Photos and reporting by Stacie Joy
If you've seen Engine 28 or Ladder 11 rolling through the East Village lately, you might have noticed their sharp new mudflaps.
That's thanks to Michael "Mikey" Borriello — an FDNY firefighter who is also the resident artist at Engine 28, Ladder 11 on Second Street between Avenue B and Avenue C.
Borriello has been with the company since 2015, and when two brand-new trucks arrived this past December, their blank mudflaps looked a little too plain.
"There are companies you can pay to do it,” he says, "but I've always been artistically inclined, and I do it for fun, as a hobby."
So he recently got to work, painting Ladder 11's flap with its "Lucky 11" nickname and Engine 28's with a bold "Alphabet City."
Why Alphabet City? "Our slogan, 'Los Bomberos Primero,' didn’t fit," he says.
Borriello did it all freehand, layering on eight coats of marine-grade paint designed to flex and handle tough conditions — crucial since the mudflaps bend whenever the trucks pull in and out of the station.
He stuck with a traditional Old English style, matching the original lettering for 28/11.
He's also responsible for the striking Maltese Crosses inside the firehouse, which are repainted every four years to represent the current crop of firefighters.
Next up? Borriello plans to paint a quote across the beam at the firehouse entrance: "Let no man's ghost come back to say my training let me down."
