Catskill Fire-Cats Muster

The Catskill Fire-Cats’ Fire Apparatus Show & Muster was held on June 10th, 2007 in Circleville, NY. I owe a debt of gratitude to my good friend Bill Mosher (pictured above) for allowing me to tag along with him. It was a great day! The weather was cooperative, the amount of apparatus was impressive, and the Coney Island Hot Dogs that Bill fed me hung in for the remainder of my trip. Bill’s hose cart took 1st place in the hand-drawn apparatus category.

The event was held at a large building owned by a gentleman by the name of Andy Leider. The building contains part of Andy’s VAST collection of antique fire apparatus. While I did not count the number of rigs, it had to be well over 100. I attempted to shoot most of the warehouse from the top of one of his ARFF rigs just to give an impression of the size of the collection.

From pumpers to tillers and quints to quads this group of local collectors has quietly gathered more than 130 firetrucks in a once-abandoned warehouse. Leider, a real estate lawyer and owner of Staten Island Towing, bought his first firetruck within a year of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Several other collectors who store their rigs at the facility have focused on bringing back local firetrucks to the area. They already have trucks from Middletown, Circleville, Hurleyville and Woodridge. But the collection also includes some rare national gems: a 1925 Ahrens-Fox city service ladder truck, a 1930s Pirsch with a hand-crank ladder and two trucks featured in the movie "The Accidental Husband," starring Uma Thurman.

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