I recently visited the Pounce Cat Cafe in Charleston, South Carolina. Their sign lured me in — who could resist live nude cats, pole-dancing felines, and kitty lap dances! As I’m now writing a new book about FDNY animal mascots, I thought I’d pay tribute to a few “pole-dancing” fire cats that I’ve featured in early posts, as well as give you a little tease with some snippets of fire-cat stories that will be in my upcoming book.
Peter was a pole-dancing cat of Engine 152 in Bushwick, Brooklyn in the early 1900s. I don’t have a picture of him sliding down the pole, but I did find an older newspaper photo of him climbing a ladder, which I posted in the original story.
Tootsy of Engine 27
Bouncer, the fire cat of New York’s Fire Patrol 3, also mastered sliding down the pole–only four months after joining the patrol house. When it came to the landing, he outdid every member, striking the rubber mat “as gently as an autumn leaf landing on the turf.” Bouncer will be featured in The FDNY Mascots of Gotham, and I’ll be adding a few more fun details about his life as a fire cat in the book.
Tootsy, the feline firefighter of Engine 27, not only slid down the fire pole (pole dancing was second nature to her), but she also enjoyed jumping on the apparatus and trying to hitch a ride to the fires! Tootsy was featured in my first book, The Cat Men of Gotham, and she’ll also be making a cameo in my new book (she was the quintessential fire cat).
Here is Tommy of Engine 15 in 1924. He slid the pole whenever it was dinner time. NY Daily News, October 10, 1923
One of the most famous pole-dancing fire cats of the FDNY was Barney of Engine 59, then located on West 137th Street. Barney’s claim to fame in the early 1900s was sliding down the brass fire pole, which he did “as gracefully as any member of the company.” He didn’t swoop down in a flash like the men did, but by wrapping his four paws around the brass rod, he was able to slide down rather quickly.
Another fire cat possessing pole-dancing skills during this era was Jerry of Ladder 25 on West Seventy-Seventh Street. Even though he was old and had lost most of his teeth by 1910, the coal black cat was “still as ardent in answering an alarm when he is upstairs in the dormitory as the newest recruit.” Whenever an alarm came in, Jerry would spring from his bed and go down the pole. Sometimes he’d slide down by clasping it with only his front paws, but as he got older, he preferred hitching a ride on the shoulders of one of the firemen.
Dick, a large tortoise-shell cat attached to Brooklyn’s Ladder 107, never used the stairs in the firehouse, always choosing the pole as his preferred method of descent. This cat also had an excellent attendance record at fires and was reportedly the happiest when perched on the driver’s seat responding to a call.
Like these other cats, Thomas of Brooklyn’s Engine 239 was a pro when it came to sliding down the pole. In fact, he liked to make a game of it. Whenever he saw one of his friends in uniform making for the pole, he would beat him to it and slide down first. Then he’d jump aboard the apparatus and give a haughty wave of the tail while the men were still donning their boots and gear.
I hope these stories have offered you a “good tease” for more, and you are getting your dollar bills ready for when I reveal these fire cats’ full stories in the FDNY Mascots of Gotham!
Jim the Great Dane (pictured here with Miss Pauline Frederick) took center stage in this news article about several canine heroes rewarded for their bravery at the 8th annual Workhorse Parade, sponsored by the New York Women’s League for Animals.
Upcoming Book Preview: The following story of a heroic Great Dane who saved his master and two other men during a fire and gas leak at 57 West 57th Street is one of almost 100 stories that will be featured in my upcoming book, The Bravest Animals of Gotham: Tales of FDNY Mascots of Old New York (2023). Jim was not a member of the FDNY, but he was a civilian first responder (or should I say fur-st responder?) who deserves an honorary mention in the book and on this site.
Jim was a massive Great Dane with a magnificent sense of smell. So, when the three-year-old dog detected a bad odor in his master’s home at 57 West 57th Street on the morning of October 21, 1913, he knew something did not smell right.
In fact, a vacuum cleaner in the basement of Dr. Harry Tower Galpin’s apartment hotel had exploded, blowing the caps off twenty-two gas meters that were above it. The gas flooded the rooms where Dr. Galpin, his brother, and a family friend were asleep.
Jim ran to his master’s bedroom and barked several times, but Dr. Galpin was already overcome by the fumes. The large dog then began biting Dr. Galpin.
According to the press, the Great Dane left 106 tooth marks on Dr. Galpin’s body before the druggist was sufficiently aroused to make it to a window and then save his guests.
