Firehouses

[Slim]

Just to bump this back to the top....

I'd like to take a minute to honor the memory of three Detroit firefighters who died in the line of duty at a five alarm fire in a vacant warehouse at 4584 Jeffries service drive, box 382, on March 12, 1987.

• Lt Paul Schimeck, Engine 10

• Lt David Lau, Engine 26

• Trial Firefighter Larry McDonald, Engine 26.

Truly a sad and tragic day, and the inspiration for Bill Day's famous "Crying Dalmatian" editorial cartoon.

Bill Eisner [[a well-known fire photographer for 50 years) submitted an article to Firehouse magazine. That text, along with pictures, can be found here.

May their sacrifices and memory live on.

[DetroitTeacher]

I remember that day like it was yesterday. Lt. Schimeck relieved my dad that morning. I always think that it could have been my dad in that fire. Dad was one of his pall bearers. So senseless. Lt. Schimeck's son just passed away not long ago [[maybe a few months). Because of the sacrifices that these guys make each day, I am proud to be a fireman's daughter!

Just to bump this back to the top....

I'd like to take a minute to honor the memory of three Detroit firefighters who died in the line of duty at a five alarm fire in a vacant warehouse at 4584 Jeffries service drive, box 382, on March 12, 1987.

• Lt Paul Schimeck, Engine 10

• Lt David Lau, Engine 26

• Trial Firefighter Larry McDonald, Engine 26.

Truly a sad and tragic day, and the inspiration for Bill Day's famous "Crying Dalmatian" editorial cartoon.

Bill Eisner [[a well-known fire photographer for 50 years) submitted an article to Firehouse magazine. That text, along with pictures, can be found here.

May their sacrifices and memory live on.

[Buy American]

I went to high school with Larry McDonald, Sr., who was also a firefighter. He was never the same after Larry, Jr. died. Tragic day, sobering to all firefighters about what can happen when they are called to fight a fire. I remember it like it was yesterday, too. Blessings to the families of the three brave men who perished that day.

[Rocko]

From today's Detroit News, "The Home Newspaper":

July 4, 2012 at 12:17 pm
Residents, officials fight to save fire engine in southwest Detroit

• By Josh Katzenstein

Supporters chant “save our firehouse” and “don't let Detroit burn” to protest the closure of Engine Company 33 in Southwest Detroit Tuesday. [[Max Ortiz / The Detroit News)


Detroit— Residents in southwest Detroit are rallying to stop the potential closure of a Detroit Fire Department engine.

Engine 33 could be closed as early as Thursday, and after it's gone, residents could face longer wait times during a fire, firefighters said Tuesday.

"It's insane," said Wayne County Commissioner Ilona Varga, D-Lincoln Park, who lived in southwest Detroit for more than 30 years. "With all the small businesses in the area and also the compact neighborhoods, I just can't believe that they're actually even thinking about this station closing — any station, but especially this station."

The closure is one of 15 trucks being shut down by the department as part of $250 million in cuts across the city for the 2012-13 budget as Mayor Dave Bing announced last week.

The department was set to lay off 164 firefighters, but a federal grant helped prevent 108 layoffs. Fire Department spokesman Capt. Dale Bradley said Tuesday he didn't know when the trucks would close or which ones were at risk, but firefighters at the fire house on Lawndale Street, just north of Fort Street and west of Springwells Street, said Tuesday they'd heard Engine 33 would be shut down Thursday. Cuts were to take effect July 1.

Now, when fires start near the station, the only truck in the fire house is Ladder 13, which hasn't had a working water pump in years, Sgt. David McLeod said. Residents will have to wait for another station.

Southwest Detroit is a community with 34 percent of its population age 18 or younger as of 2010, up from 31 percent in 2000, according to the U.S. Census. During the same time period, the young people in Detroit dropped from 31 percent to less than 27 percent.

The Detroit Fire Department responds to 30,000 fire calls annually, according to the city, and a drive through neighborhoods with ravaged, vacant homes shows how southwest Detroit contributes to that number. And with all those calls, residents and firefighters have gotten to know each other.

"I know they have to make cuts, but you'd think this is one of the last places they would want to make cuts," McLeod said.

"If we don't have any trucks … [[fires are) going to spread from one house to the other house because they're so close," said Lynne Thomas, 31.

Thomas helped gather about 15 people to rally in front of the fire house Tuesday afternoon, chanting, "Save our fire house," and "Save our babies."

