FDNY - Ladder 25 / Division 3 / Collapse Rescue 1

USA / New Jersey / West New York / West 77th Street, 205
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3-story Beaux-Arts fire station completed in 1901. Designed by Horgan & Slattery, it is clad in red brick with limestone trim above a rusticated limestone ground floor. The facade is divided into two symmetrical bays. Each has an arched bright-red garage door (originally for horse-drawn fire carriages), with a face carved into the keystone. On the inner side is a narrow window, and the outer sides have narrow metal service doors. Across the top of the ground floor is a fluted band course with an egg-and-dart molding; it is interrupted by a stone panel above each truck bay -- one carved with "74 ENGINE 74" and the other with "25 HOOK & LADDER 25" -- both framed by pairs of ornate stone brackets that support the fluted pilasters framing the window bays above.

Both the 2nd & 3rd floors have tripartite windows in both bays, with upper transoms. Instead of fluting, the pilasters at the 3rd floor have panels carved with elaborate ornament, including laughing faces; Corinthian capitals crown both sets of pilasters. There are iron railings across the bases of the windows, with a decorative design at the 2nd floor, and merely simple bars at the 3rd floor. A flagpole projects from between the two 2nd-floor bays. Stone entablatures above the 2nd-floor bays have a row of scrolled brackets and dentiled cornices serving as sills for the 3rd floor. At the top of the 3rd floor, more scrolled brackets at placed between the capitals of the pilasters and both bays are crowned by rounded copper pediments, behind which rise a low-sloped roof. Just below the roof line the brick piers are adorned with three stone escutcheons bearing the letters "FD" around central torches.

In 1916 Fire Commissioner Adamson sought to modernize the Fire Department with “motor apparatus.” Engine Company 74 was among the first to have an engine modified with a gasoline motor. Hook & Ladder Company No. 25 received its 30 minutes of fame in 1956 when a color television movie entitled F.D.N.Y was filmed. The men of Hook & Ladder No. 25 were used as actors in the simulation of a rescue. The station lost six firefighters in the September 11 World Trade Center attacks in 2001.

nyfd.com/manhattan_ladders/ladder_25.html
www.fdnytrucks.com/files/html/manhattan/l25.htm
www.holfri.de/Sites/Firehouses.htm
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Coordinates:   40°46'56"N   73°58'47"W
This article was last modified 4 years ago