An Old New Home

Anderson Cooper's Firehouse Stripped Bare on West 3rd Street

Friday, August 19, 2011, by Pete Davies




A crew of burly men spent the better part of Thursday afternoon slowly unpeeling Anderson Cooper on the streets of Greenwich Village. More precisely, they were stripping off the construction scaffolding that's been hiding the old firehouse at 84 West 3rd Street, bought by AC last year for a cool $4.3 million. A complete renovation of the 1906 Fire Patrol House #2 has been ongoing for the better part of the past year, and now the facelift is nearly complete. What's revealed are the original details set in stone by architect Franklin Baylis over one hundred years ago.

Denuded of multiple layers of dark red paint, the building now presents a handsome face of brick in a running bond, trimmed with limestone and terra cotta. Tattered old windows have been replaced, now double hung and framed in deep gray with arched panes above. Way up top egg and dart detailing has been scraped clean and a set of beribboned terra cotta trumpets frame the birthdate of this old beauty. When AC started work here last year, local preservationist commandos at GVSHP were concerned that they couldn't get the Landmarks Preservation Commission to protect the old firehouse. Now that the work is nearly done, everyone might want to reconsider the situation—and give young blue eyes a pat on the back for a job well done.