#engine 55

Actor Steve Buscemi once served as a New York City firefighter. And when tragedy struck on 9/11, he went back—without cameras, interviews, or attention.

On September 12, 2001, Buscemi walked into his old firehouse, Engine 55, put on his gear, and joined the rescue teams at Ground Zero. He worked 12-hour shifts, digging through rubble, searching for survivors, and helping recover those who never made it home.

He never spoke about it publicly. No photos. No interviews. Just loyalty, courage, and humility.

A reminder that real heroes don’t always wear capes—sometimes they return quietly to serve, because it’s the right thing to do.

So a while ago, I actually google Engine 55 because that’s Richard’s studio. He doesn’t talk about it much directly, but Evidence a) A Million Degrees is said to be recorded “here in my studio except the drums”, and in the Booklet it says “recorded at Studio 55”. Now, as it happens, that’s an old fire department in New York. This it was it looks like.

Now first I thought this was just a reference. Maybe he found it interesting, maybe firefighting = break from Rammstein, etc. etc. but then a few days ago this ghost story popped right up and like:

“The residence, a former firehouse in SoHo, apparently revealed its spiritual energies to Kruspe soon after he set up his home studio there.”

Engine 55 is not in Soho, but in lower manhatten, but we’ll chalk that up to “close enough.” Who understands city districts anyway. Further:

"I went online to research the history of the house, and I found a picture of it from 1874," Kruspe said a week before heading back to Germany to continue work on the next Rammstein album, which doesn't have a name yet. "I printed it up, and when I looked closely at it, I got goose bumps all over my body. The picture is of three guys standing outside the building, and one of them looks exactly like me."

Now, the fire department in question wasn’t build until 1879 the earliest, but again, we’ll chalk that up to human error (on Richard’s side, or the journalist), but there is indeed a historic picture from it’s early days with three guys infront of the building, and yeah, guy to the right kind of looks alot like him, if that’s what you want to read into it.

Detroit Firefighter Brings Watermelon to Work as Gift- Gets Fired

Robert Pattison, 41, was hired as a probationary Detroit firefighter. It’s a tradition to bring a welcome gift to the department on your first day of work. Though some people bring doughnuts, Pattison decided to bring a watermelon on September 30, with a pink ribbon on it. Engine 55, the company he was assigned to, is 90% black. They took offense, he got fired before he even got a chance to work.…