New Cambridge Fire Station, Opened Sunday, a Nest of Scientific Appliances Rivaling Rube Goldberg Machines

Equipped with all the trick devices of modern science, so that a press on a button brings about wonders, the new Cambridge Central Fire Station is a glorified Rube Goldberg invention, functioning with the precision but with hardly the complication of that noble gentleman's infernal machines.

The new station which received its baptism last Sunday when an alarm pulled in by Mayor Richard M. Russell '14 of Cambridge, sent the fire engines hurrying from all parts of the city to their new home, is considered as the very latest in modern central fire stations. It was built at a cost of $162,000, and is a part of the $7,000,000 construction program inaugurated by Mayor Russell five years ago when he took office. The cost of the building is rated at 35 cents per cubic foot, as compared with a cost of from 48 to 60 cents per cubic foot on similar buildings in Boston.

What happens in this next of mechanical appliances when a fire breaks out in the city? First of all when the alarm is sounded, the call coming to the new station opens the doors automatically. If the man in charge of the office that is the control room of the fire house wishes to open the doors at any other time, the only work he has to do is to press a button, and behold, the electrical magician gets to work and opens them both swiftly and noiselessly.

As the doors open for the apparatus, another mechanism turns the traffic signals that are situated like beacons at the apexes of the triangular site of the station, from green to red. Traffic pulls over to the side and the engines roar out through the doors. After a minute and a half, the doors shut smoothly again as if a conjurer's hand had gently pushed them and the traffic lights turn back to green. Everything goes on with military precision and all the work is done in perfect quiet.

When the alarm rings at night; in addition to opening the doors and changing the lights, it turns on all the lights, it turns on all the lights inside the station. This is accomplished by an inside alarm system which arouses the sleeping fire-fighters. But the firemen are not awakened without sufficient reason, for a selective device refuses to allow the inside alarm to ring unless the call comes from within the district covered by the Central Fire Station.

Out of their beds tumble the firemen, over the smooth composition floor, and into the cedar-lined closets to get their uniforms. These closets are fitted with a device which turns on the lights inside when the doors are opened. And then as they rush to board the engines they put into use another one of the many novel features of the building. These are no ordinary poles the firemen slide down to reach the first floor. Built of shiny brass, and hung from a steel framework the slide poles have aluminum shutters which open when a man's weight is put on the pole and close again when he lets go. The shutters cover up the hole through which the man must slide and prevent the usual draft which rushes up the open holes.

In a wing attached to the fire station is the new fire alarm headquarters for the city of Cambridge and there the Fire Department jealously guards the delicate signal system. No pains have been spared to make the alarm headquarters foolproof and fire-proof. To safeguard the equipment against fire, each window is equipped with jets for a "water curtain" and also a steel curtain which falls automatically if a fire breaks out nearby. Both of these protections work on the principle of the automatic sprinkler system--that is, the metal with which the ends of the jets are covered melts at a low temperature and the water bursts forth in a stream, throwing a curtain of water over the outside of the window.