EXHIBITS:
THE LONG ISLAND CITY EXEMPT FIREMEN’S ASSOCIATION
Long Island City had nine fire companies. The department was reorganized and became professional in the 1890s. After the New York City consolidation of 1898, they were the only companies taken over directly by the city; the other groups in Queens were left as rural volunteer units for almost two decades.
As late as the 1940s, much of the Long Island City fire apparatus remained within our community. Five pieces (pumpers and hose carriages from Steinway, Astoria and Long Island City units) are still preserved in the New York City Fire Department Museum in lower Manhattan.
Long Island City’s famous ‘Big 6’ Americus Engine originally belonged to a company associated with Boss Tweed. Its tiger mascot was the inspiration for the notorious Tammany Tiger in Thomas Nast cartoons. After Tweed’s fall and conviction for corruption, New York sold the engine to Long Island City. It was proudly on display at the Exempt’s headquarters for decades.
The Long Island City Exempt Firemen’s Association dates from the 1890s;
George Casey was its first president. Grandson, William Casey,
was campaign advisor for President Ronald Reagan and head of the Security and Exchange Commission. Later he went on to be chief at the Central Intelligence Agency.
The expression ‘exempt’ for firemen indicated that, as long as they remain volunteer fire personnel, they were excused from certain civic obligations (as, for example, military service). For many years there were three retired firemen's associations in Long Island City: the "Exempt Firemen" at 30th Avenue and Crescent Street, the "Veteran Firemen" at Astoria Boulevard and Main Street, and the "Volunteer Firemen" at 27-01 Jackson Ave and 43rd Avenue. The last survivor died in 1961.
A fire historian undoubtedly was thinking of them when he wrote this eloquent epitaph. ‘The old volunteer firemen are all gone; their heroic deeds long forgotten. Their only memorial a short paragraph in a newspaper announcing a death. But, if magnanimous courage is human nature’s noblest quality, then the day will come when the unsung hero, whether a fireman, a policeman, a soldier or a laborer, who risks their life to serve our nation, will inherit the immortality of fame.’
