VIDEO: Someone has removed a portion of a memorial dedicated to five Buffalo firefighters who lost their lives in a massive propane explosion more than 40 years ago. The vandalism to the memorial on North Division Street at Grosvenor has some folks in the city’s Seneca Babcock neighborhood shaking their heads in disbelief. “Do better. I mean, what other message can you send them?” asked David Thompson, a neighborhood resident, regarding what he might say to whoever recently removed the top shield and Maltese Cross from Call Box 191. Call Box 191 has served as a memorial to the five Buffalo firefighters who were killed in the explosion, which occurred just after Christmas in 1983 in what remains the deadliest event in Buffalo Fire Department history. The blast also killed two civilians and damaged nearly 100 homes. Thompson, a lifelong neighborhood resident who passes by the monument on a daily basis, remembers the tragedy distinctly.
