Fire Engine Company 55
363 Broome Street | Little Italy | built 1900
Open on the map4 entries
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.
- 1898
R. H. Robertson files plans for the Broome Street firehouse
The architect R. H. Robertson submitted his plans for the firehouse to the Department of Buildings on July 13, 1898, with an estimated cost of $25,000 excluding the lot. The design called for a brick and Indiana limestone front forty-eight feet high under a copper-tiled mansard roof, plus a hose tower. The ground floor had Guastavino arches and glazed brick walls. It was Robertson's only firehouse commission for the city.
- 1899
Engine Company 55 moves into its new firehouse on Broome Street
Engine Company 55 was organized in 1887 at 173 Elm Street, now Lafayette Street. Widening of that street in 1896 forced the move, and in 1898 the city shifted its funds to buy this Broome Street site. Service from the new house began on June 6, 1899, with sixteen firemen and four horses. In 1903 the company answered 319 alarms.
- 1909
Fireman Albert Robinson is stabbed defending a boy outside the firehouse
On the evening of December 4, 1909, Albert Robinson of Engine 55 sent a boy who ran errands for the company to a nearby restaurant. When the boy came back he was set upon by several men after the quarter he carried, and Robinson stepped in. He was stabbed in the back with a seven-inch stiletto and taken to St. Vincent's Hospital. Vincenzo Curso was arrested for felonious assault.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1927
Wesley Williams of Engine 55 becomes the Fire Department's first Black officer
On September 15, 1927, Fire Commissioner John J. Dorman promoted Wesley Williams of Engine Company 55 to lieutenant. No Black member of the department had held a supervisory rank before him. Williams kept rising and retired on May 27, 1952, as a battalion chief, reportedly the highest-ranking Black firefighter in the country at the time.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
Further reading
- Fire Engine Company 55 -- 363 Broome StreetDaytonian in Manhattan
Nearby
- Church of San Salvatore359 Broome Street | 3 entries
- Fire Engine Company 55363 Broome Street | 4 entries
- 163 Mott Street2 entries
- 375 Broome Street5 entries
- Sohotel (Occidental Hotel)148 Bowery | 6 entries
- 192 Grand Street House192 Grand Street | 4 entries