by TheBlaze's Robyn Wallensky
Just blocks from a firehouse where 15 of the 343 New York City firefighters were killed on 9-11, I spot grotesque graffiti.
“It makes ya shake your head doesn’t it?, ” says Jim Smith an employee with Turner Construction.
The graffiti handwritten in black marker says “9-11 haha” and “F*** U and Osama.” It appears in four different spots on the white construction walls on 8th avenue between 54th and 55th streets.
Jim Smith shakes his head in absolute disgust, “Apparently they have no sense of what people went through.Thousands of innocent lives lost and they write this?”
The company, Turner Construction, is also building at Ground Zero.
Construction worker Sean Kelly says “If it means what it sounds like it means, it’s disgusting. I had a friend who perished in 9-11, a firefighter, Michael Lyons, God rest him and it would be a horrible thing for someone to write something like that we all know what everyone went through on that day and it’s disgusting.”
Just six blocks south at the corner 48th and 8th Is a firehouse called “The Pride of Midtown” there are murals, plaques and pictures of the 15 members of Engine 54 Ladder 4 killed eleven years ago by terrorists.
A firefighter I interview for the Blaze tells me in addition to the graffiti, someone has been putting oatmeal over the glass where color photographs of the deceased men are posted in a permanent memorial.
There is a constant flow of tourists taking pictures at this location. Mary Orlmanfrom of San Francisco says “I think it’s a disgrace.” I ask her who she thinks could be behind this horrendous act, “a heartless person who probably had a lot suffering in his or her life.”