tommyguy

The 85' that went to station 7 didn't replace another ladder, when the station opened in the mid 50s it was a single engine house perhaps by design since the apparatus floor is narrow for two rigs.

Thanks for identifying the officer in the photo as Lt. DeSimone. I remember the name and hearing about him. He was very highly regarded as I recall.
Does the ladder in the photo look like Truck 1 to you?
I remember seeing the old ALF mid-mount at Station 7, I had a buddy named Victor Price who worked there back in the 1970s. I think he was assigned to Eng. 7 (71), though, not to the truck. He was working Eng 7 one night when there was a working fire at the Hillaire Riding stables. A fire-damaged wooden beam came down on him though luckily his Scott Air-Pak took the brunt of it.
I wonder what type of ladder truck the ALF mid-mount replaced at Station 7. Would you happen to know?

pjm1733

Photos Contributed - Posted for pjm1733.

Era 1959.

Here a re a few from Eastchester...

1938 NRFD Pumper

White Plains had 2 mid mounts back in the day. One was a 100' that ran out of headquarters.
The other was a 85' that ran out of old station 2 on Hamilton Ave. When the tiller was purchased around 1956 (57) the 85' was reassigned to Sta. 7 on North St. I think they both eventually found their way to Hartsdale.

The instructor is Lt. Fred Simone he passed away a couple of years ago.

The truck looks like Ladder 1 from Station 6.
Great photos. Does anyone know who the instructor is?

Basicly it was untouched. Below is a pic of it with the replacement Seagrave Ladder 12 (1984 I believe)

Its last day in NR found it parked behind Sta. #5. We helped a volunteer crew from northern Vermont get ready to drive it to its new home. They were so thrilled as it was the 1st ladder they would ever have in there county. They drove it home in a snow storm, changing frozen drivers & tillermen every 20 minutes or so.

WP Drill School ERA 59

Training with ropes , Over the Top.

Besides Maxim I think Mack made some of the best looking fire apparatus. Some people think the American LaFrance 700 series "bathtub" look is the "definitive" American fire engine, I think the Mack B model is. It had its lines in the right places for sure and was the best looking fire engine model ever, in my opinion. Here is Peekskill Centennial Hose Co # 4 semi open cab. Again this was taken I believe at a parade in Nassau county. No photo credit for this and the White Plains rigs. M.Cap collection.

I love Maxims, and the semi open cab looked great especially on tillers. Here is a delivery photo from Maxim of New Rochelle Ladder 2.
What would be interesting is if someone has a photo of this rig towards the end of its career. We can compare the different looks it had from untouched delivery fresh to years of fire duty and additions and modifications made by the department that ran it.

Another great looking Maxim tiller. White Plains Ladder 1. I believe this pic was taken at a parade in Nassau County. I guess back in the day rigs from Westchester and Nassau would attend each other parades more then they do today. Love the "bubble" window in the tiller cab.

This is not meddling, its called contract law.
The NYC fire officers contract for decades has said 10 years max.The city apparently has not been maintaining the agreement and the union took them to court. The judge agreed that the city was violating a contract that the city (not FDNY) signed.

