Firehouse, Engine Companies 264 & 328/Ladder Company 134
16-19 Central Avenue | also 16-17 Central Avenue, 16-15 Central Avenue | Far Rockaway | built 1959
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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.
- 1905
The city takes over Far Rockaway's volunteer fire company in its old wooden firehouse on this site
Far Rockaway's volunteer fire department, formed on January 26, 1887, became the city's Engine Company 164 on September 1, 1905, and kept working out of the volunteers' wood-frame house on Central Avenue. Residents soon protested that the fast-growing town was poorly protected, and in 1910 the Fire Commissioner set aside $50,000 to replace the old building with a new firehouse on the same spot.
- 1911
Hoppin & Koen file plans for a three-bay firehouse that runs over its $50,000 budget
Architects Hoppin & Koen filed plans in 1911 estimating the firehouse at $67,500, although the department had approved only $50,000. Builders Cockerill & Little won the job with a low bid of $65,769, and the final bill reported in 1913 came to $67,514. It was one of just three of the firm's standardized model firehouses built with the wider three-bay front, and the cheapest of those three.
- 1912
The new firehouse opens as Engine Company 264 and fire headquarters for all of the Rockaways
When the building was finished in 1912, the company was renamed Engine Company 264, and the house became fire headquarters for every part of the Rockaways, with a telegraph bureau inside. The Brooklyn Eagle described the party held for its opening as the biggest celebration the Rockaways had ever seen.
“Upon the building's completion in 1912, the fire company's name was changed to Engine Company 264.”
- 1939
Engine Company 328 joins the house, giving it the three-company name it still carries
Hook & Ladder Company 134 was organized here in 1913, and Engine Company 328 was added in 1939, giving the firehouse the three-company name it still carries. Nicknamed The Big House, its crews answered calls across the Rockaways and, according to the Landmarks Preservation Commission, saved lives during a run of large hotel fires in the middle and late twentieth century.
“…in 1939, Engine Company 328 was established at the same location.”
- 2018
The Landmarks Preservation Commission designates the Far Rockaway firehouse a city landmark
After a public hearing on April 24, 2018, the commission made the firehouse an individual landmark. Speakers for the Historic Districts Council and for Councilmember Donovan Richards, Jr. supported it, nobody spoke against it, and the Fire Department wrote to say it backed the designation.
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