Engine Company 31 Firehouse
87 Lafayette Street | also 98 White Street | Civic Center | built 1895
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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.
- 1894
LeBrun's firehouse plans meet the buried Collect Pond, so the building rests on wooden pilings
In 1894 N. LeBrun & Son drew plans for a new home for Engine Company 31, then at 116 Leonard Street. The site lay over the filled-in Collect Pond, which in the 18th century covered 48 acres and in places ran 60 feet deep. Water still lay below the surface, so LeBrun had immense wooden pilings driven in to carry the foundation, reasoning that they would stay stable while submerged.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1896
The finished chateau-style firehouse costs $80,000 and draws critics' scorn
Completed in 1896 at a cost of $80,000, the chateau-like firehouse was admittedly beautiful, but some contemporary critics found it excessive. Montgomery Schuyler, writing in The Architectural Record, questioned what elegance had to do with the grimly practical business of putting out fires. The Real Estate Record & Guide called the building a manifestly extravagant absurdity.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1896
Napoleon LeBrun designs a firehouse styled after a Loire Valley chateau
Fire Department architect Napoleon LeBrun and his son's firm completed this two-story limestone-and-brick firehouse in 1896 at a cost of about $80,000, modeling it on Loire Valley chateaux with a slate roof and bold dormers. Some critics at the time called the design "a manifestly extravagant absurdity" for a firehouse.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1966
The Landmarks Commission designates Engine Company 31 after the Fire Commissioner speaks for it
The Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the firehouse a city landmark on January 18, 1966. At the hearing, Fire Commissioner Robert O. Lowery testified in favor and noted that a new firehouse of comparable size would cost more than one million dollars. The commission found its detail and fine materials unsurpassed among buildings of its kind.
“…were we required to build a fire house of comparable cubage, the cost would be more than one million dollars…”
- 1972
The firehouse is added to the National Register of Historic Places
In 1972 the firehouse earned a place on the National Register of Historic Places. The city had designated it a landmark six years earlier, in 1966. It is now occupied by the Downtown Community Television Center.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1972
The fire department vacates the firehouse after more than seven decades
Engine Company 31 occupied the building until it moved out in November 1972, just months after the firehouse was added to the National Register of Historic Places. The department had used the station since shortly after its 1895 completion.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1983
Downtown Community Television and a planning council buy the firehouse
Downtown Community Television, which had rented space in the former firehouse since 1979, purchased the building with the Chinese-American Planning Council in 1983 for $400,000. They later spent about $800,000 rebuilding its foundation after pilings driven into the filled Collect Pond dried out and rotted as the old pond's water level fell.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 2022
DCTV opens Firehouse Cinema, a documentary-only movie theater, in the old firehouse
In 2022 Downtown Community Television opened the Firehouse Cinema in the former Engine Company 31 building. The theater shows documentaries only, screening first-run films and specialty programs through the year. DCTV, founded in 1972 by filmmakers Jon Alpert and Keiko Tsuno, runs its classes, studios and venue rentals from the same landmarked building.
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- Firehouse, Engine Company 31Wikipedia
- Engine Company 31 - 87 Lafayette StreetDaytonian in Manhattan
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