Dr. Galpin, who not only owned the building and rented studios and apartments, but also ran a drug store on the ground floor, told reporters that he was thankful for every one of those bites.
For his brave act of courage and intelligence, Dr. Galpin and his friends hosted a luncheon in Jim’s honor at the Alps, a popular restaurant established in 1907 on Sixth Avenue at 58th Street. The restaurant was attached to the building that Dr. Galpin owned.
The story of Jim’s heroics made the news across the United States and Canada, setting off a series of honorary engagements for Jim and his master. With every article published, Jim’s fame spread, as artists, writers, Canadian sportsmen, and members of New York City’s high society went out of their way to meet the Great Dane.
Mrs. Ellin Prince Speyer
In February 1914, Mrs. Ellin Leslie Prince Lowery Speyer, president of the New York Woman’s League for Animals, invited Jim to her home at 1058 Fifth Avenue. The 127-pound dog was especially groomed for the occasion, and his brindle coat reportedly shone.
About one hundred officers and guests of the league allowed the Great Dane “to rub nose against their costly furs” and shake their hands with his black paws.
That same month, Miss Katie Sanborn invited Jim to her home for afternoon tea with several other high-society ladies. The women discovered that Jim was “an inveterate tea drinker” who also enjoyed joining Dr. Galpin in a “quiet smoke.” (According to a photograph published in the Ottawa Daily Republic, Jim partook in a smoke from a hookah pipe at the tea party.)
Jim, the Great Dane, enjoys some tea and a hookah pipe with high-society ladies. Ottawa Daily Republic.
Multiple newspapers reported the following about Jim: “The average man looks upon a tea with horror. It is a thing to be avoided at any cost. There is one member of the masculine sex in this city, however, who not only attends these festivities, but can honestly and truthfully say that he enjoys them.”
The grand honor for Jim came on Memorial Day in 1914, when the Great Dane and three other dogs received lifesaving awards at Manhattan’s eighth annual Workhorse Parade, sponsored by the New York Women’s League for Animals.
The other canine honorees included Trixie, a Japanese spaniel belonging to James Harcourt of Brooklyn, who woke up the family when a fire broke out in the family’s house in 1910; Bum, the Twelfth Precinct mascot dog who helped save the life of a child whose clothes had caught fire during a bonfire; and Olaf Hansen’s Newfoundland, Teddy, who saved two people from drowning in the Hudson River in 1909.
In the fall of 1914, Jim took a trip to Saratoga Springs with Dr. Galpin. Having lost his wife, Nina Florence, only three years earlier, the druggist traveled everywhere with his Great Dane—Jim even had his own special seat in the rear of the vehicle.
During this trip, Jim’s hip was injured after he was struck by another vehicle while playing outdoors. Two veterinarians were able to treat most of his injuries but they could not repair his crippled hip.
A few weeks later, Dr. Galpin noticed that Jim had gnawed two holes into the hip, allowing the affected area to drain. Within two days, the wounds had healed, and he was walking almost as good as new.
“He did what the vets couldn’t or didn’t do, and just how he knew how to do it is more than I can tell you,” Galpin told the press. “Medical degrees are not conferred upon canines, but if they were, my dog Jim ought to have one, summa cum laude.”
Jim the Great Dane Is Murdered
Jim’s life came to an abrupt and violent end during a robbery on July 14, 1919.
The Spokesman Review (Spokane, WA), July 20 1919.
According to the New York Times, Dr. Galpin had closed his business on Monday night and sent Jim to his sleeping quarters in the basement, which he shared with an unnamed drugstore cat. At about 5:00 a.m. the next morning, the Great Dane ran into his master’s room and pressed he cold nose against his hand. Then he ran into the store as the druggist scrambled to get out of bed.
Before Dr. Galpin could reach the store, he heard a loud commotion, followed by Jim’s yelps. A quick examination showed that robbers had stolen money and stamps from the cash drawer; they had also attempted to break open a safe. Based on a trail of blood, Jim must have attacked the thieves while they were trying to get into the safe.
The culprits escaped, but not before they struck Jim with a heavy weapon, possibly a blackjack. Jim succumbed to his injuries, including broken ribs and a pierced abdominal wall.
Ten years later, Dr. Galpin died suddenly of heart disease at the age of fifty-nine. He was survived by his new wife, Selma, and two sons, Harry T. Jr. and Allen Ross.
