Engine Company 56 (now 74) No. 120 West 83rd Street

In 1895 The New York Times ran a three-page article on the Upper West Side with the headline “West Side Is Itself a Great City.”  The newspaper recalled “It will be seen that by 1882, when building operations began on an extensive scale, the State and the city and the individual property owners, singly and collectively had secured for the West End everything that would make it the most healthful, the most beautiful in its location, and the most comfortable part of the city in which to reside.”

This rapid development following the Financial Panic of the 1870s resulted in the need for new police stations, schools, and fire stations.  The City scrambled to keep up, as did Napoleon Le Brun.  In 1879 Le Brun became the official architect of the New York City fire houses.  A year later his son Pierre joined him in the business, creating the firm N.  LeBrun & Son.  Their fire house work focused as much on design as function and each one of the resulting structures was a visual pleasure.

In 1888 the firm began work on the station house for Engine Company 56 at No. 120 West 83^rd Street.  The five-story firehouse was completed the following year—a masculine mix of Romanesque Revival and Renaissance Revival elements.  Typical of firehouse design, the truck bay was flanked by a door and a window matching in proportion.  Le Brun decorated the bay with medieval motifs and surrounded it with hefty brownstone blocks.

Two stories of red brick were separated from the fourth by a stone bandcourse.  Stone piers—like engaged colunettes--ran up the sides and curved gently into the brickwork.  Their rounded form was echoed in the bull-nosed bricks that softened the corners of the openings.  The fourth floor vied for attention with its single arched opening, accentuated by a lushly-carved eyebrow and broken cornice.  The top story hid behind the ambitious gable as a slate-covered mansard.

Captain Michael J. McNamara was put in charge of organizing the new Engine Company.  Born in Ireland in 1849, his family brought him to America when he was still an infant.  He joined the Fire Department in 1873 and had been promoted to Captain on December 1, 1886, just three years before the station was completed.

He filled the open positions with two engineers, James Claire and William Massey; and seven firefighters: Michael Dinan, Charles Calahan, Robert Geddis, Richard Hyde, William Lumbolster, John Linck and John Douglass.  Engine Company 56 and the other new Upper West Side houses helped out with blazes throughout the city.  The Times noted “They do not ‘run’ to every fire.  But a second or third alarm finds one or the other responding to it.”

Such was the case on the Fourth of July 1898 when, as reported in The Times, “The energies of the Fire Department were taxed to the utmost yesterday in answering the frequent calls to fires in all parts of the city, due generally to the careless handling of firecrackers or other explosives.”  The Lenox Livery Stable on East 75^th Street was in flames and when the third alarm was sounded, Engine Company 56 responded.

In the 19^th and early 20^th century, getting to the fire was often as dangerous as fighting it.  Engine 56 would not make it to the Lenox Livery Stable that night.  Its horse-drawn truck sped through Central Park to the East Side.  “At Madison Avenue the engine got between two underground trolley cars and was overturned.  The driver was heavily thrown but not seriously hurt.”  Captain McNamara was seriously injured, including a broken left leg and was taken to the Presbyterian Hospital.  “The engine was disabled,” reported the newspaper.

McNamara recovered and returned to the job.  In 1905 he received the New York Daily News medal as the city’s most popular fire captain—receiving a landslide 800,000 votes compared to the second place 300,000.  The newspaper said “every man, woman, and child on the upper west side knew him and were fond of him, especially the children.”

A year later, William J. Sullivan was assigned to Engine Company 56.  On May 8 that year he and another firefighter, John J. Sheridan of Engine Company 39, were off duty and walking together along Third Avenue.  In the four-story building at No. 1224 was the bakery of John Storck, whose family lived in the apartment above.  Just before the firemen arrived, a breeze pushed a curtain into a burning gas jet, setting it on fire.

The blaze swept rapidly through the apartment, noticed by Sullivan and Sheridan from the street below.  They rushed into the building, saving at least six residents.  John Storck was asleep and Sullivan had to break into the locked door.  “Picking the aged man up, they dragged him into the hallway just as the flames broke through into the bedroom, and carried him downstairs into the street,” reported The Times.

Just as a fire engine pulled up, Mrs. Pollock, who lived on the third floor, implored Sheridan to “Save my baby!”  Sheridan ran back into the fire and smoke engulfed building.  On the third floor he found a fox terrier, which he grabbed up, then crawled through the smoke until he felt the body of an infant in a chair, wrapped in a blanket.  Just as the flames broke through the flooring, he “beat a retreat” to the street, cradling the baby and the dog.

