The Firehouse

About 75 feet south of Holdrum's Garage, where the present day firehouse now stands, was the only firehouse in town. This building housed whatever fire trucks that River Vale owned. I seem to remember that in the early 30's one of them had solid rubber tires, an oddity even back then.

River Vale Firehouse

This building was a great place to spend a rainy or snowy day or a day that was too cold or too hot. The door was usually unlocked and the couple of kids in the neighborhood would go in and play board games or just sit around and kill time talking or whatever. We were always careful to leave the place exactly as we found it so no one would think that it was necessary to lock the place up. The building was also the town hall and unmanned police station. It was also used for town parties or meetings, so very often it was a busy place. Or at least as busy as sleepy old River Vale ever got. That, too burned down, probably sometime in the mid-70's.