5 Firehouses Recognized as City Landmarks

Christopher D. Brazee/Landmarks Preservation Commission New landmark: Engine Company 73 and its neighbor Hook and Ladder 42 in Longwood in the Bronx.

The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission voted on the fate of five stout buildings on Tuesday. Some of the structures are faced with brownstone and others limestone, some are made of red brick and others orange, but they have one thing in common: prominent garage doors painted a bright, fiery red.

They are all firehouses. Now, they are also official landmarks.

“F.D.N.Y. firehouses are important symbols of bravery, safety and service in the communities they protect,” Salvatre J. Cassano, the city’s fire commissioner, said in a statement. “With these latest landmark designations, the Landmarks Preservation Commission has not only recognized the beautiful architecture and rich histories of these firehouses, they’ve also paid tribute to every F.D.N.Y. firefighter who has called them home for more than a century.”

Eight members of the 11-member commission were present for Tuesday’s vote. All eight voted in favor of granting the designation.

The five firehouses â€" built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and all still active â€" were nominated by the commission’s staff after a citywide survey of police precincts and firehouses. The number of firehouses citywide designated landmarks is now 37, although five of them have since been converted to other uses, like a theater or an apartment house.

The buildings approved on Tuesday are in Brooklyn, the Bronx and Queens.

Christopher D. Brazee/Landmarks Preservation Commission Also a landmark: Engine Company 240/Battalion 48 on Prospect Avenue in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn.

Among them is Engine Company 240/Battalion 48, at 1307-1309 Prospect Avenue in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn, a two-story building with a brick and limestone face. According to the commission, the early fires its engine company fought included a stable fire that killed 47 horses in the late 1890s and a blaze in Flatbush two years later that destroyed a fireworks company.

Another firehouse given landmark status on Tuesday was Engine Company 228 at 436 39th Street in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, a Romanesque Revival building made o reddish brownstone and brick. It was constructed by a builder named William J. Moran, who also helped erect the former Domino Sugar factory on Kent Avenue.

Engine Company 46, Hook and Ladder 17, at 451-453 E. 176th in the Bronx neighborhood of Bathgate consists of two very similar-looking buildings, which were completed in 1894 and 1904, and designed by Napoleon LeBrun & Sons, the official architecture firm of the fire department from 1880 to 1895.

Engine Company 73, Hook and Ladder 42, at 655-659 and 661 Prospect Avenue, in Longwood in the Bronx, was also designated on Tuesday, as was Engine Company 268, Hook and Ladder 137 at 259 Beach 116th Street, Rockaway Park, Queens. In addition fighting fires, the Rockaway Park firehouse serves a surf and rescue unit.