Engine Co. No. 28

Engine Co. No. 28. . , From A Fire Station To A Diners' Hot Spot , In a city where, as the joke goes, any waiter might be an actor, there's no reason why a venerable fire station shouldn't be turned into a restaurant. And in a city that cheerfully swings the wrecking ball into its own past, maybe that was the only way an old firehouse could survive. , Before Engine Co. No. 28 was a restaurant with fires on the inside in its kitchen it was home to firefighters who einguished blazes outside, throughout downtown Los Angeles. , In 1912, the city constructed this Renaissance Revival building with its twin archways and ornamental terra-cotta cartouches portraying a firefighter's helmet and tools of the trade. It stood smack in the middle of a neighborhood of stately Victorian homes and boarding houses. , The station opened on July 15, 1913, in an age when Dalmatians still routinely rode shotgun on fire engines. Its $80,000 cost made it the city's most expensive fire station. The original horse stalls , never used , were soon converted to a handball court. Its two motor-driven fire trucks were the envy of older firefighters still using horse-drawn equipment. , Trials By Fire... And Water , A dozen firefighters moved in. The station had its first real trial by fire on September 17; right outside the station, a 350-gallon gasoline tank truck was ablaze. Even before they had finished with that mess, Engine Co. No. 28's crews were summoned to join hundreds more firefighters at two different downtown buildings. By day's end, 19 buildings had burned, and 22 people were injured. It was, the fire department said then, the busiest day in its history. , The fires also strained the city's water supply, requiring 75 million gallons of water. The need for water as a tool of the firefighter's trade sent Engine Co. No. 28's crews into the street every Sunday, to test hydrants at 7th Street and Broadway by letting the water flow. , Evidently the handball court wasn't suffcient for the firefighters' energies. They also laid bets , paid off in ice cream , on who could race down the three brass fire poles the fastest. Until the 1920s, they bought the ice cream with 20-dollar gold pieces; their monthly pay was delivered in an envelope containing four such coins. , The third-floor apartment was built for the fire chief and his family, but it soon was turned to other purposes, like the department's relief association and its credit union. In the building's basement, off-duty firefighters practiced numbers for the fire department band, or tested their marksmanship on a makeshift shooting range. , From Lifesaver To Meatloaf , By 1969, Engine Co. No. 28 had rolled out on its last call. The credit union and relief association stayed on until 1971, when the city put the station on the auction block. There were no takers. The place was declared a national historic landmark, but it didn't sell until 1983, when a preservation-minded commercial developer took it off the city's hands for $850,000 and began refitting it as a chic eatery with three stories of offices above. , It took longer to rebuild Engine Co. No. 28 than it had to build it in the first place. But after five years, 53 variances and an outlay of nearly $6 million, it reopened. Its Dalmatians were ceramic, its one surviving brass fire pole was off-limits, but in its cozy mahogany booths, diners ate food cooked from firefighters' own recipes like traditional meatloaf and Southern-style fried chicken. , Because the fire department had never reassigned the number, the restaurant was allowed to keep the station name, cut into the stone above the arched doorways. , And firefighters still pull their red trucks up in front, to show the rookies the legendary Engine Co. No. 28.