My spouse and I visited the New York
City Fire Museum (NYCFM) on a Sunday morning in mid-October 2017. The museum is
open daily from 10:00 am until 5:00 pm, but be sure to consult the website for
exact days and times because it was previously closed on Mondays. Admission
costs $8 per adult, with discounts for seniors, students, and children. A
street-level gift shop (which you can visit without purchasing admission),
second-floor restrooms and museum space, and third-level event space
(accessible by stairs or elevator) are onsite. (On the morning that we
visited, as we toured the second level, a group of excited and boisterous
children were audibly attending a birthday party above us.)
Since 1987, the fire museum has been
located in SoHo on Spring Street (between Hudson and Varick Streets). It
occupies an early-1900s Beaux-Arts building that was once home to the Engine Company
Number 30. (Previously, until the collection grew too large, the museum
occupied part of a firehouse on Duane Street and was called the “New York City Fire Department Collection”. Prior
to that time, it was located in Long Island and called the “Fire College Museum”.) Retired volunteer
firefighters staff the museum and answer questions. The gentlemen working the
front desk suggested that we begin on the second floor so that we could
progress chronologically through the exhibits, equipment, and displays.
The second floor gallery
displays firefighting tools and memorabilia from the 17th to 19th
centuries (when many firefighters were volunteers and bucket brigades were commonplace),
including elaborately painted and decorated horse-drawn and hand-pulled
engines, pumps, decorative shields, ceremonial objects, artwork, helmets,
buckets, trumpets, and fire marks. In fact, the museum owns over 10,000 objects
in its collection (not all displayed at one time) as well as a huge number of
photographs. The first/ground floor displays modern firefighting equipment and
artifacts (related to the paid profession of firefighting), as well as a
tasteful and sensitive memorial to the 343 firefighters who died on September
11, 2001 and artifacts recovered from the World Trade Center site.
We have walked by this museum many times, and we are glad
that we finally had time for a visit. It was informative and enjoyable!
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