If I can go off-topic...
This thread has brought back A LOT of memories.
One is about the way White Plains began to change in the late 1960s and 1970s. Today it's almost unrecognizable compared to the White Plains I knew from about 1955-1966.
When I was a youngster, in the early 1960s, we were always going 'downtown': to Macy's or Woolworth's or the Library, to the RKO or Loew's. That was a big deal to us then. In the mid-1960s I lived near Lake Street. The 'Valley.' Like many Lake Street kids I seldom left the neighborhood. Except to go to WPHS and that was way out on North Street.
Then I started working full-time. I had a small apartment on Barker Avenue. I remember in late 1968 or early 1969, one morning I got up early, around 8:30 AM -- I was working nights -- and walked over to Main Street to get the morning papers at the White Swan Stationary store. And I hadn't been around that part of Main Street much for several years. I walked over to Hamilton Avenue and cut through Conway Drive by the new Sears parking deck. Back then Conway Drive didn't have a name. I don't think the parking deck was even completely finished.
When I walked down Conway Drive and turned the corner onto Main what a shock! At 8:30 AM the sidewalks were wall-to-wall people. Office workers. They had opened the office towers along North Broadway above Sears. I couldn't believe my eyes. I turned the corner and I felt like I had stepped into Manhattan.
Just a few years earlier, Main St at 8:30 in the morning would've been mostly deserted. Why would anyone have been there that early? Macy's wasn't open that early. There would just be some delivery trucks, at the Daitch-Shopwell, maybe a couple more at Joe's White Swan deli near Broadway.
Back then the Sears site was still an AT&T parking lot. (A 'lot' not a 'deck.') One North Broadway was a small Con Ed office. There was a little insurance company further north on Broadway, a two- or three-story red brick building. (I think that's still there.) Then, closer to Hamilton Avenue, there was an old Victorian house converted to office's. I used to deliver the Reporter-Dispatch on that side of B'way. There was a prominent White Plains lawyer with an office in the converted house, I think. Basil Filardi. I used to deliver his paper. (Or was he on Church Street? I used to deliver the papers on Church Street, too.)
Then it all changed. And kept changing. In fact, White Plains is still changing!

If I can go off-topic...
This thread has brought back A LOT of memories.
One is about the way White Plains began to change in the late 1960s and 1970s. Today it's almost unrecognizable compared to the White Plains I knew from about 1955-1966.
When I was a youngster, in the early 1960s, we were always going 'downtown': to Macy's or Woolworth's or the Library, to the RKO or Loew's. That was a big deal to us then. In the mid-1960s I lived near Lake Street. The 'Valley.' Like many Lake Street kids I seldom left the neighborhood. Except to go to WPHS and that was way out on North Street.
Then I started working full-time. I had a small apartment on Barker Avenue. I remember in late 1968 or early 1969, one morning I got up early, around 8:30 AM -- I was working nights -- and walked over to Main Street to get the morning papers at the White Swan Stationary store. And I hadn't been around that part of Main Street much for several years. I walked over to Hamilton Avenue and cut through Conway Drive by the new Sears parking deck. Back then Conway Drive didn't have a name. I don't think the parking deck was even completely finished.
When I walked down Conway Drive and turned the corner onto Main what a shock! At 8:30 AM the sidewalks were wall-to-wall people. Office workers. They had opened the office towers along North Broadway above Sears. I couldn't believe my eyes. I turned the corner and I felt like I had stepped into Manhattan.
Just a few years earlier, Main St at 8:30 in the morning would've been mostly deserted. Why would anyone have been there that early? Macy's wasn't open that early. There would just be some delivery trucks, at the Daitch-Shopwell, maybe a couple more at Joe's White Swan deli near Broadway.
Back then the Sears site was still an AT&T parking lot. (A 'lot' not a 'deck.') One North Broadway was a small Con Ed office. There was a little insurance company further north on Broadway, a two- or three-story red brick building. (I think that's still there.) Then, closer to Hamilton Avenue, there was an old Victorian house converted to office's. I used to deliver the Reporter-Dispatch on that side of B'way. There was a prominent White Plains lawyer with an office in the converted house, I think. Basil Filardi. I used to deliver his paper. (Or was he on Church Street? I used to deliver the papers on Church Street, too.)
Then it all changed. And kept changing. In fact, White Plains is still changing!

