The photos in this series show Engine 55 in lower Manhattan’s Little Italy, just before the alarm sounded, followed by the firemen racing to pull on jackets as the engine pulls out of the station, shouting the address of where they are headed to the firefighters as they clamber aboard.
Manhattan’s fire engines respond, on average, in under five minutes to city fires. Photos: Ellen Wallace, 2007 (click to view larger)
by Ellen Wallace
New York City, NY, USA – I fell in love with firemen when I was little, after reading and rereading Number 9, The Little Fire Engine. Author Wallace Wadsworth in 1942 spun a tale of high drama but it was Eleanor Corwin’s bright and energetic little red engine tearing off to make the world safe that plucked my heartstrings.
This week in New York, on the border between Chinatown and Little Italy I was lovestruck again when the firemen at Engine 55 rushed to a fire as I stood admiring their turn-of-the-century station. My friend Judy and I were tsk-tsking as a man pulled up, parked on the
curb illegally in front of us: we had just spent 30 minutes trying to find a place to
park in Chinatown. I photographed
the beautiful old Engine 55 fire station and we suddenly realized why the fireman had parked there – he was answering an emergency call. The truck pulled out of the station, lights flashing and siren startling us, and off they went.
The station had charmed me completely, but my breath caught, and so did Judy’s, as we watched those fit young men running to save one of the rest of us from yet another accident or bit of stupidity, while most people in lower Manhattan shopped and sat at sidewalk cafes on a beautiful September day.
Engine 55 must be one of the prettiest fire stations in the world. The company was created in 1887 but moved to its present address at 363 Broome Street in June 1899.
The city’s fire department has photo archives that show an 1899 steamer with three-horse hitch in front of the station. There is also a beautiful 1936 Mack pumper that reminds me of the little red engine in my childhood book.
Pretty, but the station front only briefly hides the rougher side of firefighting.
In 2006 in Manhattan alone firefighters answered 11,457 fire calls and more than 57,000 non-fire emergencies. There were 633 "serious incidents" of which 579 were "all hands" fires, the kind where at least four engines are called to a blaze.
The station drew attention 11 September 2001 because its firefighters were early on the scene when the World Trade towers fell, since the station is nearby. Several of its firemen died and their names are on a plaque in front of the station, with a large angel that hints at an Italian heritage looking over them. "The bravest of the brave" becomes more than a phrase above those names.
And every time Engine 55’s team roars off to another fire they take the memory of those missing firemen with them, for another plaque on the side of the truck lists them.
A poignant note was sounded in 2002 when actor Steve Buscemi went to the station and spent two weeks, 12 hours a day, shoveling through the twin towers’ rubble to help find the remains of Engine 55’s missing firemen. He refused to be photographed or take interviews, despite his celebrity status, because he was there to help his old unit. Buscemi was reportedly an Engine 55 firefighter from 1980-1984.
New York’s fire stations have a rich history. Many of them started as volunteer fire stations in the 19th century.
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