IT doesn’t look like much now. The Centennial
Firehouse, a two-story red-brick structure built
in 1890, is tucked under a large metal bridge
and has been abandoned for more than two
decades.
Weeds are growing up the sides of the
building, the windows are covered with sheets of
metal, and crumbled bricks litter the floor.
But next week, the 118-year-old building will
be ready for its second act. The firehouse is
being moved, and if all goes as planned, it will
ultimately be renovated to become a museum and
part of a historic district.
The firehouse’s history is still fresh to
some of the firefighters who worked there.
Deputy Chief John Esposito not only remembers
off the top of his head the day the firehouse
closed — Oct. 19, 1980. He also knows by heart
the names of the two members of the company who
died in the line of duty on Aug. 1, 1918, while
battling a fierce fire at the Fleischmann plant.
“They were John Torpy and Walter Cole,” Mr.
Esposito said. “Walter Cole was 18. He had just
been elected to the company in July. That was
his first major fire, and unfortunately his
last.”
He wasn’t certain of Mr. Torpy’s age but
speculated he was about 21, because he had just
gotten out of the Army. (Five members from the
Cortlandt Hook and Ladder Company were also
killed in the Fleischmann fire.) The men died
when a brick wall collapsed on them.
Mr. Esposito, a 44-year veteran of the
Peekskill Fire Department, can tell you about
the company’s first fire apparatus — it was
called a jumper, and the water was hand-pumped.
The firemen responded to fires by pulling the
wagons themselves, sometimes running up the
steep hills surrounding the station.
Mr. Esposito even knows the names of the two
horses — Homer and John — that pulled the
company’s first horse-drawn wagon, purchased in
1908. The horses were kept in a stall on the
side of the firehouse.
Fond as he is of the firehouse’s history, Mr.
Esposito was delighted when the company moved to
its current quarters on Washington Street.
“We were ecstatic,” he said. “When you got
torrential rains, the old firehouse would get
flooded out. We’d have three feet of water in
the building. And it happened all the time.”
After it was closed, the building and
surrounding property were sold to a developer.
But the area was mostly abandoned, and over
time, the vacant firehouse became home to
vagrants and began to deteriorate.
It wasn’t until the State Department of
Transportation made plans to reconstruct Route 9
here that the firehouse got back on the city’s
radar.
The $72.9 million project will replace four
bridges in Peekskill, including the bridge over
Central Avenue, where the old firehouse sits.
To make the improvements, which include
additional lanes and wider shoulders, the
firehouse had to go.
The Transportation Department condemned the
property.
This is not the first time the Centennial
Firehouse and Route 9 have gotten in each
other’s way. In 1932, when the original bridge
was constructed, workers had to shave off part
of the firehouse’s roof to accommodate it.
This time, however, the Transportation
Department, the city and the New York State
Historic Preservation Office worked together to
devise a plan to relocate the structure.
The cost of the move is part of the highway
project budget (there is a cap of $400,000), and
the city also received a $1 million state grant
to rehabilitate the building.
Moving a brick building that is more than a
century old is a delicate task. Workers begin by
cutting two-foot by two-foot holes around its
base. Steel beams are then slid through the
holes to help create a new foundation. The
building is lifted up, and rollers are slid
underneath.
The firehouse will have to be rotated 90
degrees before it is moved, to avoid utility
lines and the existing bridge pier, said Sandra
Jobson, a Transportation Department spokeswoman.
It will be rolled about 500 feet to a corner
of a parking lot, its temporary resting spot.
The ultimate plan is to move the firehouse in
about 10 months to
Lincoln Plaza, about a block away, where it
will be restored and placed near the Lincoln
Depot, where Abraham Lincoln gave a short speech
in February 1861.
Lincoln visited Peekskill during his
inaugural train journey, on his only stop in
Westchester.
City officials envision a small visitors
center, the Lincoln depot and the firehouse all
linked as a mini-historical area on the
waterfront. Peekskill has other historic
neighborhoods, including the Fort Hill Historic
District. Mayor Mary Foster said the city was
accepting proposals for the design and use of
the plaza.
The public will be given an opportunity to
weigh in on the proposed designs, she said.
“You need to balance the economic
possibilities of revitalization while preserving
our history,” Ms. Foster said. “The fire
companies would clearly like to have a museum
aspect to the firehouse.
“Since it’s a two-floor firehouse, you could
also do some sort of food part — firehouse
cooking maybe. But whatever we do, we want the
full community’s support.”
