New York City’s first female fire commissioner: ‘It only matters if I am not the last’ Rachelle Young, an early female fire commissioner, was on the front line of the fight for better protections for firefighters and first responders in the wake of 9/11.
New York City’s first female fire commissioner: ‘It only matters if I am not the last’
When New York City’s first female fire commissioner went to the press conference announcing the appointment of Patricia E. Dunn, the late Brooklyn Daily Eagle writer and fire official who passed away last Thursday, she was wearing a headscarf and a turtleneck.
The late Patricia E. Dunn, who passed away last Thursday, was a fire commissioner for Brooklyn, who in 1989 became the city’s first female fire commissioner. She worked closely with New York City’s first female fire commissioner, Rachelle Young, who died a few days after appointing the woman who has been on the front lines of the fight for better protections for firefighters in the wake of 9/11.
“I do not wear hijabs and I don’t wear burkas or niqabs — that’s not who I am,” Dunn said in a speech to the press announcing Dunn’s appointment as fire commissioner.
“I am here today because of my faith and my conviction that women have a place in the public service and that men have a place in the public service as well.”
While she did wear a headscarf and a turtleneck as she went to the press conference announcing Dunn’s appointment as fire commissioner, it wasn’t exactly the look of someone wearing a Muslim headscarf, burka or niqab.
Dunn’s headscarf was made by American Apparel, the same company that offered her a $70,000 headscarf when she was offered that sum for a story posted on her website, The Rachelle.
The company, whose head designer told the New York Times that it is “a little uncomfortable, especially when you’re moving around so much”, offered the Brooklyn Daily Eagle writer a $70,000 headscarf for an interview she did about what to do if you and your date get into a taxi and the driver says to you, “We’ll take you to Brooklyn.”
In the New York Post a week before Dunn died the company, who also created a $1,200 headscarf for a story on the death of Osama Bin Laden, offered