Cooper’s Firehouse Home: Anchor restores 1906 patrol house; 9/11 legacy endures

When Anderson Cooper bought a historic former fire patrol house in New York’s Greenwich Village for $4.3 million in 2010, the purchase raised concerns among local preservationists, according to contemporary reporting by DNAinfo and the Village Preservation Society. The four-storey building at 84 West 3rd Street had spent decades as a working Fire Patrol station, and its history was tied not only to New York’s firefighting past but also to one of the city’s most painful chapters: the September 11 attacks. Today, the 8,240-sq-ft property has been transformed into Cooper’s private home. Yet its historic identity has not disappeared. Cooper restored the building’s distinctive exterior, while elements of the former fire patrol house, including its original fire poles, were retained inside. The building was later protected as part of the South Village Historic District.A firehouse that wasn’t part of the FDNYBuilt in 1906 and designed by architect Franklin Baylies, Fire Patrol House No. 2 was not an ordinary New York firehouse. It belonged to the New York Fire Patrol, a privately funded service established by insurance companies to respond to fires and, importantly, protect buildings and...