pepa63

buff boy a few years ago the mt Vernon dpw staged a 1day strike over poor working conditions bow tie ernie came to the garage to hear there greivances he got a clear&loud message there actions got them new trucks& other improvement I cant see why as why a clear message is not sent to ernie by walking around city hall informing everyone about the fd's problems I think if all union locals around the vern showed up expressing there anger over mutual aid abuse&low manpower it might work

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!

I guess you forgot the macys parade say after thanksgiving that was a good time

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!

we moved off the hill in 1970 before the urban renewal started

Robertson ave has been closed at least 30 years as a manned station.

thanks for the info

being an old battle hill guy this looks like the old eng69 aka eng 5 is that Robertson ave fire house still open or is it closed down

Looks like the 1954 Seagrave Engine 7, if so was purchased by Fairview in 1978

being an old battle hill guy looks like the old eng65 aka eng5 is that fire house on Robertson ave still open