FDNY to the rescue

We currently live in the top apartment of a duplex building (though we’re moving in a week). We have a very small roof deck. On that roof deck we have a Weber grill. For those that don’t know New York City, the buildings are right next to one another and in many cases it is possible to move from roof to roof.

We’ve occasionally seen empty beer bottles around our roof deck. Presumably some kids are messing around. Recently we discovered a bit more vandalism. Nothing major, mainly stuff messed up. But we were missing the top of our grill.

It took a while to locate it, because it was stuck in a tree. They must have launched it off the front of our roof. It was wedged in there pretty good.

Aside from simply wanted the grill top back, we were afraid that it might fall and really hurt someone. So I called 311. New York City has a very comprehensive 311 hotline. You can pretty much get the answer to anything by calling 311.

The 311 operator was very nice, but this was clearly something she hadn’t heard before (which in NYC is a statement in itself). She finally classified it a “hazardous location” which prompted a connection to 911.

At first 911 tried to connect me with the police, but I had no interest in finding out who did it. I just wanted my grill top. So they said they could call the fire department, but that they wouldn’t always respond to a non fire.

About 15 minutes later our doorbell rings. FDNY to the rescue. They actually thought it was a prank call when they heard the description, but they came anyway. They were cracking up. They said they had never seen this before. One of them went up in the ladder to get it. The others yelled wisecracks (“prune it while you’re up there”).

The whole scene was hilarious. But I got my grill top back…