New York City Fire Museum  The New York City Fire Museum is a museum dedicated to the New York City Fire Department (FDNY) in the Hudson Square neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It is housed in the former quarters of the FDNY's Engine Company No. 30, a renovated 1904 fire house at 278 Spring Street between Varick and Hudson Streets. The museum cares for over 10,000 objects as well as an archive of records, ephemera and photographs estimated in the tens of thousands of pieces celebrating the history of the fire service and the FDNY. Examples of modern-day firefighting equipment, as well as a permanent memorial to the 343 members of the FDNY who died at the World Trade Center site after the September 11 attacks, are also on permanent display at the museum. In November 2015 the museum was granted an Absolute Charter by the Board of Regents of the New York State Department of Education. The entity that runs the museum is classified as a 501(c)(3) organization. The NYC Fire Museum’s roots date back to December 1870 when it was established in Fire Department Headquarters at 155 Mercer Street. between Prince and Houston Streets in Manhattan. Exactly when it was dismantled is not documented but was most likely at the time that headquarters were relocated to East 67th Street in the late 1880s. When the NYC Fire College was established in the Packard Building at 32-02 Queens Boulevard in Long Island City, Queens, Chief John McKenna ordered that the relics be set up as a museum, along with a library, on the building’s seventh floor. A better home was secured in 1948 in the new FDNY apparatus repair shops at 48-58 35th Street in Long Island City. It remained there until 1958 when a bay was vacated at the quarters of Engine Company 7 and Hook & Ladder Company 1 at 100 Duane Street in Manhattan. This location made it much easier for the general public to visit the impressive array of artifacts exhibited on two floors of the firehouse. In 1981, the Home Insurance Company decided to dismantle its H. V. Smith Firefighting Museum, located at 59 Maiden Lane. The collection was donated to the City of New York. However, the collection was so extensive that it could not be accommodated at the Duane Street location. The FDNY embarked on a campaign to raise the necessary funding to convert the vacant beaux-arts firehouse at 278 Spring Street originally built for Engine Company 30 in 1904 into a state-of-the-art museum. The Friends of the New York City Fire Department Collection, Inc., a 501(c)3 organization was formed to raise the necessary funds.