McLeod wouldn't speculate on how much longer fire response would be after the shutdown, but the closest stations face the possible challenge of traffic from Interstate 75 or trains [[Engine 29, 7600 W. Jefferson Ave., to the south and Engine 27, 4700 Fort St., to the east). And if there are two fires at the same time the wait could be longer.

"I'll continue to fight hard to find the resources to keep this station open," said state Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Detroit, who lives near the fire station with her husband and two sons, ages 1 and 6. "Getting the residents involved and taking action and trying to keep the doors open here is so important to the future of our neighborhood."

jkatzenstein@detnews.com
[[313) 222-2019



From The Detroit News: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/2...#ixzz1ziN6qOfV


----------
The closure of this Engine Co. would be a sad loss for a couple reasons:
a) the potential for future abandonment of another historic firehouse in Detroit, with the immediate loss of jobs at this engine company.
b) the opportunity for fire that do break out in generally stable and intact SW to grow larger faster with a slower DFD response time from surrounding stations, as noted in the article.

The closure of this engine company doesn't seem like it would really save all that much money, considering the building would still be open for Ladder 13 [[thank goodness, not another historic firehouse abandonment). I don't know where the cuts should happen, but closing stations in somewhat stable neighborhoods is not the answer.

[webband1]

The Engine 2 building at Larned and St Antoine was bought a few months back by the UDM Law School. Their plan is to open it as a low-cost legal clinic. No link, but I work nearby and it was in Crain's.

UD Mercy is opening their legal clinic this Monday... Here are a few pictures of the outside.






I will try to get some photos of the inside of the building in the next couple of days. From the sidewalk it seems they did a really nice job.

[Dfd]

Here is the link to where this thread began in 2006. I like to go back and start over. I think you will too.
http://atdetroit.net/forum/messages/...tml?1173935391

[p69rrh51]

Here is the link to where this thread began in 2006. I like to go back and start over. I think you will too.
http://atdetroit.net/forum/messages/...tml?1173935391

Start over for?

[Dfd]

Just go back and see the tons of pictures and stories.

[Rocko]

Wow, I was not aware that the cutbacks from last summer took so many historic firehouses off the active list. Many are up for sale and are starting to be vandalized. Some would make such great adaptive reuse projects and could really help anchor their respective neighborhoods.

http://detroit.curbed.com/archives/2...in-detroit.php

[Rocko]

Another article about the historic firehouses closed in 2012 [[Ladder 8 on Junction closed in 2007?) and now being put up for sale by the City. I appreciate their desire to lure "community beacon" adaptive reuses for the surrounding neighborhoods, and I hope that intent is something they follow through with. Some of these are architecture treasures and could offer a lot to their community.

Detroit to sell 7 vacant firehouses, renovated police facility

May 8, 2013

Engine Company 18 and Ladder Company 10 will no longer be sharing the fire house on Mt. Elliot in Detroit. Engine 18 is being taken out of service, 17 firefigthers will be dispersed into different fire houses and three will be laid off. / Romain Blanquart/Detroit Free Press



Detroit is selling seven unused firehouses and a renovated but long-vacant police facility that once housed horses in a move to raise money and encourage redevelopment in a city bleeding cash and fighting to avoid a municipal bankruptcy.

The Bing administration says it hopes developers come forward with creative ideas for the reuse of architecturally significant buildings, most of which have been closed in recent years as the city downsized its fire operations due to a shrinking population and tax base.

The buildings — some that date to the city’s boom in the 1920s — are structurally sound, but have been vandalized and, in some cases, stripped of hardware, metals and other materials.

The city sent out requests for proposals last week and will accept bids through May 24. A group of interested bidders will take tours during open houses Wednesday, which are open to the public.

“The ultimate bid winners are going to be those who come up with the best ideas,” said Brad Dick, director of the city’s General Services Department, which handles the city’s building maintenance, property and vehicle management and upkeep of properties, including parks. “We want something that fits today’s Detroit, something cool and different.”

Dick said the city has heard from developers looking to bring new restaurants or funky ideas such as wineries or micro-distilleries creating locally crafted liquors.

The properties include the old 6,724-square-foot Detroit Fire Department Ladder No. 10 at 3396 Vinewood near West Grand Boulevard on the city’s west side, which carries the highest minimum bid requirement at $128,000. The building, and more than a dozen others citywide, were shut down in 2012 when Mayor Dave Bing and the City Council slashed the Fire Department’s budget as the city’s financial crisis worsened.

Since then, thieves, scrappers and vandals have taken their toll, Dick said.