Once on the sidewalk he realized that “my baby” was the fox terrier.  The infant he had rescued was a baby doll.  “That’s one on me,” Sheridan said.

In 1907 the City commissioned architect Edward L. Middleton to make “improvements” to Engine Company 56.  His updating was confined to the interior, leaving Le Brun’s façade untouched.

After 22 years in command of Engine Company 56, Michael J. McNamara retired on February 1, 1911, the longest serving captain in the Fire Department.  A dinner in his honor was held at Healy’s restaurant, attended by the Fire Commissioner Rhinelander Waldo and other City officials.

At the time of McNamara’s retirement, an idea had surfaced to alleviate the boredom of firefighters sitting in their station houses with little to do other than wait for an alarm.  By 1912 a “traveling library” was instituted by the City that provided books to the station houses.  That year a report noted that Engine Company 56 had gone through 383 volumes.

The motorizing of fire trucks did not necessarily alleviate the danger of the crowded Manhattan streets in responding to fires.  The call to a blaze at 94^th Street the Riverside Drive on the night of June 29, 1926 ended tragically.   Engine Company 56’s truck was speeding along West 83^rd Street, its bells sounding, as Henry Nolan drove his motorcycle south on West End Avenue.

“Nolan did not hear the clanging gong of the fire apparatus in time to avoid the accident,” reported The Times the following morning, “although both he and the driver of the truck made valiant efforts to avoid a collision.”

Firefighters were riding on the sides of the truck.  As the motorcycle hit the fire truck, it became entangled in it and was dragged almost to Riverside Drive before the apparatus could be stopped.  The jolt when the truck hit the curb as its driver, Fireman Mathew Moran, tried to avoid the collision, sent the six firemen hanging onto its sides flying onto the pavement.

Fireman William L. Moran died in Roosevelt Hospital of a fractured skull.   Three others also suffered fractured skulls; Joseph Cunningham’s face was so badly damaged that he was removed to Reconstruction Hospital; and the others received serious lacerations and injuries.  The motorcycle driver received a fractured skull, as well.

With World War raging in Europe in 1940, the United States sought to beef up its military.  Frustrated Army recruiters found that a large percentage of New York City men were unfit for service.  On November 26 four Army induction centers examined 415 men.  They reported “nearly one-fourth of the selective service men from New York City and its environs examined yesterday for induction into the Army were found to be physically incapable of military service.”

Among those examined was 27-year old firefighter Arthur Papp of Engine Company 56.  He was fit; but Fire Commissioner John J. McElligott fought his induction.  McElligott filed a claim “for occupational deferment” saying Papp “was more useful to the community now as a fireman than as a soldier.”

Colonel Arthur V. McDermott, the director of the New York City selective service, was little moved.  He explained to the press “that nobody—not even men in services as essential as those of the fire and police—would obtain blanket deferments of service.”  Papp’s case was submitted to the local board for consideration.

Their decision did not take long.  On November 28, just two days later, it announced that Fire Commissioner McElligott’s request “has been rejected.”

By 1944 Engine Company 56 added another function when a Fire Department surgeon, Dr. Harry M. Archer, was brought on staff.  The Company now did ambulance runs as well.

The 83^rd Street station became Engine Company 74 when that company moved from its old home at No. 207 West 77^th Street.  The everyday valor of firefighters was tragically displayed when the Company lost six of its men--Matthew Barnes, John Collins, Kenneth Kumpel, Robert Minara, Joseph Rivelli Jr. and Paul Ruback--in the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

Le Brun & Sons’ charismatic firehouse survives on an architecturally eclectic block; a snippet from a time when the Upper West Side was considered by some as a “great city” in itself.

many thanks to Sean Khorsandi for suggesting this post

photographs by the author 

The 1904 Engine Co. 30 (Fire Museum) No. 278 Spring St.

photo by Alice Lum

Until 1865 the homes and businesses of New York City were protected by a group of unrelated volunteer fire companies.  But by the time of the Civil War, the sheer amount of structures and residents in the rapidly-growing city demanded an organized, paid fire department.   The Metropolitan Fire Department was formed and the volunteer system abolished.

Among the new fire stations was that of Engine Company 30, located at No. 253 Spring Street.  The company remained here for nearly four decades, conveniently across the street from the headquarters of the Sailors and Firemen’s Union at No. 278.  But in 1902 the need to replace the old structure was evident.  The report of the Superintendent of Buildings Branch for that year noted “The Board of Estimate and Apportionment has been requested to acquiesce in the acquirement, at private sale for the sum of $50,000, of the site Nos. 278-284 Spring street, borough of Manhattan, upon which to erect a new house for Engine Company 30, located, since the inauguration of the paid Fire Department, at No. 253 Spring street, and it is believed that it will do so and that the transaction will soon be consummated.”

