"Firehouses old and new."

Ahrens J. Fox maintains a Fb page called "Firehouses old and new." I asked him to tell me more about his project, and he did. As I explained to him, I'm not a devotee of firefighting culture, but history and architecture interest me, especially the repurposing aspect. The photo above was borrowed from the library.

Best of luck to Ahrens, and I'll continue eavesdropping.

Firehouses old and new

I am a retired volunteer fire fighter of 14 years locally. My interest was to follow my dream somehow, then after my illness in 2013, with all my spare time looking at other pages, commenting and sharing, I decided to make my own page. Well, my page is called Firehouses old and new, started in 2013 to document the history of our local fire stations, throughout Floyd County and other counties here in Indiana, to keep the History alive. As you know, historic buildings don't always last. Some are fixed up and re-purposed, most are either torn down or falling down and gone forever. I even managed to cross the bridge into Kentucky and photographed some there, also. I then added my Facebook friends, and they added or told theirs, and my page exploded with many members. At last count it was 4,000+. These member's are either firefighters both local and abroad, historians, and Fire Dept. buffs.

Cappuccino yaps at NSP's heels as fire house breathes its last.

I haven't the time to research the specifics, but in my recollection, the firehouse on Green Valley Road dates to around 1990. If memory serves, the design was applauded at the time for being more than just gray socialist utilitarian, but somewhat nicely executed, as reflective of New Albany's architectural heritage -- assuming that the word "heritage" in this context refers to buildings still standing, as opposed to those (Post Office, Court House) torn down to enable asphalt parking lots.

Twenty-three years later, this fire house building is fully expendable and will be demolished so that a non-local corporation can further its profitable aims, but what the hell; there was never any real chance that we might build a new firehouse on Daisy Lane AND turn the old one into a local-only indie green grocer, because THAT would not be in keeping with the garish, chain-choked Wesley Commons a block away, which should induce an unshakable urge to vomit upon sight of the Starbucks and Bob Evans signage.

Those with anything approximating principles hurl, the oblivious sheep keep grazing, and someone is having an orgasm over at One Southern Indiana HQ ... and it's probably Kerry Stemler.

Oh yes, and diligent redevelopment rep Dan Coffey wanna aw-dit ... not of the Bicentennial Commission, because the political protection racket now embraces Bob Caesar, but of the NSP project, and that's all well and good; maybe something will turn up about the 108K solution. Let's aw-dit everyone, except the one's under Cappuccino's friendly umbrella. When Cee-Saw's bill comes due, it's going to be a funny day, indeed.

Commission approves firehouse deal; Coffey calls for audit of NSP project, by Daniel Suddeath (N and T)

... Though the money Kroger will pay to purchase the Green Valley Road station won’t cover a new fire house, an appraiser said Tuesday during the meeting that the actual fire building is pretty much worthless to Kroger.

He said the property was appraised at $350,000, but that the station would likely have to be razed to make way for the expansion.

If the fire house becomes city hall, where does the fire house go?

During the course of a meandering Saturday posting here at NAC, we referred to an intriguing proposal made by mayoral candidate Doug England (D), who last week floated the idea of transforming the architecturally acclaimed fire house at 4th and East Spring into a new city hall:

See: Scooby Doo, where are Dork & Mindy?

Now at-large city council candidate John Gonder (D) weighs in with the thoughtful opinion that (a) England’s idea is a good one, and (b) if it comes to fruition, a new firehouse properly located in the west end of New Albany might be built on the site of the much vilified New Albany DVD smut vendor, which presumably would then be forced to rent a Gregory-owned slumlord property.

Read candidate Gonder’s thoughts here: England's City Hall Idea.

These city hall relocation considerations were not mentioned at Monday’s city council meeting.

Still, we’re reasonably sure that 1st district councilman Dan Coffey, who previously alleged that he could have designed a better building than the current 4th & Spring fire house while standing on his head writing legal documents in a stormwater drainage basin, would be amenable to better fire protection for the citizens of his fiefdom.

3rd district councilman Steve Price, whose council district would be gaining a city hall, was busy installing a new deadbolt on grandma’s cookie jar and could not be reached for comment. A source tells NAC that our own “36% Dilution” has forgotten the password to blogger.com (hint: think "pandora's box") and cannot use his own blog site to release thoughts on these and other proposals … which of course is just as well.

Readers, what do you think?