By Richard Khavkine
The Star-Ledger
ORANGE, N.J. — Preserving history takes time.
More than seven years after a projected 14-month renovation and expansion project started at the South Orange Fire Department, the town’s 33 firefighters and officers are back in their Norman Revival digs.
The department had long ago outgrown the structure, which was originally built in 1925 to accommodate horse-drawn fire equipment.
Since April 2002, the department was run out of two trailers — manufactured by the After Disaster Housing Corp. — set up nearby.
“We’re still not done, but we’re able to get the guys out of the trailers, which is a pleasant day for me — and them,” Chief Jeff Markey said yesterday. “It’s a pleasant day for the department.”
Markey was standing just outside the Sloan Street station’s third, and newest, engine bay, which was among the nearly $4 million project’s additions.
Since being completed in 1925, the building stayed relatively untouched, and it showed, Markey said. Leaky roofs, crumbling walls and exposed asbestos all needed to be addressed.
The village secured nearly $800,000 in grants and, as financing was needed, bonded for the balance.
The additions include a new dormitory, new offices with a separate entrance and “big showers ."x89;."x89;. big showers,” Markey said.
All told, the firehouse grew by about 3,100 square feet. “Every square foot of this place is used,” he said.
The original building received complete interior renovations, a new roof, HVAC system and fitness center and a second-floor kitchen.
Since the building is on both the state and national registers of historic places, attention to detail was imperative. The building’s windows were milled, its brass fixtures restored and the brickwork re-pointed.
Markey, who has been with the department 34 years, said department personnel make about 2,500 runs a year. Roughly 200 of those account for fires. That’s about three times the number of calls as when he started.
Running the department out of the trailers, with its archaic, cramped communications center, proved a challenge, Markey said.
“It’s completely amazed me that all this time we hadn’t let the public down, not once,” he said.
For that he credited his firefighters.
“It could have gone wrong, but it never did,” he said. “My hat’s off to them. Plus they had to put up with me.”
On occasion, uniforms were stored in a garage under the train tracks across Sloan from the firehouse, and the department’s rigs were parked on the street. Responding to a call meant that firefighters ran across the street, picked up their gear, ran back across Sloan to dress and again cross Sloan to climb aboard the trucks.
Firefighter Mike Commins said that deleting those steps would save 60 seconds, which can be precious time when dealing with a structure fire.
“That’s a big improvement,” said Commins, the president of Firemen’s Mutual Benevolent Association, Local 40.
Commins, a 13-year department veteran, said that working out of the trailers tested the firefighters patience, particularly in the throes of winter.
“Being in that trailer reminded me of being in a federal lockup,” he said. “Seven and a half years is just about one-third of your career.”
While the first two phases of the project — including asbestos remediation and inside demolition — went smoothly, the renovations and additions proved difficult, in part, Markey said, because he was exacting.
Markey, an architectural draftsman for 10 years before he began his firefighting career, said he was adamant that contractors follow the architect’s plans, both because the facility serves a rigorous purpose and because of the building is a community cornerstone.
“It took a tremendous amount of oversight,” he said. “We had the opportunity to have a clean slate. Which you rarely get.”
Yesterday afternoon, Markey and a half dozen other department personnel were in moving mode, taking paperwork, hardware, historic maps and antennas back home.
The signs on the temporary trailers recounted just some of the history of the last seven years:
“SOFD has moved into the firehouse.”
Copyright 2009 Newark Morning Ledger Co.
All Rights Reserved