Education - FDNY History

A Quick History of the FDNY - by Peter Rothenberg and Geoff Giglierano
Chapter 1: Begining With a Blaze	Chapter 8: The Process of Professionalization
Chapter 2: The First Fire Engines	Chapter 9: Faster and Better in a Changing City
Chapter 3: Competition	Chapter 10: Covering More Ground
Chapter 4: Hear the Loud Alarm Bells	Chapter 11: Firefighting Starts Becoming a Science
Chapter 5: Pumpers and Politics	Chapter 12: Larger Events Affect the Department
Chapter 6: Decline of the Volunteer System	Chapter 13: FDNY and Times of Social Upheaval
Chapter 7: Volunteer Department's Demise	Chapter 14 The Job Goes On

Chapter 3: Competition

"Often, I may say very often, on Sunday afternoons, a false alarm would be given on purpose somewhere on Eighth Avenue, so that 11 and 16 would be seen running in response. The people looked for these trials of speed and endurance, and lined the avenue on both sides, encouraging their favorite. They congregated there just as lovers of horse-flesh now assemble on the upper avenues, to see the trotters speeding."
Christopher Johnson, Oceanus Engine Company #11.

As more and more fire companies formed, the race to fires took on a life of its own. The reputation of a company and its members was made and tarnished in these very public displays of speed and endurance. For a time the race to fires and the efforts to extinguish them was considered by many a spectator sport. Unfortunately, the competition between fire companies often resulted in fights. At the same time a comradery between fire companies with in the city and across the country was also developing. Fire companies would visit with one another, often spurring parades to show off their ornately decorated apparatus.