A Brief History of West 57th Street
The story of Jim the Great Dane took place in a building on the northeast corner of West 57th Street and Sixth Avenue, on land once owned by Rachel Cosine. Back then, this neighborhood was called Bloomingdale, which comprised numerous farms and homesteads along the old Bloomingdale Road (Broadway). Bloomingdale Square, the rural town center, was located between 55th and 57th Streets and Eighth and Ninth Avenues.
Bloomingdale Village, 1868. NYPL digital collections.
The earliest records of this area go back to Sir Richard Nicolls, the first English governor of New York, who issued a patent for lands along the Hudson River above present-day 42nd Street to Johannes Van Brugh, Thomas Hall, John Vigne, Egbert Wouters, and Jacob Leanders. This property eventually came into the hands of Cornelius Cosine and henceforth was known as the Cosine Farm.
Born in New York sometime around 1718, Cornelius Cosine was the son of Jacobus Cosynszen and Aeltje Aumach Cosynszen. The Cosynszens (also referred to as the Anglicized name Cosine or Cozine) were early Dutch settlers who arrived in New Amsterdam around 1684.
Here is just a portion of the 200-acre Cosine farm (1853 map), which included lands under water at the foot of 52nd to 57th Streets.
Cornelius Cosine owned the family farm from present-day 53rd to 57th Streets between the North River (Hudson) and the “common lands” near Sixth Avenue. Following Cornelius’ death in 1786, the land was deeded to his two sons, Cornelius Jr. and Balm Johnson.
Balm Johnson and his wife, Catharina, had eight children, including daughters Rachel, Catherine, Sarah (Hopper), Hannah, and Jane (Ackerman), and sons John, Nicholas, and Cornelius. Rachel Cosine, who died in 1854, inherited the northern parcel of the farm along 57th Street., as shown in the map below.
John Randel farm map, 1818-1820.
John Cosine inherited the land in 1809, but for years it was tied up in the courts with judgments and mortgages. In 1838, the farm was deeded to mortgage holder John Jacob Astor in a foreclosure sale. Astor, who paid only $23,000 for the farm, gave it to his daughter, Laura Astor Delano, six years later as her wedding gift.
From about 1845 through 1869, Broadway was laid out and widened. As this illustration below from 1868 shows, the land around Sixth Avenue and 57th Street was rocky and undeveloped, save for frame houses and shanties.
In 1902, the old Cosine farm came into possession of Laura’s eight nieces and nephews, (Lewis Stuyvesant Chanler and his siblings). About 20 years later, in 1925, the Fifty-Seventh Street Corporation acquired the plot at 57th Street and Sixth Avenue with plans to replace Dr. Galpin’s old drug store and apartment building with a modern building featuring four stores and an arcade.
The final result was not a retail center, but Alain E. White’s Medical Arts Building, also known as the Professional Centre Building. Designed by the architectural firm of Warren & Wetmore, the 18-story structure was specifically intended for physicians, dentists, druggists and other medical professionals (click here for a current floor plan of the building).
One of the doctors who moved into the new building was Dr. George E Browning, who opened the Medical Arts Sanitarium on the entire 14th floor in 1928 (the facility was sometimes called Dr. Browning’s Sanitarium). On the 17th and 18th floors were luxury penthouse apartments, and Charlie Brazelle operated a night club called Boeuf sur le Toit in the basement (the club would later become Dario’s La Martinique, where Danny Kaye made his New York debut.)
Today, the now 21-story building still has some medical offices, but the sanitarium is of course gone and the former penthouse apartments are home to an art gallery. Ironically, one of the businesses now located on the spot where a Great Dane saved a druggist is the Cornerstone Medical Arts Center, a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center.
Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher Ralph Branca, April 13, 1951. Brooklyn Public Library Digital Collections.
In 1951, the Brooklyn Dodgers were favored to win the National League race. The 1950 World Champion New York Yankees were expected to come in second place in the American League. That April, the two teams played against each other in a three-game exhibition series. The first game took place at Yankee Stadium on Friday, April 13.
Pitching for the Brooklyn Dodgers that day was 25-year-old Ralph Branca of Mount Vernon, NY. I don’t know where Branca found the cat (the Brooklyn Robins–the name of the Dodgers prior to 1932–had a black cat named Victory, but that was way back in 1927). But he told the press that the cat had “crossed his path” on Friday the 13th. By holding the cat and displaying his numbered uniform, Branca was reportedly sending the Yankees a message that his team was not afraid of any bad-luck signs.
