Work Begins on Sunset Park Firehouse
Construction’s started on a new firehouse for Engine 201 on 4th Avenue and 51st Street. The 17,000-square-foot building, as rendered above, was designed by RKT&B and will cost $6.8 million. The former firehouse on the property was demolished to make way for the build. According to city documents, the old facility (see pic on jump)…
Construction’s started on a new firehouse for Engine 201 on 4th Avenue and 51st Street. The 17,000-square-foot building, as rendered above, was designed by RKT&B and will cost $6.8 million. The former firehouse on the property was demolished to make way for the build. According to city documents, the old facility (see pic on jump) was built in 1892 and had seen better days.
Update: We’re behind on this one: Work’s been going on for over a year at the site, and the new firehouse should be open in early ’09, says Community Board 7.
PDF: Engine 201 [nyc.gov] GMAP
Photo from Property Shark.
Are they really moving the 5th Ave. firehouse to the 4th Ave. location? I live on 53rd and have spent years listening to the euphonious blatts from the trucks trying to get back to the 5th Ave. house around all the double parked cars on my block. The firemen at both the 5th and 4th Ave. locations have always been pleasant neighbors and they all like kids!
wow, 4th avenue looks really nice in that rendering
You can see an early photo of the original house at: http://www.nyfd.com/brooklyn_engines/engine_201.html
Another factoid 🙂 :
The City does try to save the older firehouses- even if to sell them. 204 was one of the oldest in the city and at one time was supposed to have been the barn, with the actual firehouse across the street and I think it dated from the 1860’s. 212 in Williamsburg is historically significant as the People’s Firehouse.
the original Brooklyn fire Dept. headquarters still stands in downtown Brooklyn- one of the earliest conversions I think- but you can stil see the letters on the archway.
In some neighborhoods they don’t, but in many others you’d be really surprised. Sadly, 204 which was closed, was one of the firehouses that really did know their neighbors. The neighborhood was devastated when it closed. In my old neighborhood, 118 was my first due- i was shocked they knew the interior of the building, what would be a problem in a fire, etc. One of them explained that they try to do this because in a fire they can be working virtually blind in side a building. If they know the layout, it makes a life or death difference.
A few years ago when those firefighters died in the Bronx, and one here in B’klyn, part of the problem was that the apartment in the Bronx had been illegally subdivided – they couldn’t find the way out in time because they hadn’t known about the changes.
I’d love to see the new firehouse someday- the redone 10 House by Ground Zero is amazing. the new firehouse is much wider, it looks in the rendering. Did they add a new company, with an extra rig? But the temporary firehouse was the old 278, right? That was another one we fought to keep open.
Firefighters might know the general layout of homes in any given area but I doubt that they would know who has a rottweiler and how many elderly people live on the third floor. They don’t do too much mixing in the neighborhoods where they serve.
Good points Bxgirl.
The current firehouse is actually on 5th ave and the majority of the time the engines have to rush down 51st to get onto the faster route, 4th ave.
I think this 4th ave location will be much more useful – perhaps there’s a plan in the works for reuse of the current 5th ave firehouse.
The size and quality of this new firehouse looks really impressive in person. The fire-engine-red glazed brick facade they got up is a nice touch.
(You’d think Brownstoner was a bridge with all the trolls squatting down here.)
the best use unless you’d like to live in a neighborhood without a firehouse, or if you think its ok to let them live in falling down firehouses filled with rats and floors that can’t take the weight of the new fire engines and trucks.but the way, layouts in every firehouse vary- kitchens are not upstairs except in rare circumstances- I’ve only seen one.
Since the city owns the property and the response system is based on which firehouse responds first, second or third to an area fire, moving a firehouse can create problems not just for that firehouse, but for the surrounding ones. removing 205 in cobble Hill created a huge circular area that basically has no firehouse. A firehouse responding now has further to go, and through narrow, old streets, many of which run one way.
Another factor is that local firefighters know their areas extremely well, often to the point of knowing the layouts of houses, who has elderly people living on the third floor and who has a rottweiler. Remove the firehouse, and that knowledge and expertise is gone.
“…is this really the best sue of our money?”
Yes, actually I do think it’s the best use of our money. Better, for example, than handing out tax dollars to developers to build stadiums to house the sports team they own.
12:22 yet you continue to read my posts!!!
Biff …don’t apologize to Nokilissa, it was I who put the two of you through this
Do you think we’ll ever recover? Are we done?