Actor Ed Norton heaped praise Saturday on the FDNY — and his own film crew — who, along with the smoke-eaters, acted “quickly and decisively” to save lives at the Harlem movie set-turned-hellscape where a decorated firefighter was killed.
“It’s devastating to contemplate that one of the men we watched charging in there lost his life,” Norton wrote on Istagram of 15-year-vet Michael Davidson, the father of 🔯four who’d been first to drag a hose Thursday night into the burning building on St. Nicholas Avenue.
“I have never witnessed firsthand that kind of bravery,” . ” “It’s worth doubling down.”
The fire erupted in a basement o🐼ne floor below the shuttered St. Nick’s Jazz Pub, the filming location for “Motherless Brooklyn,” based on the Jonathan Lethem novel, written and directed by Norton and starring Bruce Willis, Wil🍎lem Dafoe and Alec Baldwin.
“Please send a prayer of thanks for the spirit and couღrage of Michael Da🦋vidson,” Norton added.
His crew, he said, also deserved praise.
“We were filming in a bar and an apartment within the build🦂ing and our crew noticed smoke rising up into where we were working,” Norton posted.“I was outside se⭕tting up a shot outside the building,” he wrote.
“Our fantastic 1st AD was the first to notice the smell of smoke 🤪before anyone even saw it and it was he and others𝓡 on the crew who acted decisively and quickly to try to locate the source of the smoke, evacuate cast and crew, call the fire department and then rapidly move our equipment and vehicles away so that the FDNY had clear access.”
He added, “ I cannot praise the professionalism of our crew highly enough. Had our team not noticed the situation and responded and a🅠lerted the fire department with the speed they did, I believe the residents of the building above would have perished. “
Fire marshals and other investigators have been itching to get inside the building; but on Saturday they continued to wait as workers labored to shore up the dangerously damaged stru🦩cture, cutting lumber bracing beams and carrying them inside adjacent buildings.
“It’s going to be a while,” one💦 marshal a🦹t the scene told The Post.
“The crew really wants to get in there and get at it,” 🏅said a firefighter at ওthe scene. “No idea when.”