Firehouses

[Dfd]

DT, just got on after a few weeks. How's your dad?

[DetroitTeacher]

Dad is at home and doing great! He's back at work and causing trouble, as usual.

[Detroitgayhistoryguy]

I think this one is on Grand River?

[cosine]

No. That's Engine 22 on Michigan, just west of Junction. The unit was disbanded many years ago.

[jackie5275]

No. That's Engine 22 on Michigan, just west of Junction. The unit was disbanded many years ago.

As you can kind of see, it was a short lived Mexican restaurant in the early 90s.

[Detroitgayhistoryguy]

ok, I forgot where I took the picture. It really looks like a cool building. Too bad about the wild paint job.

[TONY BOX 42]

"TEACH", Glad to hear Dad is back agrivating Joe.
RAY, The invasion starts today. I hope you have enough wheel chairs,walkers and
defribalaters.
D.G.H., E.22 closed in 1983. Became a restaurant, then a tire shop.

[Cincinnati_Kid]

Man, I'd love to see the inside of a old firehouse, that was converted to a residence. You must be able to get one of those kinda cheap, since I've seen quite a few on here.

[cosine]

The only old firehouse that is currently a residence is Engine 35, at the corner of Beaubien and Mt. Vernon, which is about 8-10 blocks north of East Grand Blvd. Engine 5 in the Eastern Market is a restaurant. Ladder 14 on Jefferson at Pennsylvania is an office for Pewabic Pottery, I believe. Engine 8, at Bagley and Sixth, is an office building occupied by a couple of law firms. Engine 2, Larned and St. Antoine, appears to be under construction, but you can't tell what it will become yet. The rest appear to be abandoned or mothballed.

[Meddle]

Engine 5 in the Eastern Market is a restaurant.

Engine 6; Russell and Erskine, attached to the Apparatus Division

Engine 5, Squad 2, Ladder ? ; Cass & Alexandrine


I thought Engine 59/Chief 11 [[later Chief 4) had a siren too, although it may have been a different style.

[cosine]

Tony--my bad. I get so excited about firehouses I forget whether its "engine" or "ladder" sometimes. It's Ladder 5 on Russell...probably because in 1883 all we had were horse drawn wagons with ladders and there were no engines. Are you going to the annual breakfast ceremony at Cobo Hall this year to honor the DFD?

[TONY BOX 42]

Slight correction. Old L.5 is the restaurant. E.5 will celebrate it's Centenial on Saturday.
Open house. Good time to visit . I was not aware old E.2 was being renovated. Last I
knew it was a law office.I wiil check and report back.

[TONY BOX 42]

M CD M , How did E.52 get into that mix ? I can never see enough engine house photos.
Cin. Kid. I have always maintained an Engine house for a residence is a money burner.
If an old Engine house could be used as a residence/ business to generate
revenue O.K. Theese caverns are expensive to heat.

[M CD M]

All those firehouses except the one on jefferson by waterworks park have or had Warning sirens on them.
Engine, 44,53, 34, 50, 30, 40, 49, 21, 47, 52, 26, 42, 58, 51, 54, 57, 55, 48, Training on Warren/lawton, and apparturus repair have/had sirens on them

[TONY BOX 42]

Cosine, Before the old man turns in, a little history lesson. First off I went by E.2 tonight.
You are correct. Work is being done on the interior. I was pleasently surprised
to see the tiles on the apparatus floor were in tact as was all of the original wood paneling. The Larned side entrance is now a single door with stone siding on the second door.
I think one of the Packard squads ran out of that door. Not sure of that.L.20 runs
with E.5. See post#117. Now for your history lesson. Engine companies were two
piece. A steamer and a hose wagon.If you ever get a chance to see the complete
photo of the last run of the horses the hose wagon is close behind.. Horse drawn ladders were long and narrow and ran alone.E.6 started at High Street [[ Vernor) and Russell.
Moved to High Street Hastings.South end of the market.L.5 was at Russell and Calhoun[[Erskine). North end of the market.The shops were behind L.5.The classic photo of
the spare Arhens Foxs' was taken there. In1956 the new shops were built. The Russell side is a
four bay house. E.6,L.5 . moved in together .Ch.3 and Sq. 2 ran there for a time. The Civil Defense rig a Hose Wagon and a Foam rig also ran there. E.6 and L.5 have been out of service for some time. HAZ MAT 1 and 2 the Decon Rig and L.1 run there now . L.1 is out of service on a daily basis, manpower.Medic 8 also runs there.Thanks to Clarence Woodard, Matt Lee ,Dan Jasina and Richard Lancaster for allowing me to steal all of there hard work and research to make it look like I know what I am talking about. How do you spell plagiarism ?
I will not make Breakfast With A Firefighter this year.My loss.

[Rocko]

Somehow I had not previously made the connection that when the SW Public Safety Center opened on Fort Street, the enginehouse on Junction near Holy Redeemer closed up. I took a spin by the old 27/8 house today on Junction, shame to see it's already been hit by graffiti and the weeds are getting pretty tall. Anyone want to grab a can of red paint and paint over the graffiti on the front bay doors? It's really too bad, as another old firehouse is slowly biting the dust.

[Dfd]

Hi Everyone.
I finally got a program to transfer my old videos into the computer. I transfered some Detroit stuff from a visit there in 1999. Here are the youtube links. More to come.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYfP7Bv20S0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egFVG-cY1MU

[Dfd]

Here is FD Headquarters

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDOJ_HhVTGw

[Dfd]

Here is Eng 5 and Ladder 20 responding.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqncKV2GSsY

[Ray1936]

Here is FD Headquarters

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDOJ_HhVTGw

What the.......???? You mean FD HQ doesn't even house one lousy engine any more? What is the building used for?

[Meddle]

I haven't watched the video, are you talking about the GMCs? Remember the Gerstenschlagers?

[TONY BOX 42]

I haven't watched the video. The original "Pie Wagon " or "Bread Trucks" were Chevy Boyertons.Next batch were Chevy Utilimasters.The" Gerts" were on G.M.C. , Ford and Dodge chassis.From Matt Lees' apparatus history.

[TONY BOX 42]

Rocko: E.27's quarters was a real old time nieghborhood fire house.The SWPSC reminds me of a quick change oil shop.

[Meddle]

What is this '30 minute rehab' crap after they clear a run? When did they become entitled to go out of service and goof around? You get another run, you take another run. You don't like it, go to work for Burger King.

I can remember many times when companies would go from run to run to run all night long.

[7051]

Unfortunately, going from run to run all those years only helped the city continue to cut our manpower and shorten your life and retirement years. They might as well cut us down as the fires still go out and we just keep working harder and harder. Hell, why not cut us to 500 from the current 1,100, or the 1,350 we had 5 years ago, or the 1,850 you had years ago when you went from "run to run"!

Take a look at what other big cities fd's have done over the last 30 years. Many have been doing some kind of "rehab" after fires and therefore, made it much harder for their city administrators to cut numbers. Hell, FDNY "taps out" after after a fire in a shift - they go off duty and an OT is created!! In fact, you are looked down upon there if you don't go off after a fire as you are cutting into job security and OT. And they still have the same 11,500 guys they had back in the early seventies!
Time and time again we have other big city firefighters here visiting and they are amazed at the work load we do per person. They say they admire us, but sometimes I think they think we are a bunch of idiots for busting our ass as much as we do and consequently, the incredibly high injury rate we have [[75% of the time for a vacant piece of garbage).