Picture of fire pole opening enclosure doors?

[Tower1ski]

Would anyone happen to have a picture of the enclosures that cover a fire pole opening. This is the type that when the pole is used automatically open with weight being applied to the pole. Or know of access to literature with a picture?
Thanks
Peter

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McIntire Brass Works, inc14 Horace StreetSomerville, Ma 02143   Phone (617) 547-1819    Fax (617) 547-4466

[Tower1ski]

Thanks,
I'll give them a try.
Peter

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Top Enclosure of pole

[4everleatherhead]

try www.slidepole.com and click Gallery.  It is the website for the McIntyre Brass works that someone mentioned earlier.  

There are a few pics of the newer models.  Older models are not shown.  E-mail me if you need older pics and I will try to track a few down.

[Box 2565]

(I thought this went well with the topic!)

July 13, 2005   The New York Times

In Firehouse, Fastest Way Down Is on Its Way Out

By MICHELLE O'DONNELL

Of all the tools associated with the dangerous but sometimes romantic world of firefighting, few capture the spirit of the job quite like the shiny firehouse pole, that
simple brass delivery system that relies on little more than gravity to get a fireman to his truck a few seconds faster.

In New York City's firehouses, veterans have a deep affection, even a zealous sense of protection, for their poles. But now, the department has begun shrinking their number sharply as it builds new firehouses and remodels old ones to bring them up to current building codes. In many cases, ventilation systems have been installed where the poles and their surrounding holes used to be.

The trend is no different around the country, as cities build one-story firehouses and update older firehouses. "It certainly is without any question that firehouse poles are
becoming, with each new firehouse, a thing of the past," said Harold A. Schaitberger, the general president of the International Association of Fire Fighters. "The new firehouse or station would be built with stairways and no poles."

It is an ignominious slide into obscurity for a century-old tool that has served a fire company perhaps as many as a dozen times a night. As the first daring step before any derring-do, the pole, with its 20-foot-or-so plunge, became a striking emblem of firefighting like the walrus mustache and the Dalmatian.

And while other tools like wooden ladders and horse-drawn engines have been updated and improved over the decades, the pole, true to form, remains the fastest way down.

A new firehouse in the Rockaways in Queens was built without any poles at all. A vast firehouse on Staten Island opened in the spring with a single cast aluminum pole tucked into a corner. (On a recent visit, firefighters, momentarily forgetting it was there, said they did not have one.)

Firehouses under renovation in Brooklyn and Manhattan have had many of their poles removed. And the fire academy stopped teaching new recruits to slide down poles some years ago.

The removal has also coincided with the department's heightened concerns about safety in recent years. Every firefighter seems to tell stories of pole-related broken
ankles, sprains, blown-out knees, friction burns, concussions, twisted and broken backs. News accounts described one pole-related paralysis, in 1969, and one
civilian death, in 1929.

For a department intensely loyal to tradition, even a gentle weaning - away from, say, four poles, positioned alongside the engine and truck, to one centrally situated
pole - can seem like a seismic shift to veterans, who say they must recalibrate their well-honed exit maneuvers to include a more time-consuming jaunt down a flight or two of stairs. "It's the first thing I do when I work somewhere else: find out where the pole is," said Lt. Jeff Monsen of Engine Company 23 on West 58th Street in Manhattan.

At the Lower Manhattan quarters of Engine Company 10 and Ladder Company 10, where the poles were recently removed and holes sealed up so that ductwork could be installed for central air-conditioning, disappointed firefighters considered sawing through the first floor ceiling to reinstall them. "Now at 4 o'clock in the morning, you've got 11 guys going down the stairs," a veteran firefighter said glumly. "Stupidest thing I ever heard of."

Joseph Mastropietro, who as the assistant commissioner of facilities oversees the maintenance of the city's firehouses, said that the poles had been removed and their
holes filled as firehouses were renovated and given new ventilation systems required by the city.

"We didn't see it as a major problem because they still had two means of egress," he said, referring to a single pole and stairs. "There was a lot of resistance at first, but I don't think they mind it too much now."

In 2000, the department briefly envisioned new houses built without poles and opened the quarters of Engine Company 265 in the Rockaways without any. But the department abandoned that plan when it became clear that the city lacked the
space for sprawling houses to replace the narrow, multistory historic firehouses that it still used.

Since then, Mr. Mastropietro said, the department has backed a strategic placement of poles as the houses are remodeled, which has meant a selective removal.