If I can go off-topic...
This thread has brought back A LOT of memories.
One is about the way White Plains began to change in the late 1960s and 1970s. Today it's almost unrecognizable compared to the White Plains I knew from about 1955-1966.
When I was a youngster, in the early 1960s, we were always going 'downtown': to Macy's or Woolworth's or the Library, to the RKO or Loew's. That was a big deal to us then. In the mid-1960s I lived near Lake Street. The 'Valley.' Like many Lake Street kids I seldom left the neighborhood. Except to go to WPHS and that was way out on North Street.
Then I started working full-time. I had a small apartment on Barker Avenue. I remember in late 1968 or early 1969, one morning I got up early, around 8:30 AM -- I was working nights -- and walked over to Main Street to get the morning papers at the White Swan Stationary store. And I hadn't been around that part of Main Street much for several years. I walked over to Hamilton Avenue and cut through Conway Drive by the new Sears parking deck. Back then Conway Drive didn't have a name. I don't think the parking deck was even completely finished.
When I walked down Conway Drive and turned the corner onto Main what a shock! At 8:30 AM the sidewalks were wall-to-wall people. Office workers. They had opened the office towers along North Broadway above Sears. I couldn't believe my eyes. I turned the corner and I felt like I had stepped into Manhattan.
Just a few years earlier, Main St at 8:30 in the morning would've been mostly deserted. Why would anyone have been there that early? Macy's wasn't open that early. There would just be some delivery trucks, at the Daitch-Shopwell, maybe a couple more at Joe's White Swan deli near Broadway.
Back then the Sears site was still an AT&T parking lot. (A 'lot' not a 'deck.') One North Broadway was a small Con Ed office. There was a little insurance company further north on Broadway, a two- or three-story red brick building. (I think that's still there.) Then, closer to Hamilton Avenue, there was an old Victorian house converted to office's. I used to deliver the Reporter-Dispatch on that side of B'way. There was a prominent White Plains lawyer with an office in the converted house, I think. Basil Filardi. I used to deliver his paper. (Or was he on Church Street? I used to deliver the papers on Church Street, too.)
Then it all changed. And kept changing. In fact, White Plains is still changing!

If I can go a bit off-topic, the old Battle Hill guy asked about the closing of Station Five. I don't remember the exact date but I think it was around 1973.
I lived in the Battle Hill section then and the city's rationale was -- and remember, this is the city's side of this -- with the reconstruction and widening of Hamilton Avenue and Tarrytown Road, Engine 2 (66) would be able to reach the Battle Hill neighborhood so quickly that Station Five was no longer really necessary.
Of course the evening my upstairs neighbor had a kitchen fire Eng 2 was OOS. The first company to arrive, and the only company on scene for several long minutes, was Truck 33. (The ALF tiller.) My roommate at the time recognized one of the guys on the truck as a buddy. He asked him, "Hey where's the rest of the cavalry? The truckie laughed and said, "Back at 159 South Lex." (I think that was the night somebody tried to put a couch down an incinerator duct. Lots of smoke in the hallways.)
Anyway the kitchen fire where we lived was just a small section of wallboard that had somehow ignited. The truckmen somehow managed to put it out by the time Eng 3 (67) arrived.
At least there wasn't much water damage!

At the time of the closure of Sta. 5 the City of White Plains was in the last (I believe) phase of the New York state mandated reduction in the work week from 56 to 40 hours. True to the practice of running short staffed the city closed Sta. 5 rather than hire the additional manpower needed to accommodate the hour reduction. It then spread the troops around to the other fire stations. As Paul Harvey was fond of saying "that is the rest of the story".

The guys did a great job on Truck Five. Terrible that the truck is being stored outdoors. I really loved those old ALFs. As a kid growing up in the 1950s American-LaFrance rigs WERE fire engines and trucks to me.
Is there room in any YFD station to store it?

>

Yonkers Engine 306, a 1992 Mack CF, the actual last one to be produced by Mack, has returned to Yonkers after a spa treatment, and it's looking good! It currently holds the designation Engine 298, and is a reserve piece.
For those Mack fans keeping track, it is chasis # CF688FC 1460. Delivered August 1992 from Mack's Allentown, PA plant.
Photo by me, taken this morning. A very special thanks to ALL those on duty at YFD Station 8.

Yes the Seagrave was replaced by old Eng. 6 (70) ALF when the first Maxim was placed in service. The ALF had a 500 gallon tank and a 1,000 GPM pump which came in handy fighting fires at the Gedney Way land fill caused by hot ashes that were dumped there from the incinerator.

Like the lady in the link says, "You know you're from White Plains when..." That really takes me back. Thanks! Being a North Broadway-Lake Street boy I seldom saw Engine 1. When I did, about 1965, they were using an open cab ALF.
Later on they stored -- was it an spare engine? -- in the rear of the bay at Station One, didn't they?