Newsday

Both Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau and state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo launched probes Tuesday into the blaze Saturday that turned the abandoned Deutsche Bank building into a fiery trap.

A crucial pipe that had been taken apart before the fire, leaving firefighters without water, was just one of numerous violations by the contractors hired to dismantle the building in the months before the fire, city and federal reports have shown.

"Firefighters were sent into a death trap," said Steve Cassidy, president of the Uniformed Firefighters Association, at a news conference Tuesday calling for the attorney general's probe.

"I think the fire department's position is that it didn't know how bad it was. We certainly need to find out why they didn't know."

Fire officials have not discovered what started the blaze Saturday afternoon, but have said that it began in an area where workers smoked, and where there was electrical equipment. The two firefighters killed, Joseph Graffagnino, 33, of Brooklyn, and Robert Beddia, 53, of Staten Island, will be buried later this week.

Cassidy said the local firefighters, who would normally be responsible for establishing a contingency plan in case of fire, had not been allowed in the building for more than a year before the fire because of the building's poor air quality.

Cassidy asked who was doing those inspections if not the local firefighters, and when they were last done.

A representative for the city Fire Department could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

A spokeswoman for Morgenthau said his office's rackets bureau would team up with city fire marshals and investigators from other agencies for the investigation. She said her office carried out a similar investigation in late 2001 after five construction workers died and four others were injured after scaffolding collapsed at a building located on Park Avenue in Manhattan.

The office investigated, charged and ultimately convicted a Commack contractor of second-degree manslaughter; he was sentenced to up to 10 years in prison in January 2004.

Meanwhile, community leaders railed against the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., which owns the building, for its decision to hire the John Galt Corp. as a subcontractor in the dismantling of the building.

Not only did John Galt have numerous city and federal violations listed against it, but residents say they have been complaining for years that the company, which got its licence to remove asbestos just over a year ago, did not have sufficient experience dismantling buildings to undertake such a sensitive job.

"We basically said to LMDC, 'This is public money, and a publicly owned building. You cannot hire anyone other than a respectable contractor to do this job," said Kimberly Flynn, an advocate with the 9-11 Environmental Action Committee.

Community Board 1, which is responsible for the area that includes the Deutsche Bank building, passed a resolution in April 2006 expressing similar concerns about John Galt and another subcontractor, the Safeway Environmental Corp., citing the two companies' sketchy track records.

Safeway was the contractor in charge of dismantling an Upper West Side supermarket in 2005 when it collapsed, injuring a nanny and an infant.

Errol Cockfield, a spokesman for the LMDC, said the agency did all it could to enforce safety standards at the building.

At a news conference Tuesday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg defended the LMDC's decision to hire Galt.

"When we went out for contractors to perform this work, there was only one contractor willing to take on the job and we're appreciative of that and without that the building would still be at 40 stories," he said.

Officials for Galt and Safe- way could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Tim Farnam, Matthew Nestel and staff writer Anthony M. DeStefano contributed to this story.