Downtown Community Television Center

 community, interesting place, French Renaissance (architecture)

The former Engine 31 fire station, a 3-story French-Renaissance chateau-style structure completed in 1895. Designed by Napoleon LeBrun & Sons, it housed Engine Company 31 until 1972. It is now occupied by the New York Community Television Center. Clad in limestone, the Lafayette Street facade is divided into three main bays, each with a rounded, arched garage door. At the north end is a window, with two more windows between the southern and central garage doors. Between the north and center garage doors is a pedestrian entrance, and another pedestrian entrance is located at the south end of the facade, where there is an octagonal turret. The other two exposed faces of the turret have windows. All of the windows and pedestrian doors are topped by eared stone lintels and rounded pediments with seashell carvings and other ornament. The iron grilles over the windows are painted bright red, as are all the doors. Above each garage door is a stone frieze below the dentiled cornice that caps the ground floor; on the northern two is carved "ENGINE 31" and on the southern one "BATTALION 2".

The south elevation is divided into three sections; at the western section, the ground floor has three windows that match those on the west facade. The middle section has two pairs of higher-set square windows joined by a stone sill, and the short 1-story east section has a round-arched window of the same size as the garage door openings on the front of the building. It is framed by stone pilasters with Corinthian capitals and topped by a stone panel with a seashell at each end. All three sections continue the dentiled cornice from the west facade. The middle section has a second floor, that has two paired rectangular windows with square windows above and square stone panels below. The 2nd floor of the western section of this facade has similar windows, but arranged as a triple and a single. Another dentiled cornice runs across the 2nd floor; at the center section it is topped by an elaborately carved stone balustrade. The west facade has the same window treatment , with triples over the end garage doors, and a triple flanked by singles over the center garage door. Framing the top of each single window are small stone cartouches just below the dentiled cornice. The corner turret three such windows, one in each facet, but without the stone panels below. Instead there are stone panels above each window. A copper plaque is attached below the western-facing window.

The 3rd floor, only present at the west side of the building, features a steep slate-covered mansard roof. The corner turret is roofed with a steep slate cone crowned by a copper finial. Above the outer garage doors are gabled, stone-faced dormers, each with two windows. The wider dormer in the center has three windows, and paired ornamental pilasters at its sides. A carved stone balustrade runs along the base of these dormers, except for the northern one, where it has been removed. Crowning the outer dormers are steep triangular pediments with carved fire department seals above a dentiled band course. The center dormer also has a tall triangular pediment, above a dentiled cornice with an intricately carved frieze. There is a narrow, vertical slit window in the center of the pediment, which has finials on either side, and a crowning finial at the peak.

Slightly behind and above the center dormer are two small copper dormers with pyramidal copper roofs. The slate mansard ends in a narrow flat roof lined with ornate copper railings. On the north side of the building, a stone extension projects from the mansard, with a single small rectangular window facing west, and a crenelated parapet below a chimney. On the south facade, above the 2nd-floor triple window, is a triple dormer similar to the center dormer on the west facade, crowned by a matching pediment and finials.

DCTV believes that expanding public access to the electronic media arts invigorates our nation's democracy. Founded in 1972, DCTV has fostered a diverse and inclusive media arts community for over 30 years. DCTV pursues its educational mission by introducing members of the community to the basics of electronic media through hundreds of free or low-cost production courses and access to broadcast-quality production equipment.

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