New York City Fire Museum

Cool fire trucks and gear. Touching videos about 9/11/01, so bring tissues.

The FDNY's original museum opened as the Fire College Museum in Long Island City in 1934. In 1959 the collection was moved to the spare bay of a working firehouse at 100 Duane Street in Manhattan, where it remained until the Home Insurance Company presented its own extensive collection of fire memorabilia to the city in 1981, making a move to larger space imperative. A new non-profit, The Friends of the New York City Fire Department Collection, was created to raise funds to renovate the former quarters of Engine Company No. 30, a 1904 Beaux-Arts firehouse on Spring Street, and in 1987, the New York City Fire Museum opened to the public.

Exhibits in the museum demonstrate the changes in firefighting practices from bucket brigades to carriages to engines. The evolution of the department itself, from volunteer firefighters to municipal fire departments is also covered. The museum also houses a special memorial to the 343 members of the FDNY who lost their lives in the September 11 attacks. This memorial includes artifacts recovered from the World Trade Center site, as well as a monument commemorating each firefighter who made the Supreme Sacrifice.[1]

Retired FDNY firefighters are often on hand to educate the public on firefighting history as well as to relate personal anecdotes.

The museum is also very active in fire safety and prevention education and has a mock apartment highlighting fire hazards for its kindergarten though 12th-grade programs.

The New York City Fire Museum attracts approximately 40,000 visitors a year. Attendance at the museum spiked to 46,000 visitors in 2002 following the September 11th attacks and has since leveled off

Such a great historical archive. We loved. Staff very friendly.

Myself and my mother visited the museum yesterday as we had some time to spare before going to the airport for our flight home to England, and we thought it was well worth the visit, I'd have thought the museum could easily charge more for entry and it shouldn't put people off, the only downside to our visit was that it coincided with a children's party and as I'm in a wheelchair that meant we had to wait a while to use the lift to get up to the second floor but that was just bad timing on our part. The 9/11 tribute was very moving to see all the equipment that was recovered from Ground Zero. The most interesting part we thought was the stories about the dogs that were involved in the rescues from a long time ago and to read the story about "Chief" was wonderful, not only that, there he was in his own box! I would definitely recommend anyone makes the effort to go to this museum, I suppose it could be bigger to cover more of the history but I did like the fact that it is housed in an old fire house from 1904.

Fantastic. This place really IS for kids from 6 to 60.

Moving tribute to September 11 as well as wonderful exhibits and friendly retired firefighters with infectious smiles.

Negligible price of admittance for such a nice place.

The only possible complaint someone could have is that kids cannot scramble over rigs etc. they way they like to touch and play with everything. Can see that because these are lovingly restored antiques.Doing the fire simulation will probably help make up for that, as well as dressing up in FF gear and swinging an axe ( wooden blade of course).

FF Guides will answer all sorts of questions and talk about their own experiences..
An awful lot for just two floors... gem of a place.