February 5, 2023
Where's the Beefcake? NYC Fire Dept. Cancels Calendar of Heroes
READ TIME: 2 MIN.
Liza Minnelli outlives... the New York City Fire Department's Calendar of Heroes.
"The New York City Fire Department (FDNY) has canceled its annual calendar full of six-pack abs and hunks due to lukewarm sales," reports the Daily Mail.
The calendar made its debut in 2003 with all men. In 2014 women were added to the mix. The 2021 calendar marked its last one. It went on a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic.
The FDNY confirmed the cancelation to the //www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny-fdny-hero-calendar-canceled-20230204-5bu3lntoxvg6zjyf5isydau53e-story.htmlNew York Daily News (NYDN), saying the drool-worthy calendar wasn't bringing in enough, as it was in previous years. Previously, the $16 calendar would generate anything between $150,000 and $250,000 a year for the foundation.
"Unfortunately, the calendar was not a great fundraiser in recent years," FDNY spokeswoman Amanda Farinacci told the NYDN. "The sales, and therefore the money brought in for the Foundation, declined significantly... [The calendar] was always a fun project, but the Foundation is solely focused on fundraising to support fire and life safety education, and training for FDNY members."
"More than 100 firefighters would try out yearly, according to the NYDN, for the 12 coveted spots," adds the Daily Mail. "In 2014, the calendar added women to the mix and three years later, the foundation split the calendar into two versions: the men and the women's editions. And in 2019, they added animals to the mix."
The last edition was shot right before March 2020, when the world was thrown into COVID chaos and the Big Apple became a ghost town, but emergency services were in demand. "We had other things to do at the time," an official told the NYDN.
Late last year, just as they would have been gearing up for another photoshoot, the foundation scrapped the calendar entirely and said there's no plans for a 2024 calendar. But they are open for a return if there is a demand.
But there are those in the NYFD who aren't sad to see it go.
"We're not weeping and gnashing our teeth that the calendar's not coming out," an FDNY official told the NYDN.
"The once profitable calendar, which debuted in 2003, was a running joke to those brave enough to actually fight fires," writes the DM.
"We would always want to know when the tryouts were," an official said. "We'd send our heaviest guys down there and have them try to sign up."
