Columbian Hook and Ladder Company firehouse

102 Charles Street | West Village | built 1854

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The lot about 1940
About 1940. Via 1940s.nyc
The lot about 1985
About 1985. Via 80s.nyc

The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.

Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

  1. 1855

    The city buys Samuel Chase's new house and converts it into a firehouse

    Accountant Samuel D. Chase built this house in 1854 and sold it to the city the next year. The city wanted a new fire company next to the Ninth Precinct station house at No. 100, which received reports of chimney fires. Its architect made an Italianate conversion, with double truck doors under an arched sandstone pediment. Volunteer Columbian Hook and Ladder Company 14 used it from 1857 to 1865, and Hook and Ladder Company 5 took it over when the paid department began.

    “…built as a house in 1854 for Samuel D. Chase, an accountant... selling the property to the City of New York the next year…”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  2. 1861

    June 1

    Firemen from Hook and Ladder 14 join the Fire Zouaves, and a captured flag is promised to the firehouse

    A few weeks after the Civil War began, several members of Columbian Hook and Ladder Company 14 joined Colonel Elmer Ellsworth's 11th New York Volunteers, a regiment of firefighters called the Fire Zouaves. On June 1, 1861 the New York Times reported that the first Confederate flag the regiment took in Virginia would hang, union down, beneath the Stars and Stripes on this Charles Street firehouse that Sunday morning.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1888

    November 16

    Ginger, the firehouse dog, is hit by a truck, and neighborhood children mourn him

    Ginger, a mixed-breed mascot of Hook and Ladder Company 5, ran at the head of the horses when the truck answered alarms and was a favorite of schoolgirls who stopped by to play. On November 16, 1888 he was struck by a truck on Bleecker Street, and a police officer shot him to end his suffering. Children crowded the firehouse to see him, and he was buried in the side yard.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1942

    June 20

    A collapsing wall flattens the Hook and Ladder 5 truck at a five-alarm fire

    A five-alarm fire on June 20, 1942 wrecked nearly the whole block bounded by Hudson, Washington, Leroy and Clarkson Streets and injured 50 firefighters. Hook and Ladder Truck 5, from this firehouse, was one of the first to arrive and was parked close in on Leroy Street. When the north wall fell, it flattened the truck, but a crack in the masonry had given warning and every firefighter got out.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 1960

    September 11

    Feral cats leave fleas that drive Ladder Company 5 out of its firehouse

    In fall 1960 two stray cats moved into the basement, and one had kittens. By September 11 the company's men were scratching, and two chiefs were bitten when they came to investigate. The firehouse was emptied, the truck and crew moved temporarily to Engine Company 24 on Morton Street, and an exterminator fumigated the building for three days before the firefighters returned on September 16.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  6. 1993

    Ladder Company 5 leaves, and the firehouse becomes a shop with apartments

    The building's 136 years as a firehouse ended in 1993. A renovation finished the following year left a store at street level and one apartment on each upper floor. For years the ground floor, once home to horses and later to motorized trucks, held the Plane Space art gallery.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

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