Rotterdam Fire District No. 7 | Birchwood Archaeological Services

A postwar Colonial Revival firehouse built by its own volunteers, with an assessment of its history, character and the alternatives to demolition.

Built by a community

Fire protection came to Schonowe in the 1940s. Encouraged by the wartime Office of Civilian Defense, residents formed a volunteer company in 1946 and fought fires for two years before they had a station. The firehouse they finished in 1948 reflects the prosperity of postwar Rotterdam, driven largely by the General Electric plant two miles east. The early and mid-20th-century homes across the road tie it to the neighborhood that grew up around it.

Colonial Revival character

The building is balloon-framed with a brick veneer. Its symmetrical two-story façade has three apparatus bays below three arched windows with stone keystones, and a balconet between the floors. Flanking entrances have Doric pilasters, dentil-trimmed pediments and wide friezes. The builders mixed darker “clinker” bricks into the veneer in the Colonial Revival manner. A stone tablet carved “Schonowe Fire District No. 7” sits over the center bay, and a copper-roofed cupola with a bell and weathervane crowns the roof.

Inside, the break room keeps its knotty pine wainscoting, period crown molding and a purely ornamental brick fireplace. Upstairs, the auditorium is almost exactly as built in 1948: a full stage, narrow hardwood flooring, paneled wainscoting, two-panel doors and mid-century light fixtures under the original arched ceiling.

Weighing the alternatives

After NYSOPRHP strongly discouraged demolition, the assessment set out the alternatives the Fire District had studied. These were refitting the building, adding stair and elevator access or new apparatus space, moving the new station elsewhere on the parcel or to another site, and redrawing district boundaries. Each was weighed against tax impacts, firematic needs, life safety and cost, including the station’s effect on the community’s ISO rating. The study gave the Fire District and the State a common record for the consultation that followed.

Timeline

Through the years

This makes this building one of the last buildings of this architectural style built in the area before this style was phased out by modernism.
Architectural Summary, 2015

1661
Arent Van Curler is granted the “Groote Vlacht,” the Great Flats along the Mohawk. The Mohawk name for the tract became “Schonowe.”
1942
The Office of Civilian Defense encourages residents to organize a firefighting unit.
1946
On March 15, thirty-one volunteers form the Schonowe Volunteer Fire Co. and Rotterdam Fire District No. 7. They meet in local schools.
1948
The firehouse on Gordon Road is completed.
1968
A matching apparatus bay addition is built on the south end.
1991
Bay doors are widened from 10 to 11½ feet.
2014
Birchwood conducts a Phase IA/IB survey for a new fire station.
2015
NYSOPRHP finds the building eligible for the National Register; this assessment follows.

Photographic record

From the field

Selected photographs and figures from the report. Select any image to enlarge it.

02Dedication souvenir program, Schonowe Volunteer Fire Company.

06One of the main entrances with its classical door surround.

07Double-hung sash window with stone lintel and sill.

08First-floor break room with knotty pine wainscoting and ornamental fireplace.

09Two-panel door and trim between the garage and break room.

11Original narrow-plank hardwood floor on the second floor.

13Original window hardware and sash on the second floor.

14Elevation drawings of the fire station (C.T. Male Associates).