The buildings are “in from ‘good shape’ to ‘need some work,’ ” Dick said.

Bing’s office said the city is hoping that the new developments will attract more people and businesses and act as a stabilizer in the neighborhoods nearby, citing examples like Slows Bar B Q, which became a nationally mentioned destination restaurant that lured visitors to the Corktown neighborhood despite being across the street from the city’s most notorious eyesore, the Michigan Central Station.

The buildings will not be the first Detroit firehouses to be sold for reuse. A developer and the city are finalizing a sale of the old Detroit Fire headquarters at Larned and Washington downtown. The developer wants to create a boutique hotel in the 1920s-era building across from Cobo Center by 2015.

Dick said the city is not looking for developers to turn the facilities into garages or storage facilities, but instead as beacons of culture and “cool” for a city attempting a comeback.

“This can really change the neighborhood,” Dick said. “That’s why it’s so important that the right things go in there.”

Bing spokesman Bob Warfield said the sales and redevelopments are not directly related to other efforts under way by consultants to pull together an updated list of the city’s assets and properties so that the city can begin selling land and buildings it no longer needs. That’s one part of the government restructuring that the city’s emergency manager, Kevyn Orr, is overseeing in his 18-month tenure that is expected to dramatically change the size and scope of what services the city can continue to offer residents.

The combined total in minimum bids the city stands to make from the sales is $637,000 — small change compared to the city’s estimated $380-million budget deficit or its staggering $15 billion in long-term retiree benefits and bond debts.

But Bing said it is a step toward encouraging redevelopment and ridding the city of buildings and properties it no longer needs and that generate no taxes.

“We need to raise money,” Bing said in a statement. “These are the kinds of developments, the kinds of people we need to attract.”

People interested in redeveloping any of the eight buildings may call Jill Bryant at 313-628-0904 or Jim Marusich at 313-224-3517.




Contact Matt Helms: 313-222-1450 or mhelms@freepress.com.
http://www.freep.com/article/2013050...rgency-manager

[SWMAP]

I am so sad about the Junction Firehouse - stripped and forlorn. I think, because it has bays, that some tire repair shop will buy it. A beautiful, Victorian building in good repair until the City let it get ruined.

[gvidas]

Many [[maybe all?) of the firehouses have an 'open house'/walk-through today from 9-11AM or 1-3PM. Check the RFP for details on the ones you're interested in, it's in the list of significant dates on the last page of writing.

[p69rrh51]

#2 on the list designed by Malcomson & Higginbotham.



Engine 27 Detroit Fire Department 1467 Junction built in 1902 Detroit, MI.

[p69rrh51]

#3 on the list another Malcomson & Higginbotham design.


Engine 10 Detroit Fire Department 3396 Vinewood, built in 1902 Detroit, MI.

[p69rrh51]

#6 on the list from George D. Mason. Includes an image from the Burton Historic Collection.



Engine House #18 Detroit Fire Department 3812 Mount Elliot built in 1892 Detroit, MI.

[p69rrh51]

#4 on the list from Chittenden & Kotting.



Ladder Company #12 Detroit Fire Department 1625 West Lafayette built in 1908 Detroit, MI.

[p69rrh51]

#8 on the list and my favorite firehouse in
the city from Chittenden & Kotting.



Engine 38 Detroit Fire Department 1113 Coplin built in 1915 Detroit. MI.

[p69rrh51]

#5 on the list from Louis Kamper including an image of the station from the Burton Historic Collection.



Hamlin Avenue Station Detroit Police Department 210 East Bethune built in 1898 Detroit, MI.

[p69rrh51]

Engine #18 being secured 5-8-13.

[marshamusic]

#5 on the list from Louis Kamper including an image of the station from the Burton Historic Collection.



Hamlin Avenue Station Detroit Police Department 210 East Bethune built in 1898 Detroit, MI.

Is this station on Bethune the one off John R, that had the police horse stables?

[p69rrh51]

Is this station on Bethune the one off John R, that had the police horse stables?

Yes, that is the station.

[marshamusic]

Yes, that is the station.

I love that place. I even put it in a poem. I loved the horses when I was a kid. I keep hearing that they are going to keep horses there again. I see mounted police all the time, so where do they put the horses?

[FEO]

New site related to Detroit Fire Department

http://www.detroit.fdmaps.com/

[Dfd]

Thanks for the excellent pictures!

[Dfd]

http://www.dfdlegacy.com/detroit-fir...tory-march-12/
Tomorrow will be 30 years since this fire.