The People's Firehouse, Inc.

e People’s Firehouse, Inc. has been a leader in the City-wide struggle to reopen Engine Company 212 and the other five fire companies closed by the current City Administration. formally celebrated 30 years of service to the people of Greenpoint and Williamsburg on November 18, 2005. The following is a brief narrative history of the People’s Firehouse, Inc.

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In November of 1975, The City of New York announced that it would close Engine Company 212. The North Side Williamburg community was still reeling from the recent closing of Police Precinct 92 and the Well Baby Clinic, as well as the loss of the other municipal services. This threatened loss of fire prevention services was the last straw that brought the people of North Brooklyn together. Fire and arson rates were on the rise. The large number of wood frame homes and industries subject to fires made residents determined to save Engine Company 212. On the evening before the City was to close it community residents entered the fire station and refused to leave. They held the fire truck “hostage” refusing to let the City take it away. For sixteen months neighborhood people lived and worker in the fire station, all the while pressuring the City of NY to re-open the site. Protests took place in the community and throughout the five boroughs. Many City officials were sympathetic to the Northsiders’ cause. One official called off attempts to remove the protesters from the fire station saying the building was now “the people’s firehouse”
The name stuck and, after many negotiations, Engine Company 212 was re-opened as a fully operational fire station. One result of the peoples’ success was that neighborhood residents decided to form a permanent organization to deal with a variety of community problems, those included abandoned deteriorating housing and waterfront property, the loss of neighborhood business, arson, and unemployment. A vacant storefront was renovated as an office, In December 1977 the People’s Firehouse, Inc. was incorporated as a non-profit organization . For more than 30 years, the People’s Firehouse, Inc. has provided much needed services to the community. Housing-related services provided by PFI are divided into three areas: legal rights outreach and mediation services to tenants and landlords, housing management programs and housing preservation and development. Senior citizens and immigrants are given assistance in English, Polish and Spanish. The NYC Housing Preservation and Development Community Management Program provided funding for PFI to removed and manage previously abandoned city-owned properties. PFI has been under contract with HPD since 1979, and during that time has rehabilitated nine city owned buildings and later sold the tenants as limited equity coops. Housing development projects have included thirty-five Section 8 rehabilitated apartments at 11-15 New Montrose Avenue; a 1991 development of HUD 202, new construction project, Monsignor Alexis A. Jarka Hall, which created sixty-four units of low-income senior citizen rental housing; and nineteen three-family dwellings called the Northside Terraces. During the 1990s, the People’s Firehouse, Inc. also participated in the Homeless Re-housing Assistance Program (HRAP) which identified eligible families in shelters for re-housing in available apartments. Replacement and support services, along with homeless prevention workshops, were part of this program. Over ninety families were successfully placed during the duration of the HRAP program. PFI has received fire and arson prevention funding from the US Fire Administration, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the New York State Department of State and the New York City Arson Strike Force. A wide variety of model programs, brochures and manuals were developed. The PFI Arson Data Information System was developed during this period. It utilized various sources to identify arson and fire-prone sites, maintain records on FDNY response times, and other fire-related information. The People’s Firehouse Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP) identifies low-income residential buildings in need of energy conservation. Grants are provided to landlords to assist them with heating systems and window replacements, insulation and other energy related housing preservation upgrades. Over 150 units are improved annually under this program. PFI received the New York State Secretary of State’s 1985 Main Street Award for historic restoration of building facades along Bedford venue, the main commercial strip in Northside Williamsburg, In addition, our Commercial Revitalization Program helped strengthen the Northside Merchants Association, and provided marketing assistance, store renovation matching grants and other business services to local merchants. PFI also initiated the $3 million Bedford Avenue Street Reconstruction Project, which replaced sewers, water, pipes, and sidewalks from Metropolitan Avenue to North 12th Street along Bedford Avenue. In addition, the project added more trees, lighting and new signage. has also worked with local companies to address industrial crime and to encourage business development. Since 1983, PFI has provided assistance to the Metropolitan Industrial Development Corporation, a non-profit business organization in the Williamsburg /Greenpoint waterfront industrial community. Since the early 1980s, our community based-organization has helped improve the North- Brooklyn waterfront. PFI has reduced the incidents of illegal dumping, fenced off dangerous properties, and removed over fifty tons of garbage and debris from sites along the waterfront. In addition, neighborhood patrols and rallies have helped to reduce crime, prostitution and drug use. has worked with George Westinghouse High School, the NYC Department of Employment and the NYC Board of Education to provide youth training in entry-level jobs in construction, maintenance and office skills.