Ancient Fire Alarm Boxes Still Function

Fire alarm box posted on Forgotten N.Y. October 4 through 10 is National Fire Prevention Week. So, if you see a fire, what should you do? You dial 911. Calling 911 is the number one way fires are reported, said FDNY Chief of Communications John Coloe.

What is the second most common method used to report a fire? Fire alarm boxes, said Coloe. Yes, those very same red boxes the city tried to remove are still in service, albeit in many cases, in a state of disrepair.

"The situation with alarm boxes has remained stagnant for over a decade," Coloe said during a presentation to the Queens Borough Cabinet on September 22. "The city attempted to remove them, but a federal [court] judge ruled they must be left."

Fifteen years ago, then FDNY Commissioner Howard Safir announced a program to begin eliminating 16,300 fire alarm boxes due to budget cuts that, Safir said, would save the city almost $5 million. A year after that announcement, on Oct. 11, 1995, the New York City Civic Association for the Deaf filed suit in federal court, claiming the removal of the fire alarm boxes violated their civil rights. The city had recommended that public telephones become the primary method of reporting fires [from the street].

After the City Council rejected the plan to eliminate the fire alarm boxes on Aug. 22, 1995, Mayor Rudy Giuliani agreed to keep 9,900 fire alarm boxes. Giuliani also proposed installing 1,000 new private fire alarm boxes with cameras that become activated when triggered in order to monitor false alarms.

Giuliani at the time said New York City was one of the few cities still using fire alarm boxes, which he said, were responsible for more than 90 percent of false alarms.

Coloe said fire alarm boxes are responsible for 58 percent of false alarms. "It has diminished but is still high," he said. "It's an old system, but it'll be there, it'll work." Fire alarm boxes now serve mainly as a backup to other systems in case of power and telephone outages or other disasters. "When everything else fails, the alarm box still works," Coloe said.

More than a century ago, fire alarm boxes were more than just a backup system. On June 2, 1901, the New York Times printed the following: "Few people in Greater New York realize what an important part the little red-painted fire-alarm 'telegraph operator' on the street corner plays in the protection of their lives and property from danger and destruction."

Installed largely at the turn of the 20th century, manual pull boxes send a coded signal of the box number to a central office in each borough where the box is located. Dispatchers then send the alarm to the appropriate fire house. More recent models have speakers that allow the caller to speak directly to the police or fire departments.

Referred to as "living fossils" by the Web site Forgotten NY Street Scenes (www.forgotten-ny.com), some of the pull boxes have been in use since 1870, with modifications.

"We're very low on staff and we're basically running a maintenance operation," Coloe conceded. "There are no plans to restore (but) certainly no plans to remove [boxes].