NY Daily News

Activists from Harlem to Williamsburg are demanding Mayor Bloomberg scrap plans to sell three shuttered firehouses in some of the city's most booming neighborhoods.

The critics charge response times have increased since the houses were axed amid a wave of closures in 2003 - and fear the influx of thousands more residents over the coming years will only make matters worse.

"Selling off these assets is really sticking it in the eye in these communities," said Steve Cassidy, president of the Uniformed Firefighters Association. "Certainly these assets should be held onto. We have a huge housing boom going on."

The anger is acute in Williamsburg, where Bloomberg wants to sell the building that once housed Engine 212, just steps from the recently rezoned waterfront where more than 10,000 new apartments are expected in the coming years.

Residents in Harlem and Cobble Hill, where two other firehouses are slated for sale, also point to burgeoning development and say the city is making a mistake.

"There's hardly a two-block area in Harlem you can go where there's not construction going on," said activist Woodie Henderson, who battled the closing of Engine 36 on 125th St. "It's a no-brainer to save this firehouse."

Despite the uproar, city officials have refused to back down.

"There are no plans to reopen these firehouses or companies at this time," Fire Department spokesman Jim Long said.

It will be months before the firehouses can be sold since city officials must first go through a lengthy land-use review.

In addition to the Harlem, Williamsburg and Cobble Hill houses, two other former firehouses also have been declared "surplus property" and are to be sold - Engine 15 in lower Manhattan and Engine 265/Ladder 121 in Queens. Those two have sparked little controversy.

But at the other three, news of auctions has reignited outrage that has smoldered since the houses were closed amid widespread protests - and even arrests - more than three years ago.

"When the closures were proposed, the argument was we had too many firehouses and that they could handle the demand with fewer," said City Councilman Bill de Blasio (D-Cobble Hill), who was arrested in 2003 for protesting at Engine 204.

However, de Blasio noted, statistics have shown response times have climbed in all six neighborhoods that lost an engine company in 2003.

"We have already lost some ground and we are going to have thousands if not tens of thousands of new residents over the next decade," he said.

In Williamsburg, for example, FDNY statistics obtained by activists show response times there jumped 49 seconds. Meanwhile, the neighborhood has seen more development than anywhere in the borough, with more than 4,400 permits for new housing issued since 2002.

"How do you close a firehouse in an area that you just rezoned for massive population growth when you claim shifting demographics as the reason?" asked Williamsburg activist Phil DePaolo. "Where's the planning?"

So far, the city has not moved to sell the three other firehouses closed in 2003, such as Engine 261 in Long Island City.

But City Councilman Eric Gioia (D-Queens), who battled that closing, said widespread development there has made it needed more than ever.

"Thousands of people are moving here," said Gioia spokesman Jerel Klue. "We need to be prepared."