The pole can seem more harrowing than some rescue missions.  Marooned inside a 3-foot-wide moat of open space with a 21-foot drop to cold concrete, the pole is no plaything, generations of firefighters' best efforts to the contrary.

Climbing races and water fights are two unofficial but common uses of the pole and the hole. Another is luring a rookie firefighter into a rope maneuver and leaving him
dangling indefinitely in the hole.

Some firefighters like to stop and talk at the base of the pole, one hand on its gleaming brass, while others make sure never to store their bunker gear too close to the pole for fear of being clipped by descending firefighters as they put it on.

"It's an expressway," said Firefighter Louis Trazino of Engine Company 33 in Greenwich Village, where the pole connecting the second and third floors spans a 28-foot drop, the longest of any in the city.

Keep in mind that before hopping on a fire truck and driving away in the middle of the night, a firefighter must leap into a dark hole with what seems like a two-story drop and slide. Descent requires as much bravado as a mastery of physical technique. There is no safety platform, no remedy for sweaty palms, and the constant danger of striking one's head on the perimeter of the hole or against the swinging doors that might enclose it.

"You know how many times that's happened?" asked Firefighter Dan Cintron of Engine 23 with a laugh as he launched into another terrifying demonstration, banging
open the doors enclosing the pole and, without even glancing to prepare for his leap across the hole, grabbing the pole and spinning downward 20 feet to the ground. He
reached it in two seconds.

Another firefighter at the house was known to stash pillowcases near every pole hole to grasp the pole and descend quicker. Old-timers were said to slide down head
first. Firefighters can tell a novice by whether his skin whistles against the metal.

Lieutenant Monsen said he had had to train every new firefighter at the house the proper way to slide: legs crossed at the ankles with the pole resting between the
outer ankle joints, chin tucked to chest, and hands firm, not clenched.

Mike DeSanctis, 24, who has been a firefighter at Engine 23 for four months, said that he and another probationary firefighter usually took the stairs when the alarm bells rang. To avoid the matter entirely, one has taken to sleeping downstairs.

In time, should the poles remain, the young firefighters might become part of one of the most extraordinary and underappreciated bits of choreography in town.  It happens after dinner when the firefighters have retired to their upstairs bunks, when the mayhem of the city is suspended in an odd calm.

Suddenly, the alarm wails, and, like a merry band summoned by a whistle in a forest, firefighters rain from the ceiling. They shoot down in rapid succession, full of
bounce and grace. All the signature styles of descent whisk by: not only the ankle cross and the two-hand hold but the one-arm hook and the straight-legged-one-arm-hook combo.

It is over in about 10 seconds, and a visitor who did not think to look up could miss it without ever knowing.

    * Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

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Just so everyone knows.  The poles are going no where.  This is the standard article pulled from the journalists "fill the page" ideas book of stories.  While the pole was at one time on its way out in most places during the late 1970s to early 1990s since then it has actually seen quite a comeback in many places outside the usuall cities like NY or LA, San Fran etc.  Just looking at a survey of new firehouses built in the last 10-15 years would show that it is far from unpopular.

This story here is almost a complete reversal of the NYTimes article posted earlier.  It is more of a case of the writer developing the story in their head (a standard passing of a "historical practice" story) and pluging in the quotes whether they fit the story or not.

I can assure you the poles in the firehouses at least in NYC are going nowhere.


Bravest Cling to Pole-er Express

Ask any kid why he wants to be a fireman when he grows up, and he'll tell you. One, he wants to slide down the brass pole, that exciting express conveyance from the living area of the firehouse upstairs down 20 feet or so to the street level, where the big rigs await the call to action.
Two, he wants to ride in a fire truck and spray water onto a fire through a hose.

And three, on the way to the fire, he wants to ring the bell and sound the siren.

The pole has always been associated with city firehouses, the classic three- and four-story firehouses, some that date back to the turn of the last century.

While there is a nationwide trend toward elimination of firehouse poles, they remain fixtures in New York City - in fact, all but two of the New York Fire Department's 238 firehouses still have poles.

FDNY spokesman Jim Long said only two recently built firehouse - one of them a one-story facility - are without poles.

"There are no plans to have the poles removed" from any of the other 236 firehouses, Long said.

This is just fine with the vast majority of New York City's Bravest, men - and women - like 12-year veteran Firefighter Al Kessner, 43, who works out of Engine 290/Ladder 103 in East New York, Brooklyn.

"We were taught in probie school how to slide the poles," Kassner said. "They get us to the fires faster."

Originally published on July 31, 2005
By DON SINGLETON - DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

[bkeith11]

New FS 36, Kansas City, Missouri.