The Dodgers did win that day by a score of 7 to 6, with Pee Wee Reese, captain and shortstop for the Dodgers, scoring a few of those runs. So, perhaps the cat was a good-luck charm just like Victory was in 1927. (The full story of Victory is featured in The Cat Men of Gotham.)
Some of the other big names in this game included Joe DiMaggio, Yogi Berra, and Jackie Robinson (Phil Rizutto was on the injured list). Mickey Mantle, the 19-year-old rookie sensation of the Yankees, would not make his Gotham debut until the April 14 game against the Dodgers at Ebbets Field. The Yankees had to wait for the Army Board to confirm that he was physically unqualified for Army service due to a bone infection in his left leg, which he had received from a football injury in 1946.
The dotted line represents the approximate track of Thomson’s game-winning drive in the third game at the Polo Grounds.
Under the management of Casey Stengel, the Yankees went on to win the 1951 World Series in six games against the New York Giants (today’s San Francisco Giants), who had won the National League pennant in a three-game playoff with the Brooklyn Dodgers. It was the last World Series for DeMaggio and the first for Mantle and Giants rookie Willie Mays.
Incidentally, during the three-game playoff series between the Dodgers and the Giants, Branca gave up a walk-off three-run homerun to Bobby Thomson of the Giants at the Polo Grounds. The game-winning homerun took place in the third game on October 3, 1951. The line drive was known in the baseball world as the “Shot Heard ‘Round the World.” Here’s a video of the dramatic moment:
Maybe Branca should have brought the black cat to this game also. Like the black cat that “jinxed” the Boston Braves (now Atlanta Braves) at the Polo Grounds in 1932, or the black cat that brought good luck to the New York Mets in 1969, Branca’s cat may have helped the Dodgers win against the Giants, which would have pitted the Dodgers against in the Yankees in the 1951 World Series. Who knows what the final outcome would have been, all because of a cat…
After a few photos, the cat was ready to high-tail it out of the dugout.
A Brief History of Ebbets Field
The little house in this old photo is on present-day Empire Boulevard. Ebbets Field was constructed on the property forward of this house.
Before the old Ebbets Field stadium took over the block bounded by Bedford Avenue, Sullivan Place, Cedar Place (today’s Zenita Thompson Place), and Montgomery Street in 1913, the surrounding area was a disreputable, ramshackle, wilderness neighborhood called Pigtown, Goatville, Tin-Can Alley, and Crow Hill. The barren land was home to cow paths, goat trails, pig farms, and shanty dwellers who used a giant pit in the center of the block as a garbage dump.
The future site of Ebbets Field in the winter of 1912.
Charles Ebbets’s friends told him that he was crazy to think such a miserable location could feature a modern concrete ballpark that would make Brooklyn the envy of the baseball world. But Ebbets persisted, quietly using proceeds from the sale of his great-grandfather’s business at 41 Broad Street in Manhattan to buy just over 4 acres of parcels for a steal behind the disguise of a dummy corporation.
Ebbets Field before opening, 1913. Museum of the City of New York Collections
Over the course of three years, Ebbets secretly purchased about 40 small lots on the cheap until the news finally leaked out, forcing him to pay outrageous prices for the last few parcels. Although Ebbets planned to call the new stadium Washington Park, several Brooklyn sports editors suggested that he call his ballpark Ebbets Field.
Ebbets Field before opening, 1913. Museum of the City of New York Collections
Ebbets Field in the early years
The stadium opened on April 5, 1913, with an exhibition game in which the Brooklyn Dodgers beat the New York Yankees.
On February 23, 1960, three years after the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles, a wrecker’s ball painted to look like an enormous baseball crashed into the walls of a stadium that was once home to players like Casey Stengel, Roy Campanella, Pee Wee Reese, and Jackie Robinson.
A $22 million, twenty-story, 1,377-unit housing project rose on the site. Today, on a small patch of fenced-in grass where the stadium clubhouse used to be, signs advise residents to keep their dogs and other pets off the lawn.
Like this vintage kitty, Tom was an Epicurean cat who loved to dine on scallops at Gage & Tollner, one of Brooklyn’s best seafood restaurants in the twentieth century.
