More than 800 government-owned buildings in New York City will no longer be exempt from safety regulations, a senior official said.

The buildings have been excluded from meeting fire safety regulations so far due to the fact that they are owned by the Port Authority, the state or federal government, the United Nations, and other institutions. The measure comes after two firefighters tragically died in the August 2007 blaze at the condemned Deutsche Bank tower, owned by a state agency.

During a press conference held yesterday in Lower Manhattan, the president of Manhattan, Scott Stringer, said such buildings should no longer be treated differently and must by brought under NYC's code.

"When it comes to safety, no one is above the law," Mr. Stringer said.

Stringer added that the lack of inspections at the former Deutsche Bank building may have lead to the deaths of the two firefighters mentioned above. The Manhattan president was accompanied by Joseph Graffagnino, the grieving father of one of the dead firefighters.

"We need to stop other people from dying," said Graffagnino.

The federal government should pass a policy adopted by the U.S. Postal Service that demands the agency to meet local safety standards for the buildings it owns.

"Before further tragedies claim lives, we are calling on all organizations that own buildings exempt from the city's codes ... to maintain the strict standards of our local code and to permit fire and safety inspections by New York City," Stringer added at the new conference.

The two firefighters who died in the Aug. 18, 2007, Deutsche Bank blaze were Robert Beddia and Joseph Graffagnino. After the huge blaze was extinguished, authorities found out that the exits had been sealed and a broken standpipe in the basement made it impossible for the firefighters to fight the flames. The building was owned by the Lower Manhattan Development Corp.

NYC’s Mayor Bloomberg wants to go even further as he pushed for laws to call for federal and state buildings to meet the terms of the city codes - one of 33 recommendations from a city task force formed after the tragedy.