Indeed the transaction was consummated and on October 3, 1903 The American Architect and Building News announced that architect Edward P. Casey had filed plans for a “three story brick and stone engine-house” with a projected cost of $75,000.    The New York Times predicted it would “be one of the largest fire engine houses in the city,” covering a frontage of 72.5 feet.

The new house was completed in 1904.  Casey deeply incised the rusticated limestone base,  rounding the edges of the massive stones.  The two-toned brick of the upper two stories was laid in a diamond pattern, creating a tapestry effect inlaid behind the stone window framing.  Above the cornice, the brickwork continued in a handsome balustrade.

Firefighters from Engine Company 30 paid an unintentional visit to a saloon when responding to a false alarm on August 7, 1905.   As the horse-drawn steamer sped into the intersection of Bedford and Barrow Streets, a second engine from Engine Company No. 24 ran full speed into it.  “The impact carried the engines over to the southeast corner, and the horses became wedged in the doorway of a saloon kept by Albert Herdtfelder,” reported The New York Tribune.

Herdtfelder had the bad luck of standing in the doorway at the time and was knocked off his feet, suffering severe injuries.  Although the saloon owner was taken to St. Vincent’s Hospital, none of the fire fighters received any injuries and the horses were only slightly hurt.

Only four days later, however, one of the first tragedies for Engine Company 30 in its new location occurred.  On August 11 the soap factory of W. H. Daggitt’s Sons at Nos 383-385 West 12^th Street caught fire.   The building blazed for 10 hours while chemicals created deadly smoke.     By 1:00 in the afternoon when eight members of the company were working on the first floor, 20 firemen had already been injured, removed unconscious from the blaze.

Hours of pouring water on the building had resulted in seven feet of accumulated water in the cellar.   Fireman James Clancy was working with Captain Martin Mahoney feeding a line of hose into the building.  The men braced themselves against a large safe when, without warning, the floor collapsed.   The eight firemen were plunged into the deep water, “buried under a tangle of beams and flooring,” as described by The Evening World.

The firemen of Hook and Ladder No. 5 formed a human life line, pulling the men out of the cellar one-by-one, when it was realized that Clancy was pinned below the water by the heavy safe.  After repeated tries, a concerted effort of several men dislodged the safe and Clancy was pulled free.

The fireman did not survive.

In 1946 the announcement was made that the fire house would share space with a proposed out-patient clinic for NYFD members and their families, similar to one already in place in the New York Police Department.  On April 3, Fire Commissioner Frank J. Quayle announced that the third floor of the building “will be rearranged so that the equipment, including X-ray machines, a cardiograph, physiotherapy and diathermy devices and a dental office will be set up with soundproof walls and ceilings, casement windows and air conditioning.”

The Fire Department’s Honor Emergency Fund contributed $125,000 for the equipment and Quayle had requested an annual appropriation of $25,000 from the City to cover the salaries of clinic personnel.   The Commissioner anticipated that “in addition to the equipment installed, there will be established a blood-donor station, also oxygen equipment, not only for the relief of members of the Fire Department who suffer from smoke inhalation at fires, but likewise the members of their families who are in need of such treatment.”

The clinic was formally opened on February 3, 1948, replacing the departmental medical offices in the five boroughs.

After half a century of service, the end of the line for Engine Company 30 came on April 6, 1959 when Fire Commissioner Edward F. Cavanagh, Jr. announced steps being taken to save the Department $1.645 million, including the elimination of four companies.   The fire house at No. 278 Spring Street was on the list.

The outpatient clinic with the impressive title Oxygen Therapy Unit Headquarters remained in the building serving the medical needs of the firefighters and their families for decades.   In the meantime the FDNY’s small museum on Long Island was moved to Manhattan in 1959, taking space in a working firehouse at No. 100 Duane Street.

But when the Home Insurance Company donated its wide-ranging collection of firefighting memorabilia to the Department in 1981, a larger, permanent space became necessary.   The Friends of the New York City Fire Department Collection was established—a non-profit organization whose sole purpose was to raise funds to renovate Engine Company 30 as a state-of-the-art museum.

Six years later Edward P. Casey’s Beaux Arts beauty was reborn as the New York City Fire Museum opened its doors to the public.  The museum—which even includes a mock apartment with smoke machine and black-lighted fire hazards for the education of school children—receives 40,000 visitors annually.

