The imposing two-story neo-Classical style Firehouse, Engine Company 83, Hook & Ladder Company 29, in the Mott Haven section of the South Bronx, was constructed in 1904-05 during the period when an enormous number of public structures were being placed in neighborhoods throughout the five boroughs following the Consolidation of Greater New York in 1898. The architect of this firehouse was Robert D. Kohn, a graduate of Columbia University and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, who emerged around this time as one of the few American architects (like Emery Roth early in his career) who produced major designs influenced by the Vienna Secession, between about 1905 and 1915. An early example of the two-vehicular-bay firehouse, a type that predominated in New York City for the next quarter century, this building is clad in salmon-colored brick with a monumental three-bay limestone enframement on the first story and a bracketed terra-cotta cornice. Within the elegantly composed neo-Classical ornamental vocabulary are subtle Secessionist references. Engine Company 83, Hook & Ladder Company 29 has continuously served the neighborhood in this building since 1906.
