The Journal News - Front page appearing 01-25-04

[TRUCK6018 50]

Westchester departments push for bigger, better firehouses

By ELIZABETH GANGA

THE JOURNAL NEWS

(Original publication: January 25, 2004)

As the population grew in Westchester in the early decades of the 20th century, a wave of fire departments were founded in the hamlets of the northern part of the county where fire protection had meant long waits for the few local departments to come to your aid.

Many of those departments are still answering calls out of the firehouses they built at that time, and the buildings from the 1920s and '30s are no longer capable of holding the equipment of modern firefighting and serving the other needs of changing departments.

Because of that, at least eight departments in northern Westchester — from North Salem to North Castle — have built new or expanded firehouses or plan construction in the near future. Two departments in Putnam County also have built new houses, and some communities in lower Westchester, including Mamaroneck, are talking about new buildings.

While neighbors have criticized some of the new houses as far too extravagant — comparing them to Wal-Mart or the Taj Mahal — fire commissioners and chiefs at each department point to deteriorating walls, low garage doors and jammed meeting rooms in the old stations to explain why new ones are needed. At the same time, the trucks they need to fit into the buildings have swelled.

"Everyone has the same problems, from training to storage to new apparatus," said Barry Zezze, a commissioner in the Chappaqua fire district, where a feasibility study is planned for a new station.

Between 1900 and 1940, the population of Westchester more than tripled, and places like Bedford and New Castle grew by thousands of residents. In a story repeated around the county, a small group of men would get together and form a department. In Armonk, three men realized the area needed its own department in 1930, when they were returning from a day of clamming in Connecticut and ran into the Greenwich department fighting a large grass fire. After using brooms to help beat out the flames, they returned home and began planning their own department.

The Armonk firehouse was finished in 1932, and stations in Croton Falls, Bedford Village, North White Plains and Millwood were all built in the decade before or after. These departments and others are now trying to build or expand houses for amounts ranging from $2 million in Croton Falls to $7.9 million in Armonk.

The hefty price tags, controversies over where the houses will be built and some residents' belief that the new structures — some with weight rooms and social halls — are glorified clubs for the volunteers have sparked opposition.

"I think that the intention is really, really good with all of these departments, but the practical reality of how they're going about it isn't always viewed as appropriate," said Charles Persico, a new fire commissioner in Bedford Village who won election after questioning the $7.5 million price tag and location of the proposed firehouse there.

In the years since firefighters wore raincoats and rode on the back of firetrucks, firefighting has changed in ways that strain the old houses. Trucks have grown dramatically larger, as safety regulations require firefighters to ride inside the cabs and the trucks must haul a whole slew of new equipment to fires and car accidents. Ceilings and doors are too low in many of the old buildings.

"The really big truck 15 years ago is more or less the standard-sized truck of today," said Robert Mitchell of Mitchell-Ross Associates, the architects for the North White Plains and Armonk departments.

In North White Plains, where voters rejected first a $3.5 million bond and then a $2.8 million bond last year, the trucks are too heavy to park over a basement boiler room, forcing them to stay near the front of the building. A spare truck had to be parked outside for several months and now is in storage in Connecticut. The department's first ladder truck, bought in 2001, barely fits.

The number of hours of training a firefighter must go through has multiplied several times in the past 30 years, and several departments want to add training rooms. The buildings — often used for public commissioners' meetings — are not wheelchair-accessible and weren't built to accommodate female firefighters.

Newer building materials mean firefighters return to the houses covered in toxic substances, and many of the old houses have no space for decontamination or to store the more complex safety gear firefighters now wear.

Many northern Westchester communities now need to protect tall and bulky buildings they never had before.

"You have houses today, my God, that scare you," said Erling Taylor, who joined the Armonk Fire Department in 1946. "You've got a lot of huge structures in town. Back then, you had a two-story house and that was it."

In Croton Falls, the cramped 1938 firehouse in the hamlet cannot be expanded, so the fire commissioners are proposing to expand a 1970 building on Route 116. Currently, a small room for the commissioners' meetings has boxes stacked against the wall and a computer on a desk in the corner. A closet serves as a file room. The apparatus bays fit three trucks and a small boat. But another tanker and maybe a ladder truck could be needed in the coming years, said Ted Daros, a former chief.

"There's no point in even talking about it until there's a place to put it," he said.

Though the Croton Falls proposal hasn't riled up residents, the Armonk house has been harshly criticized by some.

"Picture a Wal-Mart in a residential neighborhood, that's about the size of this thing," said Bill Carlino, who lives near the Armonk firehouse now under construction. Carlino fears the firehouse, along with other construction in the area, will change the quiet character of his block.

But Armonk Fire Commissioner John Heimerdinger said the new location is at the center of the district, and the new house is meant to serve for the next 50 years.

"Do we have more than we need?" Heimerdinger said. "Yeah, no doubt about it. But we won't have to come back to this community for a long, long time."

Reach Elizabeth Ganga at eganga@thejournalnews.com or 914-666-6482.

Side bar to article:

Organization dates of fire departments

• Armonk, 1931

• Banksville, 1949

• Bedford Hills, 1903

• Bedford Village, 1923

• Briarcliff Manor, 1901

• Buchanan, 1939

• Chappaqua, 1910

• Croton, 1892

• Croton Falls, 1893

• Goldens Bridge, 1909

• Katonah, 1874

• Millwood, 1924

• Mount Kisco, 1878

• North White Plains, 1912

• Ossining, 1883

• Peekskill, 1826

• Somers, 1930

• South Salem, 1938

• Verplanck, 1929

• Vista, 1941

• Yorktown, 1909

[mikeinet 37]

Lot of firehouse related photographs too.

http://www.thejournalnews.com/dailygallery/index.htm

Click on today's date 1/25/04

[CM36 4]

that was a great atricle and i hope that people understand better why we need bigger and better firehouse. North Whit Plains i think is just going to redo theirs and not make it that much bigger