Restoration work on old fire house progressing

Renovation work is under way on the old central fire station on Broad Street, part of a $1 million project that will house the New Bern Fireman's Museum and a new visitors center.

Officials hope to have it ready in time for the city's 300th anniversary in 2010.

The city owns the current 53-year-old museum on Hancock Street behind the fire house, but it is operated by a nonprofit board of directors, which continues raising money to fund the new museum home.

The board has worked for five years on the idea of moving the museum from its current one-story building to the two-story fire house, which was the center of much of the town's fire history since 1928.

In recent months, the city has worked to repair the roof and restore the brick exterior of the fire house, stabilizing and replacing mortar, bricks and windows - some 80 years old. Crews began spraying the building Thursday with a sealant that will waterproof the structure, which is needed before detailed interior renovations begin.

The museum, which receives $50,000 in city funding each year, operates as an enterprise business under the 10-person board of Friends of the New Bern Fireman's Museum. The board, which leases the building from the city, at first used a volunteer staff, but later went to paid employees to ensure a continuity of operating hours.

"We have been very careful with our city funding," said board member Nancy Mansfield.

The board has amassed several hundred thousand dollars toward the renovation and building project through savings, fund-raising, private donations and revenues from ticket sales and the museum gift shop.

The museum has received several grants, one for assessing its collection and another for restoration of about 40 old photographs of former fire chiefs.

Mansfield said a number of grants that could help with the restoration and building are pending.

The board also seeks in-kind help from the community, ranging from donations of materials to the help of tradespeople.

"We've got a ways to go and it's not going to be easy," she said. "But we think it is doable. And the interest in fire and firemen is a universal thing."

The old fire house has bays on the ground floor facing Broad Street, with upstairs living quarters and meeting rooms that once housed the Button and Atlantic fire companies. The Button Company was the state's first chartered fire unit in 1845.

"We just want to get the public excited," board Chairman Sabrina Bengel said. "The second floor of the fire station tells a very good part of the history in that it shows the life of a fireman - the dormitories, the meeting space, where they had recreation."

An example are poles on each side of the second floor area where firemen slid to the ground level when the fire whistle went off.

"It has such a connection to New Bern and the community," Bengel said. "So many people's parents, grandparents, great-grandparents were either members of the fire department or fire chiefs. We know they have an emotional attachment to it and they are sentimental about our fire department and about the building."

She hopes people with an interest in the fire department will respond.

"We are reaching out to those people to come forward to get involved with us on this project," she said.

"This will be a restored building on Broad Street that we hope will spawn other restorations and get shops developing because it will attract visitors to the area," Bengel said.

The new visitors center, at the corner of Broad and Hancock streets, will be a 4,500-square-foot two-story building that will serve a variety of needs.

It will be an exhibit hall, house the gift shop, and provide meeting space that can be accessed by the community.

From a functional standpoint, it will allow the fire house to be restored authentically.

When it was built in 1928, there was no Americans with Disability Act. The visitors center will have restrooms accessible to the handicapped, as well as an elevator that will allow handicapped people access to the second floor of the fire house through a breezeway.

The visitors center is scheduled for construction after the fire house renovation is complete.

Once both buildings are operational, the current museum will be phased out. No concrete plan has emerged for its future use.

Numerous items have been added to the museum collection since the board was first appointed by the city aldermen in 2003.

"We are constantly working on making the Fireman's Museum a more interesting experience and making people more aware of us," Bengel said.