History 301: Fire stations are important elements of city landscape

By Connie Zeigler

Citizens of a modern metropolis know that there are certain public services they can count on. Like our

Connie Zeigler is president and owner of C. Resources, Inc. Connie is a writer and a historic preservationist who consults on preservation and greening of historic buildings. She lives in Fountain Square and blogs at INArchitecture on cresourcesinc.blogspot.com.

contemporaries across the nation, we expect our city to provide us with a fire department which responds as rapidly as possible to protect our homes and businesses. One way cities make rapid fire-fighting response possible is by locating fire stations near to residences and businesses so that the travel time to a fire is reduced.

While the primary concern of the fire department has obviously been to keep the citizenry safe from fires, the stations from which our fire-fighting heroes are dispatched also continue to play an important role in the built environment history of our city. In addition to their roles as buildings to serve the public good, fire stations are also windows into the popular architectural styles of their day – and expressions of civic pride.

The Mass Ave Historic District is especially rich in fire station architecture. The stations in and near the district span more than a century in time and display three different architectural styles.

The importance of fire-fighting was apparent almost as soon as early residents of Indianapolis began to build their first log and frame homes. According to the “Encyclopedia of Indianapolis,” a fire-fighting brigade formed in 1821, the same year that Alexander Ralston platted the City of Indianapolis in the wilderness of Central Indiana.

By 1872, when the first of the still-existing fire stations was built on Mass Ave, the city was entering the Gilded Age of abundance. The red brick Fire Station #2 displays its Victorian splendor in fine Italianate style with limestone beltlines, arched windows and decorative brackets.

Now the Indianapolis Firefighters Museum, this former station was one of four identical ones built in the 1870s. It is the only one still in existence and, according to the museum website, is the oldest fire station building left in the city.

Former Station #2 is the oldest remaining fire station in the city.

Just a few blocks from Station #2, the former Station #7 building still stands on the southeast corner of Alabama and New York Streets. Constructed in 1914, this three-story building is also brick with limestone trim but its modern-in-1914 architecture, while still taking its inspiration from Italy, is the early-20th century popular style of the Italian Renaissance Revival, rather than the Victorian-era Italianate.

Station #7, with its brownish brick walls, limestone quoins at the corners and framing the windows, and eave decorated with square dentils, represents a style that was still fairly new in the U.S. in 1914. Italian Renaissance Revival would become increasingly popular in the U.S., especially after World War I. Proudly proclaiming its one-time status as IFD “Headquarters” on its New York Street façade, this building remained in use until 1979. Within the last decade, it has been re-purposed as part of the Firehouse Square development.

Back on Mass Ave, the newest fire station in the historic district is the modern-day incarnation of Station #7. Opened in 1979, after the department closed the station house on New York Street, this flat-roof, textured stucco-panel building is the least decorative of the three stations within the district. But it represents its period in architecture just as truly as do the other two.

This relatively recent building takes stylistic cues such as the weighty round posts which support the second floor, from the brutalism of the late 1960s and adds to them the somewhat whimsical touches popularized in the last quarter of the 20th century, such as the textured walls on the New Jersey façade. Unfortunately, the most visible façade of the fire station is the rear one, which faces Mass Ave.

The former Station #7 was once the fire department’s headquarters.

Although the current Station #7 is probably the least pleasing to us architecturally speaking, it is just as much a product of its time and design ethos as the other two within the district. And, as the National Register has taught us, the distancing of time is required to judge the worth of architectural design. Perhaps one day this newest Station #7 will please our preservationist eyes just as much as the other two. (Okay, that seems doubtful, but it’s too early to decide).

What is certain is that the Mass Ave Historic District offers a rare opportunity to view fire stations from three different eras, all of which are stylistic interpretations of the modern architecture of their day. And each of which is its own page in the catalog of Indianapolis architecture.