Engine Company 15 Firehouse

269 Henry Street | Lower East Side | built 1900

Open on the map6 entries

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

1. 1854

   A fine private house at 269 Henry Street becomes the Americus Engine Company firehouse

   In 1854 an upscale house on this site was converted into a firehouse for Americus Engine Company No. 6, a volunteer company known as the Big Six. The interiors kept many luxurious details, and the 1855 roster of ten live-in members listed spar-makers, caulkers, sail-makers and stevedores. In 1861 the company had 48 members and received a new Silsby steam engine. This was an earlier building on the site.

   Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

2. 1865

   September 5

   Volunteer firemen sell their piano and 100 paintings as a paid department takes over

   After the state created a paid Metropolitan fire district in 1865, the Big Six sold the furnishings of its house on September 5, including a piano, thirty velvet-cushioned chairs, five sofas and about a hundred oil paintings. Two weeks later, a committee recommended that Metropolitan Engine Company No. 15 be organized in the former Americus quarters at 269 Henry Street. This was an earlier building on the site.

   Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

3. 1884

   Napoleon LeBrun and Son design a new firehouse that mixes Romanesque and Queen Anne styles

   The Fire Department sought bids in December 1882, and in September 1883 Mahony Bros. won the $18,200 construction contract. The firm of Napoleon LeBrun and Son, official fire department architects, combined Romanesque Revival with Queen Anne, using cast-iron capitals with torches and sunflowers and terra cotta sunflower tiles under the cornice. They used the same design again for Engine Company 53 on East 104th Street and Engine Company 54 on West 47th Street.

   Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

4. 1903

   January 19

   Firemen from Engine 15 rig a life net for a man on a sixth-floor ledge, and it fails

   When the Heyward Brothers and Wakefield chair factory on Madison Street caught fire after a benzene explosion, Engine 15 arrived to find 23-year-old Frederick Zimmerman on a sixth-floor ledge. Firemen and civilians stretched a life net, and Zimmerman jumped, landing on his back, but crashed through to the sidewalk and went to Gouverneur Hospital. Other trapped workers were also rescued that night, at least one carried down a ladder.

   Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

5. 1975

   July 11

   More than 200 neighbors march to save the firehouse from city budget closures

   During New York's fiscal crisis in 1975, Mayor Abraham Beame's administration put Engine Company 15 on a list of stations to be closed. On July 11 more than 200 protesters, many of them elderly, paraded outside Fire Department headquarters on Church Street. The protest worked and the company stayed open, though it moved to a Pitt Street firehouse in 2002.

   Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

6. 2007

   The city hands the vacant firehouse to the Henry Street Settlement

   After Engine Company 15 left for Pitt Street in 2002, the LeBrun building sat empty and its cast-iron company sign was removed. In 2007 the city transferred it to the Henry Street Settlement. Preservation architects J. Lawrence Johns and Associates and Beyer Blinder Belle planned a community and settlement space that would keep the historic design intact.

   Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

• Engine Company No. 15 -- No. 269 Henry StreetDaytonian in Manhattan

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