Hose Drying Towers

[sandero]

Did FDNY firehouses have vertical towers in which to dry hoses?
If so, when did they stop using them?
I ask this because some of the older Mayor Walker-style houses (my local E315/L125 house comes to mind) had tall, shaft-like enclosures atop the rear section of their roofs.

 

[johnd248]

Some houses did certainly have hose towers.  My early days at E 248 the house was only two stories high and was built in the 1800s.  We had racks built along the side wall of the house and the hose dried there.

 

[Ghetto Gladiator]

cotton jacketed hose had to be dried to prevent mildew and rot, polyester solved that problem...dont remember when but we dried hose in the 60s

 

[mack]

Johnd - Engine 248 firehouse on Church Ave originally had a tower. Seemed to be for observation.

I do remember the hose racks on the wall.  The Ebinger cake boes, too.

 

[68jk09]

Yes.... as stated above ....years ago hose that was wet & dirty had to be returned to qtrs & washed by hand w/the croton hose & brushes & then hung in the hose tower (or angled wall rack depending on the age of the house) ...if a Company was lucky enough to have a Relocater they could ask the Dispatcher to contact the Relocater & drop "?"  amount of hose lengths from the tower & the Relocater would help getting the Unit back in service ..... if they did not have a Relocater then they would return to qtrs & do it by themselves ......if back in the day you saw an ENG returning to qtrs w/dirty hose over the backstep handrail then you knew they were returning from a job ...like in this early picture.... http://www.ebay.com/itm/A1036-8x10-Photo-FDNY-New-York-City-Fire-Dept-Engine-298-1939-Ward-LaFrance-/400500319250?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item5d3fade412&nma=true&si=qMxEX11TiwtNuWfdm67XNW%252BbR1g%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557  .... (as a FF in R*2 in 1985 ) moved from Carlton Ave w/ENG*210 to 1492 Bergen St the former qtrs of ENG*234/BN*38 (w/Fire Salvage in between) the house had the old angled hose drying/storage racks on the wall & no sliding poles......as far as the hose drying issues...in the early '70s when the rapid water scam (another issue) came into play the 1 3/4 hose made of a polyester material allowed it to be repacked wet therefore eliminating the need for hose towers or racks...however just prior to the introduction of the polyester hose certain FHs (one in particular 216/108) built around that time prior was built w/2 electric hose dryers... kind of like 2 large pizza oven's on the appparatus floor in place of  a tower or racks.....shortly after the FH was occupied in Aug 1971  the rapid water/polyester 1 3/4 hose came into play so the electric dryers were no longer needed for drying hose .....seven or eight years later when R*2 themselves organized the first  (seat of the pants) FDNY SCUBA Unit  we were able to get one of 216's unused drying units to allow us to dry the SCUBA gear.         

 

[memory master]

And, you would find some great stuff in hose towers such as old company journals, etc.

 

[Dover FD]

As a kid I would always find a way to stop by 79/37 on Briggs Ave in Da Bronx on my way home from St Philip Neri School on the Concourse.  At that time they had a hose tower in the left rear side of the apparatus floor next to the CD pumper.  Good Times!

 

[lucky]

A need for storage space grew as the size of the apparatus was also growing and the issuance of all types of additional equipment. Many units with the hose tower framed out a floor at the first floor level and used this space for storage of fire equipment or commissary food items.

 

[68jk09]

And, you would find some great stuff in hose towers such as old company journals, etc.

Yes on the landing on the top of the tower some had lots of old storage of journals & other old material .

 

[sandero]

Thanks much, guys!
How did they get all this work done during the war years in some of the really busy houses?

 

[mac8146]

It seems the hose towers are a thing of the past, my firehouse was renovated and the upper section of the hose tower was removed, eliminated the leaking roof problems. New wiring plumbing and so on was run up old tower plus added floor space gained on each level.

 

[lucky]

We also used the hose tower to lower the 55 gallon oil drums into the cellar that were used when we did the oil change prior to PMP. I remember that lifting the ones filled with waste oil was nut busting.

 

[johnd248]

The worst at E 248 when they were on Church Avenue was hauling steel barrels full of ashes from the coal furnace in the basement.  We would lower two ropes from the sidewalk and manually haul the barrels up to street level to be picked up by NYC Sanitation.

 

[Charging in 113]

When I was a kid we would go crazy during the Christmas party's and try to slide down every pole in the house and jump on all the beds. On the top floor there was a pole coming for the roof to the house we found the door with a ladder and climbed it it was a little space and cold. Of course we got in trouble for being up there we moved a hole entertainment system for 7 year olds that was tough. Years later I found out that they hung the hoses out to dry from there a lot of history. The tower was built in to the house on Dekalb Ave in Brooklyn.

 

[lucky]

DeKalb East or West?

 

[811]

I had heard that in the old days, New York houses kept their horses in stalls along the sidewalls of the apparatus floor, and usually had hose towers.

Brooklyn firehouses kept their horses in stalls at the rear of the apparatus floor, and usually had drying racks along the apparatus floor walls.

 

[memory master]

My dad's house in Manhattan, 1860's vintage, had the hose tower door just inside the firehouse near the apparatus floor main door. The stalls were in the rear (not that I ever saw them being utilized by horses). The old, and I mean old, former E296 in Queens had the same arrangement.

 

[Charging in 113]

E 217