A New Torrent: Oldest Firehouse in Boston Being Restored Using Tax Credits
By Caitlin Jones
2 min read
Tax Credit Advisor, March 2011: With the help of historic rehabilitation and new markets tax credits, a 151-year-old former firehouse in Boston is being renovated into offices in a $2.2 million project by Historic Boston, Inc., a local nonprofit real estate and historic preservation organization.
The transaction is noteworthy not just for preserving a rich chapter of the city’s municipal history, but also for the fact that such a small deal got funded at all.
The Eustis Fire House, on Eustis Street in the Dudley Square neighborhood of Roxbury, is the oldest standing firehouse in Boston. Constructed in 1859 for the Roxbury Fire Department, separate from Boston at the time, it contained two floors – living quarters on the second level for active duty firemen, and a single bay on the ground floor for fire apparatus. It originally housed fire equipment pulled by men, then later by horses – at which time a stable was added. The fire company was called Torrent Six – named after a piece of fire apparatus manufactured by Hunneman, a Roxbury company. “They built a lot of fire fighting equipment that was shipped all around the world. And they named all of their apparatus after something related to water,” says HBI Executive Director Kathy Kottaridis.
