PONSONBY FIRE TOWER.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 81, 5 April 1923, Page 10

PONSONBY FIRE TOWER.

LANDMARK COMING DOWN. IMG NKW STATION PLANNED. The old, high, wooden tirebell tower, opposite the Leys Institute, near the Three Lamps. U to-day being riisI mantled. Il is one of the last of tlicsc j tall watch-toners which a generation or jso ago were such a prominent feature of !the lily's high places. The tower takes 'old residents back to the days when j the discovery oi" a blaze was the signal j for a tocsin that woke everyone lor nines I round, and raised a state of thrill and [expectation in the breasts of small Pon- ; coiii ■;,"Hi's that is quit.- unknon n lo ,he : modern youngster. Simultaneously the jh.md reel (a skeletonised sort of'hand Mart) would hurry oil" as fast as the motive power (one liremanl could urge [it, and the ire nould be excitement for l lie nigh I and a source of talk for a week. I hi one occasion going down St. Mary's Konil the reel was in chap'p of the man instead of the other nay round, and old firemen still remember many other incident.s nf the strange things that u-ed lo happen in the dais when tho tower was in its youth. Onanotlier occasion the head of the brigade rushed one way to n fire while the rank and file took one of those blind streets that u.-od to run off the western side of Ponsonby Koad. They got bushed and in tlie meantime a very angry foreman was ramping up and down in front of the fire, telling the flames what he thought oi firemen that got lost when looking for the blaze. Originally the Ponsonby fire station stood where the police station is situatod in Jorvois Road; then it was shifted to the present site, and for years was housed in a small corrugated" iron shed. From the hand-reel. Hi,, equipment gradually grew until one horse was kept, then two, and so on until the modern mo!or engines took their place. The hell thai hung in the tower has been pone for a po od many years, and now the dismantling of the'tower marks another sta>;c in the brigade's history. Tl.,- watch-tower and bell have been superseded by the automatic alarm system, and also by the fact that the growth of houses ensures that a fire is very soon detected after it breaks out. And the Ponsonby fire station itself has grown too small for the important district it servos. Thorp is no room for expansion, and the same thin? applies at the Grey Lynn station, which is built on an "island." The size of t|i o district demands a liig up-to-date station, and this is now being built at the corner of Lincoln Street and Ponsonity Rc.aJ This new station will be tin important one, as it will serve the whole of the western side of the city. There will be six married quarters; Ihe efigine room will be able to house four engines, and all the equipment will be of the latest pattern. The contractors are now busy on the new building, and it is expected tilitt tho fire-fighters in this growing and populous side of the city will be concentrated in the new station within six months.