There's a number 34 trolley stop just a few steps from Dock Street Brewery on Baltimore Avenue in Cedar Park, making it a convenient location for both the modern-day patrons who have had one too many and the firefighters who originally inhabited 701 South 50th Street. Built in the early 1900s, this three-story brick and masonry beauty was purposefully placed near the streetcar line whose electric sparks often ignited fires.

The building served as a firehouse until 1984 (when Engine 68 relocated a few blocks west), and has since seen a few different evolutions. In the late 1980s it was the Firehouse Farmers' Market, then sat vacant for a few years in the late nineties. In 2007 it became home to Dock Street Brewery, a local microbrewery. If the wood burning oven that the brewery uses to make its pizzas starts causing any trouble, they know who to call.

Situated on a quiet Graduate Hospital corner at 20th and Pemberton Streets, this brick and masonry two-story firehouse built in 1871 was home to the Ladder 5 Company for a short 15 years before the crew relocated to a nearby station on 16th Street. 

It’s now a multi-family 2,200 square-foot residence with two bathrooms, and original exterior details that include bricks set in Flemish bond pattern. 

When it was built and opened in 1871, the Truck A Fire Department housed a four-wheeled horse carriage, 350 feet of leather hose, and roughly 7,500 pounds of equipment. The original brass fire pole and much of the original mahogany interiors remain, but 2130 Fairmount Avenue is now equipped with a full bar and restaurant servicing diners at Jack’s Firehouse Restaurant.

The two-story brick firehouse closed in 1954 when the Ladder 1 Company (which eventually occupied space) merged with a nearby fire station at 1541 Parrish Street. 

An impressive vestige of the city’s early volunteer fire companies, the firehouse of Franklin Hose Company No. 28 was built in 1849 and is attributed to architect Samuel Sloan. The national landmark building had a brief stint as a firehouse before the established of the municipal fire department in 1871, and then saw a variety of adaptive reuses. 

Once a starch company, then a warehouse, the firehouse has been owned by Brandywine Workshop since the early 1990s who have used it to create and display their multicultural print collection. Brandywine Workshop is currently nearing completion on interior renovation work that will transform the upper two floors of the firehouse into separate 1,700 square-foot and 1,800 square foot rental apartments.

Before the Philadelphia Fire Department officially desegregated white and black firefighters, Engine Company 11 at 1016 South Street (next door to Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens) was the city’s first and only all African-American fire company. Built in 1902 and designed by Philip H. Johnson, the company closed its firefighting doors 50 years later. 

It was later converted into the Willie G. Williams Community Center, where it was once home to Opportunity, Inc., a nonprofit organization that provided construction training classes to homeless men in an attempt “to extinguish the burning social fires through change agency.”

The nearly 13,000 square-foot, three-story building is now owned by Water’s Memorial African Methodist Church. 

The Stationhouse Condominiums in Old City once housed the Ladder 2 Station, from 1925 until 1968 (when the Engine 8 company relocated to a nearby station). The three-story building has since been converted into a condominium building, with a total of 13 units ranging in size from 1050 to 3300 square-feet. 

Large original windows allow for plenty of natural light in these condominiums with open floor plans, high ceilings, and high-end details such as granite countertops, and hardwood floors.

A short block away from Elfreth’s Alley stands the Fireman’s Hall Museum in a historic 1902 firehouse, once home to the Engine 8 Company before they relocated in 1952. Exhibits at the free admission museum cover the history of local firefighting, from the days of Benjamin Franklin’s early volunteer companies, through segregated firehouses and up until a commemoration of 9/11. 

Unlike many other converted firehouses, this one still has boots and fire coats (which visitors are encouraged to try on).