At 20 pounds, Tom was less than half the weight of Dan, the 48-pound fire cat of Engine 40, but 20 pounds was enough to earn him some press in the Brooklyn Standard Union. In fact, the news reporter suggested that Tom, the feline patron on Gage & Tollner, was the rival of Jiggs, the overweight Dalmatian of Engine 205 who weighed in at 120 pounds.
Unlike Jiggs, who was more than willing to dine at many downtown Brooklyn restaurants (although Joe’s at 326-334 Fulton Street was his favorite), Tom was “a one-restaurant cat,” according to Seth Bradford Dewey, the president and general manager of Gage & Tollner. He would not frequent any other eating establishments, and he’d only eat breaded scallops at the restaurant’s oyster bar.
Tom would not eat at any restaurant but Gage & Tollner on Fulton Street, pictured here in the 1940s or 1950s.
Tom and his brother cat were born in the famous restaurant in 1917, when Gage & Tollner was on the ground floor of the circa 1875 Craft building at 372-374 Fulton Street. No one knows what happened to his mother and brother, but Tom “apparently recognized his proper sphere in life” and stayed on at Gage & Taylor, where he dined on scallops alongside great icons like Mae West and Jimmy Durante.
Seth Bradford Dewey
According to Dewey, Tom occasionally did some work to earn his keep, or at least what he considered work. His job was to sit in the cars of various patrons and keep watch while they were dining at night.
Sometimes a patron would try to drive off while Tom was still at his valet job. Tom would yowl so loudly that people on the street thought someone was kidnapping a human baby.
“He’s a cat of regular habits, all right,” Dewey said. “He’s always around at closing time. He sleeps here. Although once and a while he wanders off.”
One night, when Dewey returned to work on Monday after the weekend off, the head waiter said that Tom had disappeared. Just at that moment, Tom strolled in, climbed up on the oyster bar, and drank all the ice water he could hold.
Asked how Tom had taken to Prohibition, Dewey told the reporter he would not reveal the cat’s opinion on this matter.
In April 1924, a birthday party took place at Gage & Tollner to celebrate the fifth anniversary of Seth Dewey’s ownership of the establishment. According to Brooklyn Life, “Even Tom, the famous twenty-pound cat who watches the cars belonging to patrons…took part in the gala celebration.”
Tom preferred the oyster bar over the wait service at Gage & Tollner.
A Brief History of the Craft Building
The popular Gage & Tollner oyster bar and chophouse dates back to 1879, when Charles M. Gage opened an oyster house at 302 Fulton Street. Two years later, Gage partnered with Eugene Tollner, a cigar salesman and one of Gage’s regular customers. In 1892, the partners moved their restaurant uptown into the circa 1875 Craft building at 372-374 Fulton Street, which is where Tom the cat lived and dined.
X marks the spot of Gage & Tollner on Fulton Street, just east of the old Red Hook Lane. J.B. Beers 1874 Farm Line Map.
Eugene Tollner
The Craft building was just east of Red Hook Lane, an old trail used by the Canarsee natives that provided the only access from the heights of Brooklyn (Brooklyn Heights) to Red Hook. It was also a major transportation road for the Continental Army and the British during the American Revolution.
Old records show that in 1818, the Fulton Street property was sold as part of the Teunis I. Johnson farm to Brooklyn Mayor Samuel Smith (the old Smith mansion was at 16 Smith Street). The nine-acre parcel commanded a beautiful view of the Wallabout Bay and featured mature asparagus beds, English cherry trees, two houses, a barn, and a store.
Smith constructed the four-story building at 372-374 Fulton Street and leased the store and basement to John Craft, who ran a tailoring business in the 1870s. After Smith died in 1872, Craft purchased the building and lot from the Smith estate at an auction on February 27, 1873. When Craft died in 1898 at the age of 78, the land was deeded to his widow, and when she died in 1913, the property was willed to Miss Ida A. Craft and her niece.
Charles Gage passed away in 1919 and Eugene Tollner died in 1935. I do not know how long Tom the cat lived, but I’m sure he lived a long, happy, scallop-filled life.
When Martin Cook received his promotion to captain of Engine 4 in 1886, the company received two horses, Dan and Dick. At this time, Engine 4 was a few blocks north of Old Slip, in a narrow, four-story brick firehouse at 39 Liberty Street (now the site of the Federal Reserve Bank), diagonally across from the Old Post Office building on Nassau Street. This was the heart of the city’s financial district, and the little firehouse was dwarfed by large brick and stone buildings housing the United States Treasury, Custom House, New York Stock Exchange, and dozens of banks and insurance firms.
The old Engine Company 4 firehouse was situated between Liberty Street and Maiden Lane, just across from the Old Post Office, as shown on the 1879 Bromley map. NYPL Digital Collections
Their house may have been small, but Dan and Dick were up for the challenge of protecting these world-famous institutions. Even as the two horses aged, they did the city and the FDNY proud. Captain Cook often received offers to trade in his team for younger animals, but he always turned them down. According to the FDNY veteran, there was not a more reliable, more careful, or faster team of fire horses in America.
Just to the east of Dick and Dan’s firehouse was a five-story brick building at 37 Liberty Street. When workmen demolished the walls of No. 37 in May 1893, it became evident that the eastern wall of the engine house could not stand on its own without the support of the larger building.
The contractor told Captain Cook that he would not be responsible for the safety of the men and their horses should they get called to a fire. The vibration created by the engine, tender, and horses could easily take the walls down. Rather than take any chances, the captain ordered the engine house cleared of everything on the first floor. This task required precision and slow work.
First, the men carefully lead the horse whose stall was closest to the threatening wall (either Dan or Dick) to the pole, where he was joined by his mate. The men snapped on the collars and lines, and gently and slowly drove the engine to the street.
During the company’s early years on Liberty Street, Dan and Dick pulled an 1861 Amoskeag Manufacturing steam fire engine, similar to this one pictured here.
After removing all the hose, they took the same steps with the fuel tender. The men threw blankets over Dan and Dick and then lit a fire under the engine boiler to keep up the requisite steam pressure. Then the men and their horses camped out for the night.
On May 19, 1893, the city condemned the old firehouse and Engine 4 relocated to the firehouse of Ladder 15 at 73 Water Street, where they stayed for the next seventeen years.
By 1897, Dan was about eighteen years old and had more than fourteen years of service in the department. In all those years, he was never ill, and he never missed a fire or false alarm below Houston Street. According to Captain Martin, who had more than twenty-years of service, Dan had ran with the engine or tender to 3,600 calls.
On May 19, 1893, Engine 4 temporarily relocated to 73 Water Street at Old Slip, then home to Ladder 15. When this photo was taken in the 1930s, Engine 10 was sharing the firehouse with Ladder 15. The Old Slip police station is just visible on the far left. NYPL Digital Collections
Dan was also a gentleman horse, always “shaking hands” with visitors and displaying “wonderful masculine instinct in his preference for fair womankind when he is asked for a kiss.” (He always kissed the ladies “with evident relish.”)
Dick was a bit younger, but he was also “exceedingly amiable in disposition.” The children loved visiting and playing with the good-natured horses, whose stables were just a few yards off the street. The children would timidly approach Dan and Dick and pat them on the nose, “shake hands” with Dan, or kiss them and scamper away.
One day a little girl who was bolder than the other children entered Dan’s stall and settled down on the soft bedding. Within minutes, she had fallen “into a peaceful slumber.” At this moment, an alarm sounded on the fire gong, sending every man scurrying to his place.
Dick dashed to his engine, but Dan didn’t budge. The men looked on in wonder as Dan peered anxiously out of his stall, this being the first time in fourteen years that he had failed to respond to a call. One of the men looked into the stall and discovered the cause of the delay.
Dan had figured out that if he had moved, he would have crushed the little girl. The fireman picked up the sleeping child and the noble Dan dashed to his place, “seemingly pleased with his heroism.”
In 1900, Engine Company 4 moved into a new, three-story brick and stone firehouse at 119 Maiden Lane. Incidentally, in September 1885, the company responded to a fire that demolished the previous building at at this address, then occupied by A. Montejo, a dealer in loaf tobacco, and by Bullard & Wheeler, dealers in bagging and ties. Engine Company 4 Foreman Thomas Conlin died in this fire, as did a civilian named John Donnelly
Today, Engine 4 and Ladder 15 are still at Old Slip, albeit in a 36-story skyscraper at 32 Old Slip (alt 42 South Street), which was completed in 1897. The building looms over Old Slip Park, where Dan and Dick spent many years in the old firehouse at 73 Water Street.
Engine 4 and Ladder 15 share the large station house in the skyscraper at 32 Old Slip/42 South Street.
Although the Old Slip police building still stands, the small Old Slip Park occupies the former site of the Engine 4/Station 15 firehouse pictured above.
