Digital Extra: The Station Fire

01:00 AM EDT on Friday, October 1, 2004

BY ZACHARY R. MIDER
Journal Staff Writer

WEST WARWICK -- Despite several complaints from neighbors, there are no plans to clear away the patchwork of makeshift memorials from the site of The Station nightclub fire, according to Town Manager Wolfgang Bauer.

At the Town Council meeting on Tuesday of last week, Robert Johnson, whose son, Derek, died in the fire, asked town officials not to take down the memorials.

Johnson objected to a statement by council President Jeanne-Marie DiMasi, published in The Providence Journal, that neighbors of the site consider it "messy."

"We can't just ignore it, because we're getting so many complaints..." DiMasi told the Journal in August. "I would like to maybe plant some grass and clean it up."

Johnson, who lives in eastern Pennsylvania, said he "fell in love" with Rhode Island and West Warwick when he came to the state to handle his son's affairs. He sometimes visits a cross at The Station site that is dedicated to Derek Johnson.

"It's easy for someone to say, 'Boy, there's a lot of junk there.' But you know what, that ain't junk. That's something I put there for my son," Johnson said.

"When you use words like, 'It's a mess,' use a little more tact," Johnson told the council.

Bauer, the town manager, said that although the council is concerned about the complaints, "you haven't seen the Town Council take any action... The council has been extremely hands-off."

DiMasi said she was sorry for the way she described the site. "I apologize for that," she said.

The Station site, at the corner of Cowesett Avenue and Kulas Road, is owned by Triton Realty Limited Partnership, based in Warwick. Triton has offered to donate the land for a memorial but has complained that several legal obstacles stand in its way.

This summer, the Station Fire Memorial Foundation began actively raising funds to acquire the land.

Derek B. Johnson, 32, who lived in West Warwick, was one of three employees of an Internet-security company who died in the fire at The Station.