FDNY Engine 39, ca. 1915.

Set among a row of historic institutional buildings on 67th Street between Lexington and Third Avenues, the Fire Department headquarters was the first and largest. Constructed in 1886 to the designs of the fire department's regular architect, Napoleon LeBrun, the Romanesque-style building included a 150-foot tower. The block itself was on a slight hill and the addition of the tower allowed for a panoramic view all the way down to the Battery. The building also housed the department's complex telegraph system. It was described in 1887 as ''an excellent piece of design . . . giving the taxpayer something worth looking at for their money.''

Over the next five years the fire headquarters acquired some grand neighbors, including a police station house (just left of the firehouse), the Mount Sinai Hospital dispensary and nursing school (left of the police station), and the Orthodox Congregation Zichron Ephraim (the Moorish style church at right).

Despite plans to demolish the police and fire buildings in the 1970s for a Hunter College complex and an overturned landmark designation for both in 1980, the buildings remain among their historic neighbors. While the historic exteriors have largely been preserved and maintained, the fire house (no longer the headquarters, but home to Engine Co. 39 and Ladder 16) lost its tower and some of its facade carvings, giving it a somewhat unfinished look.