The 1904 Hook and Ladder Company No. 8 -- 14 North Moore Street

photo by Alice Lum

In 1866 Hook and Ladder Company No. 8 moved from Franklin Street to 7 North Moore Street where it remained for nearly a half century. After the consolidation of the five boroughs of New York in 1898, the Metropolitan Fire Department was reorganized into the New York City Fire Department.

On February 5, 1904 the Sinking Fund Commissioners met and discussed the issue of erecting a new fire station for Hook and Ladder Company No. 8. The property at the southeast corner of North Moore and Varick Streets, where the old North Moore Street School stood, was appropriated for the purpose.

Until 1895 the fire stations had been designed by the architectural firm of Napoleon LeBrun & Sons; but with the its reorganization the fire department now had its own in-house architect, Alexander H. Stevens. Stevens received the impressive title “Superintendent of Buildings.”

The Hook and Ladder Company No. 8 would be one of his first designs. A “double company” facility, it was a handsome brick and limestone structure with two great matching arched truck entrances opening onto North Moore Street. Above each entrance the high second and third story windows were encased in a limestone framing. Carved stone scrolled brackets supported the plain cornice. Each truck entrance was embellished with an ornamental, Baroque cartouche.

For decades Hook and Ladder Company No. 8 had distinguished itself with awards. In 1914 Capt. John E. Farley accepted the John T. Stephenson Medal for maintaining the highly-efficient company during 1913.

Fire fighters pose before the station before it was cut in half.

That same year the Company received surprising news regarding its ten-year old building.  A year earlier the city’s Board of Estimate and Apportionment had begun the $3 million project of widening Varick Street by 30 feet and connecting it to 7th Avenue. The project would increase the width of Varick Street to 100 feet.

More than 200 buildings stood in the way of the expansion, among them the majestic 1807 Georgian-style St. John’s Chapel as well as Hook and Ladder Company No. 8. The Fire Department looked at property across the street as a site for a replacement building.

But then Fire Commissioner Robert Adamson made a surprising decision: the fire house would simply be cut in half.

The cost to buy the site across the street would be $110,000 and the cost of razing the existing building would add another $25,000. But by simply reducing the double company to a single one and renovating the structure to half its size, the total cost was reduced to $20,000.

The alterations to the building were astonishingly invisible. The limestone cornices, the carved stone brackets, the window treatment were all deftly copied so that the casual passerby is given no clue of the change.

The renovations necessary by the widening of Varick Street resulted in a one-bay firehouse -- photo by Alice Lum

Fireman John Walsh brought accolades to the company when on October 25, 1916 he did what the Fire Department deemed “the most daring act performed in three years.” The factory building at 21-25 East Houston Street was engulfed in flames and working girls were trapped inside. One, Ida Goldberg, appeared in a seventh story window with no way out.

Walsh hung his scaling ladder from the cornice of an adjoining building and, by “swinging like a pendulum was able to grab the girl by the arm. Though a slip meant death, he brought her to safety,” praised The New York Times.  Commissioner Adamson called the action “one of the finest rescues in the history of the New York Fire Department. Walsh was awarded a Medal of Valor by the mayor.

While Walsh remained home fighting fires, Fred J. G. Wedemeyer left to fight the war in France. Two years after Walsh’s award, Mayor Hylan decorated Wedemeyer for meritorious acts performed with the army in 1917. Sadly, on June 10, 1952, Fireman First Grade Frank E. Wolf’s Department Medal was awarded posthumously.

It would not be the many meritorious acts of the fireman of Hook and Ladder Company No. 8 that would bring the building fame, however.  In 1984 the firehouse was used as the exterior of Ghostbusters headquarters. Because it was still an active firehouse, a decommissioned station in Los Angeles was used for the interior shots. But film buffs recognize the TriBeCa firehouse, which was used again in the 1989 Ghostbusters II, and flock there to take photographs.

On the morning of September 11, 2001 Hook and Ladder Company No. 8 responded to the murderous attack on the World Trade Center buildings. Lt. Vincent G. Halloran would not return that day. In 2005 a movement was begun to consider renaming the block along North Moore Street between Varick and West Broadway for Lieutenant Halloran.

In the Spring of 2011 Mayor Michael Bloomberg included Hook and Ladder Company No. 8 on his list of 20 fire houses slated to close in a money-saving thrust. The TriBeCa community responded with an outpouring of frustration and anger. In June a crowd of over 100 residents, politicians and firefighters assembled to protest the projected closing.

The half-a-firehouse at 14 North Moore Street is still active, although that situation could change. In the meantime, the dignified structure that was once twice its size provides an interesting footnote in TriBeCa and FDNY history.

Many thanks to reader Francesco Spreafico for requesting this post.