It’s all good stuff. It doesn’t have filler in it. Where we work, you have good restaurants and you have good supermarkets. In a poorer neighborhood, a food desert, the firemen are in the food desert also.”
Though McHugh professed he was “never really much of a chef,” he has learned over time. “You pick up on other people’s meals. A guy will make jerk chicken; I never had it before!” He was tickled to discover Utica greens from upstate New York. “They’re delicious!” he said. “Spinach, escarole, put some bacon in there—it’s really good!”
A Day at the Squad House
When he’s working a shift, McHugh is commonly the Squad’s backup chauffeur. The activity level for the day varies. “It could be 20 runs or one,” he noted. “It depends on the day. Fourth of July? Lots! Christmas Eve? Fewer. Halloween? Yeah, you’re gonna do runs! Park Slope can be quiet, but Bay Ridge can be busy.”
Squad 1 is a “special operations” firehouse composed entirely of firefighters who transfer in with a minimum of five years of experience.
He continued, “Park Slope is generally quiet. People go to sleep and that’s it. Where you’ve got Soho or Greenwich Village, it’s two in the morning, and people are out.” (Squad 1 reinforces some parts of lower Manhattan.) He added, “More runs, too much to drink and [someone] fell, a fire, etc. The hotter the weather, the more people that are out, the busier you are!“
If he’s working a shift starting at 9 a.m., McHugh tends to get in an hour or so early, and may relieve a colleague who worked overnight. Shifts may run over, but, he explains, “We’re not supposed to do more than 24 hours.” If there’s a fire near the firehouse, Squad 1 is the fire engine, handles a hose, and douses the flame. If they’re called to Coney Island, he elaborated, they’re a “squad company,” filling in as a ladder company, possibly using hand tools. “We go in where the chief needs us to go,” he said.
Special Operations
Squad 1 is a “special operations” firehouse composed entirely of firefighters who transfer in with a minimum of five years of experience. Members have more training and know how to work with hazardous materials, weapons of mass destruction, high-angle rope rescue, trench rescue, rescue from collapsed structures, etc. McHugh once worked as an emergency medical technician on an ambulance, which put him on a special track for the firefighter’s test that he was eager to take. He started at Engine 236 in East New York before he joined Squad 1 in 2019.
Squad 1’s engine supplements ambulances that “get dragged all over the city,” McHugh said. Fire engine companies are more localized, and have training to stabilize someone who is hurt, and then pass them to an ambulance arriving afterwards. Tasking former EMTs to engines is “good allocation of resources,” McHugh said. “Amputated limb? I’ve already done that. So you’re getting bang for your buck.”
With their “special ops” training, Squad 1 firefighters get called to do “a lot of other strange things,” McHugh said. Their expert abilities at handling metal-cutting machinery may result in being summoned to a hospital because an accident victim with a swelling hand needs a ring cut off. More gruesome are impalements—which again require specialized use of metal-cutters that hospitals don’t keep in-house, but that members of Squad 1 know how to wield.
The “special operations” capabilities of Squad 1 is part of the reason the firehouse suffered such heavy losses during the World Trade Center attack on September 11, 2001.
McHugh has developed his own professional specialties. He enjoys teaching a ropes course, drawing firefighters from other companies to learn how they would angle in to approach a problem at a construction site, a high-rise with someone hanging off or at a collapsed building. “God forbid, a 9/11 or Oklahoma City, where you have devastation over a huge area,” he remarked. “You can’t just walk over that 70-foot rubble; you have to build a rope line.”
9/11 and beyond
The “special operations” capabilities of Squad 1 is part of the reason the firehouse suffered such heavy losses during the World Trade Center attack on September 11, 2001. In addition, the initial call came in around the 9 a.m. change of tours. The squad has only five firefighters per tour, but 12 were killed. “A lot of people were going home, and a lot were coming in,” McHugh said. Some who weren’t scheduled for the day left from home, anyway. “We lost more people than we had.”
The last firefighter who was at Squad 1 on 9/11 retired two years ago. The Sitka spruce sculpture of three firefighters raising the American flag, carved by chainsaw artist Nyal Thomas, Jr., and stationed for years in front of the Coop, has been moved inside due to weather damage. It remains a daily reminder, though “like everything else you become somewhat numb to it,” McHugh said. “You walk past every day, and you remember the names. We pass stories down, and we try to keep it as alive as we can.”
Well over a decade ago, a firefighter glimpsed a Union Street neighbor harvesting honey from hives. McHugh has become a beekeeper firefighter, along with a couple of Squad 1 comrades.
There’s a special firehouse culture around retirement, McHugh said. “It’s a very funny organization with some things. It’s the only place where you pay for your retirement party and give a gift to the firehouse. You get a promotion—you give a promotion gift,” he said. Squad 1 has been fortunate on the foodie gift-giving front: “Somebody got promoted and gave us a grill!”
And if the grilled dinner is to be honey-glazed, the harvest may come from Squad 1’s rooftop! Well over a decade ago, a firefighter glimpsed a Union Street neighbor harvesting honey from hives on an adjoining building. McHugh has become a beekeeper firefighter, along with a couple of Squad 1 comrades. He’s picked up neighborhood tips, read books, and learned from YouTube videos—and now he even keeps a hive at home.
Squad 1 harvests honey a couple times a year, he said. “It’s actually pretty cool when you have a change in temperature, and you see a change in the color of the honey.” He hasn’t experienced much trouble with stings from the bees, he said. “They’re all very easygoing.”