Engine Company 18 Firehouse

132 West 10th Street | West Village | built 1891

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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. 1891

    N. LeBrun & Sons give Engine Company 18 a Romanesque-to-Classical face

    The Landmarks Preservation Commission describes the narrow firehouse as built for the city in 1891 and designed by N. LeBrun & Sons, much like many others by the firm. Its third-floor arched windows, first-floor ironwork and checkerboard brick quoins come from the Romanesque Revival. The deep cornice and terra cotta fascia with bosses beneath it point to the new classicism.

    “…built for the City in 1891 and was designed by N. LeBrun & Sons ... transitional from Romanesque Revival to Classical…”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  2. 1892

    Engine Company 18 moves into a new firehouse on a former rooming-house lot

    As Greenwich Village's population boomed, the city bought an old rooming house at 132 West 10th Street in 1891 to build a firehouse for Engine Company 18. The company moved into the finished building in 1892. For decades its horse-drawn engines sped through Village streets, often narrowly avoiding streetcars, pedestrians and other traffic.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1907

    February

    Engine Company 18 holds back a brewery-building fire from a school and a cancer hospital

    A lunchtime blaze swept through the old Tracy & Russell Brewery building at Eleventh Street and Greenwich Avenue, by then home to the Manhattan Screw and Stamping Company. Engine Company 18 worked to keep the flames away from Grammar School 41, where 1,400 girls were evacuated, and from the House of Calvary cancer hospital on Perry Street. Three firemen were overcome on fire escapes but revived and returned; the building was lost, at a cost of about $100,000.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1907

    September 29

    A streetcar smashes into the Engine 18 hose wagon, and a fireman survives

    Rushing to an alarm at Washington and Christopher streets, the hose tender followed the engine along West 10th Street while motorman Frederick W. Unkelman kept his streetcar moving past the emergency vehicles. The car struck the wagon broadside and knocked fireman John J. Harvey off his feet, his legs smashing through the car windows. He held on until the tender cleared, then collapsed unconscious; the motorman was arrested, and the alarm proved false.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 1910

    August 19

    The head of the Paris Fire Department spends a night at the firehouse

    Raoul Frere, chief of the Paris Fire Department, spent a week in August 1910 studying New York's fire service and told reporters New York's firemen were more advanced than London's and those of the other large cities of Europe. After Captain Howard Rusch took him to see night court on August 19, he returned to West 10th Street and stayed all night with Engine Company 18 so he could answer every alarm with the apparatus.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  6. 1921

    July

    Firemen build a swimming tank for neighborhood children, then shut it down

    In the summer of 1921, five Engine 18 firemen pooled $50 to build a wheeled wooden swimming tank with steps and slides that could be rolled under the street shower. Hundreds of children used it daily, and a grown-ups' evening on July 26 drew crowds hoping to see flappers, though only four young women swam. The publicity led Captain James Simms to close it. Children paraded in bathing suits chanting for their tank, but it never came back.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  7. 1966

    Engine Company 18 loses most of its responding crew in a 1966 Manhattan fire

    In October 1966 the company joined other units at a fire in converted brownstones near Broadway and West 22nd Street. A burning cellar went unnoticed until a section of floor collapsed, and twelve firefighters died, the worst disaster in the department's history at the time. Of the seven Engine 18 members who responded, only two returned: John Donovan, who arrived late, and Manuel Fernandez, who was connecting hoses in the street.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  8. 2001

    September 11

    Squad Company 18 loses eight men at the World Trade Center

    The company was redesignated Squad Company 18 on July 1, 1998, as the city expanded units trained for hazardous materials and weapons threats. On September 11, 2001, members of the firehouse rushed to the World Trade Center after the airliner attacks. Daytonian in Manhattan counts eight men from the company among those lost.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

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