Fireboat celebrates 80th birthday in Greenport

Greenport’s Fireboat Fire Fighter Museum turned 80 years old this month.

The boat, which put out fires for the New York City Fire Department from 1938 to 2010 and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1989, arrived in Greenport in 2012 after being retired by the FDNY in 2010.

Over the weekend, a rechristening of Fire Fighter by Susan Gibbs, granddaughter of the vessel’s architect, William Francis Gibbs, was held. There was also a water display. 

During its heyday, Fire Fighter was involved in a number of high-profile incidents. It responded on 9/11 after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center; fought the 1942 fire aboard the French ocean liner SS Normandie, which then capsized while docked in the Hudson River; and responded to a 1973 crash in New York Harbor involving a Belgian oil tanker and an American container ship.

See photos from Jeremy Garretson below: