Former Fire Engine Company No. 54

History and architecture

Erected in 1888, the former Fire Engine Company No. 54 was designed by the prominent firm of Napoleon LeBrun & Son, architects for the New York City Fire Department, between 1879 and 1895. Former Fire Engine Company No. 54 is a late but excellent example of LeBrun & Son’s numerous mid-block firehouses, reflecting the firm’s attention to materials, stylish details, plan and setting. Napoleon LeBrun, who had established his firm in New York City in 1864, achieved renown as a designer of office buildings, including those for Home Life Insurance Company and the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company.

LeBrun & Sons helped to define the Fire Department’s expression of civic architecture in more than forty buildings, constructed between 1879 and 1894. Built when midtown was developing into a rowhouse and tenement district, this firehouse represents the city’s commitment to the civic architecture of essential municipal services. The tenure of the LeBrun firm with the Fire Department coincided with a campaign to provide a strong presence through an increase in public building projects.

During this era, it was often the practice of architects to adapt the same design for different locations, as an economical and rapid means of creating public buildings that clearly identified there civic function. Fire Engine Company No.15, built in 1883-84 at 29 Henry Street, and Fire Engine Company No. 53 built in 1883- 84 at 175 East 104th Street, have virtually identical facades to the Former Fire Engine Company No. 54.

Like most late nineteenth–century New York City firehouses, former Fire Engine Company No. 54 has a large central opening flanked by smaller doorways. The design incorporated elements of the Queen Anne and Romanesque Revival styles. The cast-iron trabeated base is enlivened by foliate capitals incorporating sunflowers and torches. Molded brick panels above the windows and terra-cotta medallions in the form of stylized sunflowers adorning the frieze below the cornice are among the Queen Anne motifs of the design. At the roofline, stylized console brackets executed in corbelled brick support small pedimented forms adorned with sunbursts.

After nearly ninety years of use as a fire engine house, the building was converted to a permanent 194-seat theater and offices for the award-winning Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre in the late 1970s. Founded in 1967 as a means of bringing free theatre to the streets of New York’s Latino neighborhoods, the PRTT helped launch the Spanish bilingual theater movement in the United States. For forty years, the group – which also has a training unit in East Harlem– has encouraged youth of economically disadvantaged backgrounds to pursue careers in the theatre.