A fire chaplain who breaks barriers

Good morning. It’s Thursday. Today we meet the New York Fire Department’s newest chaplain. We also get details about Governor Kathy Hochul’s decision to send State Police and National Guard troopers to the New York City subway system.

When the Rev. Pamela Holmes recently visited a fire station in Brooklyn, she wore a shirt with the fire department’s emblem — and her clerical collar.

“You want to wear something recognizable so people know you are who you say you are,” said Holmes, who will be sworn in today as the fire department’s second female chaplain. She will be the first Black woman in the role, in a department that has long resisted efforts to diversify its ranks.

Holmes is one of seven chaplains: six Christian and one Jew. They are all ‘on tour’ or on duty one day a week. Holmes is also an associate pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Brooklyn’s Clinton Hill neighborhood.

The chaplains provide advice to firefighters and other fire department employees, and can assist when families are notified of a firefighter who has been killed in the line of duty. They make hospital visits to injured or ill firefighters. They also make invocations or prayers at ceremonies such as street naming.

But Holmes appreciates days when there is time to visit fire stations.

During one visit, she spoke with a female firefighter who said she is Muslim. “She was shocked that I had read the Quran,” Holmes said. When the conversation ended, the firefighter said, “Hey chaplain, we don’t have an imam right now. If I need one, can I call you until they have one?

Holmes said the meeting illuminated her approach to the job of chaplain. “This is about building relationships because then people will trust you enough to open up and share.”

She was on the board of the EMS FDNY Relief Fund, a nonprofit organization that has provided assistance to emergency medical technicians and paramedics for years, when she heard the department was looking for a chaplain. She uploaded her resume, went for two interviews and waited.

“Typical of the city, it took months and months,” she said. “I thought, ‘I think they’ve found someone, they’re not interested in me, I’m going to continue with the fund and let God figure out the rest.'”

Then she learned she was a finalist and got the job, a part-time job that paid about $32,000 a year.

In recent years, much attention has been paid to racial diversity in the fire service. Black firefighters made up 10 percent of the department’s workforce last year, up from 7.5 percent in 2019. Hispanics made up 15.6 percent last year, up from 12.5 percent in 2019. Asian firefighters made up 2.4 last year percent of the workforce, just over 2 percent in 2019.

Holmes, 57, worked as a paralegal in the Brooklyn district attorney’s office after college, then earned a master’s degree in a program for aspiring politicians but decided running for office wasn’t for her. She shifted to education, eventually working on programs to promote diversity and provide opportunities for African American and Latino students at SUNY Downstate Medical Center and Brooklyn College.

By then, she said, she was singing in the choir at Emmanuel Baptist. “God pulled, pulled, pulled,” she said. “I said no and God said yes, and I realized you couldn’t say no to God.”

In 2012, she had given her test sermon and left for Princeton Theological Seminary in New Jersey. She earned a Master of Divinity degree in 2014 and returned to Emmanuel Baptist.

She said her first visit to a fire station ended with a conversation with two firefighters. “One of them was a joker and said, ‘I don’t know anything about women preaching. Can you really preach?’” she recalled. She replied, “You’re a firefighter. Can you really put out a fire?”

The other firefighter told her, “You weren’t what I expected.” Then he said, “Chaplain, promise me: if anything happens to me, will you be the one to come?”

Holmes said, “I got in the car and said, ‘I understand the assignment now.'”

Weather

Expect rain and drizzle today with some flooding after heavy rain. Temperatures will peak in the 50s. Tonight the sky will be cloudy and temperatures will drop to above thirty degrees.

ALTERNATE PARKING

In effect until March 24 (Purim).

The latest New York news

Gov. Kathy Hochul is sending hundreds of National Guard soldiers and state police officers to patrol New York City subway platforms and check passengers’ bags.

Hochul said the show of force would make commuters and visitors feel safer.

Hochul said 750 members of the New York National Guard and 250 state police and MTA personnel would be assigned to subway services. Hochul said it would be part of their mission to keep guns out of the subway.

They will join the already significant police presence on platforms and in stations. Mayor Eric Adams sent another 1,000 officers into the metro last month after major crimes in the system rose 45 percent in January compared to the same time last year.

My colleagues Maria Cramer and Ana Ley write that crime rates fell in February. Police data showed on March 3 that the overall increase in major crimes this year was 13 percent.

But three murders since January – and several brutal attacks, including cutting a conductor who leaned out of the cab as his train pulled into a station in Brooklyn – have once again raised questions about safety.

“Reciting statistics, saying things are getting better, doesn’t make you feel better,” Hochul said, “especially when you just heard about someone getting cut in the throat or thrown onto a subway track. There is a psychological impact: people are afraid they could be next. The fear is increasing. And riding the subway, which should just be part of your daily life, is filled with stress and anxiety.”

Hochul declined to say how long National Guard soldiers would patrol the subway, saying she did not want to tip off criminals.

Her announcement sparked outrage from civil libertarians, who called the move an overstep that would infringe on commuters’ rights. Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union, which represents the city’s transit workers, hailed it as “the start of real action,” although Richard Davis, the president, said the plan did not go far enough.

Less than two hours after Hochul’s announcement, a female conductor on the southbound No. 4 train said she was hit by a glass bottle as the train pulled away from the 170th Street station in the Bronx. The man who hit her fled and no arrests had been made as of late afternoon, police said. The conductor’s condition was stable.

METROPOLITAN diary

The producer

Dear Diary:

It happened in the 1970s. I drove east on 57th Street toward Carnegie Hall, where I had to play drums for a jazz dance class.

As I approached Seventh Avenue, I saw a familiar person standing at the bus stop. It was Zero Mostel.

I walked up to him and said I was a fan of him and his films.

He thanked me.

I asked if he did anything.

He looked at me and smiled.

“Yes,” he said. “I’m waiting for a bus.”

– Boris Kinberg

Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send your entries here And read more Metropolitan Diary here.