FDNY Engine 240 ARCHITECT: Peter J. Lauritzen DATE: 1895 STYLE: Romanesque Revival The Firehouse for Engine Company 40/Hook & Ladder Company 21 was built in 1895 as part of a campaign by Brooklyn Fire Commissioner Frederick W. Wurster to replace the old firehouses housing the volunteer fire companies in Brooklyn’s recently annexed districts with new up-to-date buildings suitable for modern equipment and full-time paid professional staff. This building was designed by the noted architect Peter J. Lauritzen. It is one of eight firehouses he designed for the Brooklyn Fire Department between 1894 and 1897 and is his finest in the Romanesque Revival Style, a style favored for Brooklyn firehouses of the period. The building’s imposing limestone and brick façade features an asymmetrical design, with a rusticated limestone ground story, round corner turret richly decorated with Romanesque motifs, a broad tripartite round arched window set off by a drip molding with label stops, a flat-arched double-window flanked by colonnettes, an elaborate arched cornice, and an asymmetric parapet.