Looking through Fire Department records, he?s already learned that the Riverdale firehouse, which predates the entire borough of the Bronx by about 25 years, was built after a terrible railroad accident in Spuyten Duyvil in 1882.
On a winter?s evening at approximately 7 p.m., two trains collided and one was set ablaze. The fire engulfed two of the train?s cars, according to documents describing the early history of firefighting in the Bronx. People tried to put it out with buckets of water from Spuyten Duyvil Creek and some even threw snowballs into it.
In the end, eight people died and an influential and wealthy Riverdalian, William E. Dodge, went to the city?s mayor to demand a firehouse and a warning bell for the area.
At least one other major fire occurred before the three-story wooden firehouse first opened for service. That blaze destroyed a brick mansion on what is now West 249th Street and Riverdale Avenue.
The bell used in the tower is a historical oddity. It was forged in Spain in 1762 and intended for a monastery in Mexico, but was taken by an American general in the Mexican War between 1846 and 1848. It?s unclear precisely how it ended up in Riverdale, but was kept in the original firehouse and was moved to where it now lives: in the Monument on West 238th Street and Riverdale Avenue.
In 1939, after the Henry Hudson Parkway was built through Riverdale, the original firehouse was replaced by the brick building that now houses Engine and Ladder companies 52. That?s when the bell was moved.