Thursday, December 3, 2020 – Five distinctive mysterious buildings for our safety

By admin

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 3rd, 2020

The

226th Edition

From Our Archives

FDNY FIRE ALARM

TELEGRAPH STATIONS

From Untapped New York (c)

While riding by this corner of Forest Park in Queens, this building stands out.  What is it?  Our friends at UNTAPPED New York answered our question. Story by Jeff Reuben (c).

Spread across the five boroughs of New York City, the Fire Alarm Telegraph Stations stand in City parks as reminders of the City’s efforts decades ago to improve the efficiency of its fire fighting system. They are architecturally distinctive buildings set in bucolic park settings, with minimal signage to indicate their purpose.

During the 1910s and ’20s, the Fire Department of New York built Fire Alarm Telegraph Stations in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens, to serve as central dispatching offices. Unlike firehouses and the Fire Headquarters, they were deliberately placed in isolated park sites, so as to minimize the risk that fires from neighboring buildings could endanger. It also provided space for freestanding radio towers.

Reflecting the City Beautiful Movement of that era, which emphasized that public buildings should not only be functional but also should enhance the visual character of their surroundings, New York’s Fire Alarm Telegraph Stations could easily be mistaken for being cultural or educational buildings.

But, the Fire Alarm Telegraph Stations were built to save lives first and be beautiful second. Plans for the first three facilities were approved in 1912, just a year after the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire killed 146. McClure’s magazine declared in December 1911 that “the New York fire-alarm system is the worst in the United States.”

The Fire Alarm Telegraph Station was placed hard up against the 79th Street Transverse Road that cuts through Central Park in a trench. Even though this low-slung one-story building is hidden from the view of most park visitors, it was designed in an English Gothic style with a stone facade to be compatible with other structures and buildings in the park, including Belvedere Castle which is located nearby. The Manhattan station was designed by Morgan & Trainer architects, who also created several firehouses across the city. The emphasis on architectural quality was not only for the exterior; the plans also included Guastavino tile for the vaulted ceiling of the instrument room.

The Bronx and Brooklyn Fire Alarm Telegraph Stations, which are virtually identical in appearance, are Italian Renaissance Revival style buildings featuring a triple-arch entry loggia and a red tile hip roof. They were designed by Frank J. Helmle, an architect responsible for many buildings in Brooklyn including the Prospect Park Boathouse.

The Bronx station is located at the southeastern corner of Bronx Park, near the Bronx Zoo, while the Brooklyn station is located on parkland adjoining the Botanic Garden. Both are set back slightly from the street with lawns, creating stately settings along major urban thoroughfares. The Brooklyn station is a NYC Landmark (designated 1966), but its Bronx twin is not.

Queens Fire Alarm Telegraph Station

Following the opening of the three original Fire Alarm Telegraph Stations, a Queens Fire Alarm Telegraph Station in Forest Park was built and started operating in 1928. It sits prominently on a grassy knoll facing Woodhaven Boulevard and Park Lane South with a grove of trees rising behind it. The one-story station features an octagon-shaped central section with arch windows and a hip roof crowned by a cupola. There are flanking wings with limestone framed entrances. Curiously, this impressive building, incorporating Beaux-Arts and neo-Georgian design elements, is attributed to John R. Sliney, the Fire Department’s Building Inspector. Any architect who assisted Sliney is unrecorded.

The placing of the Fire Alarm Telegraph Stations in parks was not without controversy. For example, after widespread opposition, original plans to put the Bronx station near a playground in Crotona Park were dropped and the Bronx Park site was selected instead.

Staten Island did not get a dedicated facility of this type until 1962, when the island’s fire communications center moved from Borough Hall to a new building in Clove Lakes Park. Apart from the adjoining 200-foot tall radio tower, it’s easy to miss and lacks the architectural character of the earlier Fire Alarm Telegraph stations. Reflecting the Cold War times it was built in, the Staten Island facility was designed to withstand an atomic bomb attack, “except in case of direct hit or near miss,” the New York Times reported. It was built with a 35-foot below-ground bunker capable of operating for up to two weeks after an atomic bomb attack.

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WEDNESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY

ARM OF STATUE OF LIBERTY
PLACED IN MADISON SQUARE PARK
AS A FUND RAISER TO BUILD BASE ON LIBERTY ISLAND
Susan Lees and Lisa Fernandez guessed correctly

LETTER FROM A READER

Oh hello Ms. Berdy, thank you for the reply! I share your wonderful Editions with a colleague of mine who is in charge of our Greenacre Library at MAS (Erin Butler) and I was actually trying to tell her that you mentioned us! But please let me take this opportunity to tell you (and all involved) that your RIHS Editions have helped me thru these very difficult times we are all going thru, especially the first three months! It is something I look forward to reading every day, something that is so very interesting, beautiful, varied, and often featuring my favorite subject, Art (and in so many different forms!). It is just AMAZING that you have been able to put this out EVERY day!! Again, my thanks to you and all involved.
Sincerely, Maia
p.s. Lovely kitties today!

Text by Judith Berdy
Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS
Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website
Edited by Melanie Colter  and Deborah Dorff
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