BROOKLYN MEDIA GROUP JANUARY 6 - JANUARY 12, 2017 23 BROOKLYN BUZZ CULTURE BRIEFS COMPILED BY JAIME DEJESUS ALADDIN JR. Disney and theater lovers should head over to St. Ephrem School as it presents an adaptation of Disney’s “Aladdin Jr.” The school’s drama club will give audiences all of their favorite characters from the hit Disney film, and the Broadway smash hit, including Aladdin, Jasmine, Iago, Jafar, the Genie and more. The musical adventure is filled with magic, mayhem, and flying carpet rides. An ensemble of townspeople, shop owners, harem girls, and princes will dazzle you. Performances will take place at St. Ephrem School, 924 74th Street, on Friday, January 13 at 7 p.m., Saturday, January 14 at 2 and 7 p.m., and Sunday, January 15 at 2 p.m. Tickets are $10. For more information, call 718-833-1440. BAZE AND HIS SILLY FRIENDS Bring the kids to the Brooklyn Public Library as the Events for Youth & Family Series presents the group Baze and His Silly Friends. The multi–award winning group is a creative, fun and talented rock band for children and adults. The show will include tons of bubbles, laughs, hip shakin’ and toe tappin’ good time songs that will make even grandma get out of her rocking chair and boogie up those stairs. “This is your Body,” a key track off the Toddlerville CD, has been a featured video on HBO Family and their songs can be heard on radio stations around the country. The free event will take place at the Central Library’s Dweck Center, 10 Grand Army Plaza, on Saturday, January 21 at 1 p.m. For more information, visit www.bklyn library. org. BAMKIDS FILM FESTIVAL Head over to BAM for BAMkids Film Festival 2017. Brooklyn’s favorite children’s film festival returns for its 19th year, presenting the best shorts and features from around the world—representing 27 countries in total. This year’s fun-filled program showcases curated selections from the top children’s festivals in North America. BAMcafé, 30 Lafayette Ave is open all day long, so stop by after your screening for food and a host of fun activities. The fun takes place on Saturday, January 28 and Sunday, January 29. For more information, visit, www.bam.org. Dyker father and author seeks the truth of Deutsche Bank fire BY JAIME DEJESUS [email protected] A grieving father continues to wield his pen in his efforts to find the truth behind the devastating Deutsche Bank fire that killed his firefighter son almost a decade earlier. Author J.A. Graffagnino lost his son, firefighter and former Dyker Heights resident Joey, who was killed at the age of 33 when he responded to a fire inside Manhattan’s Deutsche Bank building, 130 Liberty Center, on August 18, 2007. The younger Graffagnino died inside the building which had been badly damaged after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 that destroyed World Trade Center One and Two. At the time, the Deutsche building sustained a 24-story gash. “This building was abandoned, filled with toxins, asbestos, mold and everything else from the attacks,” said Graffagnino. “Part of the World Trade Center crashed into the Deutsche Bank building and created a huge multi-floor crevice on the side of the building and in that crevice, they found the body of a flight attendant from one of the airplanes that hit the Trade Center." Abandoned after 9/11, the building was eventually purchased from Deutsche Bank by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation around 2004, and it began to demolish the building. Then, the fire broke out. Graffagnino's company responded to the blaze and he and one other firefighter died after going into cardiac arrest, and 105 others were injured. Not surprisingly, the conflagration and its results haunted the elder Graffagnino. So he decided to write the self-published book The Fix is In, which, he explained, questions and provides extensive evidence as to what might have caused the deadly fire. “There was no supervision,” he said. “No one called the Fire Department with the multitude of fires that were out there. The Department of Buildings turned a blind eye as did other safety people.” In the 317-page read, Graffagnino documents the history of the building from the time it was purchased by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, and offers plenty of photos and charts, as well as interviews with eyewitnesses, firefighters and others in an attempt to prove that the seven-alarm Deutsche Bank building fire was not simply an unfortunate accident. Along with documenting the results of his extensive investigation, Graffagnino added a very personal touch to the book. “There’s stuff about my family, my grandchildren in the book,” he said. My son had two children and a wife when he passed. There’s a touching and heartbreaking part about my granddaughter in it. So I kind of interweave the story with personal things as well as all the investigation and information.” He also discusses the bravery of his son. “He went into the building doing his job," Graffagnino said. "He was trying to protect the other firefighters and anyone else that was still in the building, trying to get water into the building. And building engineers kept telling the battalion chiefs out there water was coming in here and they were going to activate the internal pumps. In reality, they did absolutely nothing. “It took them an hour to get water into the building because all of the fire hydrants and connections were covered up in plywood,” he added. “One fire hydrant was removed from the street.” Among the things that trouble Graffagnino is the way the city's Department of Buildings classified the work that was going on at the site prior to the fire. “The Department of Buildings listed it an alteration instead of a demolition,” claimed the author, adding that he believes that several factors may have led to the massive fire. “One of the things no one knew at the time was that the fans required by the United States Environmental Protection Agency to keep toxins inside the building were deliberately put in the wrong location, on the north side of the building and floors 13-17. According to contractors, they should not have been lower than the 21st floor. Why were fans on lower floors?” Graffagnino also questions why contractors took out walls in the stairwells. “If there’s a building fire, you go to the stairwell for safety,” he explained “That’s fireproof. They took the walls out of these fireproof stairwells so the smoke and fire traveled into areas the Fire Department would normally go to for safety.” While he sought answers, writing the book actually raised additional questions for Graffagnino. “It took me eight years to put this together. If I could find this stuff out as an average person, are you telling me professional investigators and prosecutors couldn’t find this out?" To purchase The Fix is In, visit www.jagraffagnino.com. BROOKLYN MEDIA GROUP/Photo by Jaime DeJesus Author J.A. Graffagnino with his book The Fix is In.
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