Ghostbusters Firehouse (Hook & Ladder 8)

Some film locations are just addresses. This one is a pilgrimage. At 14 North Moore Street in TriBeCa, behind a big red door and a bright no-ghost logo, sits the most famous firehouse on the planet. It’s where the Ghostbusters hung their proton packs in 1984 — and it’s still a working FDNY station answering real calls to this day.

The Scene

Hook & Ladder Company 8 became the Ghostbusters’ headquarters in Ivan Reitman’s Ghostbusters (1984): the firehouse where Peter Venkman, Ray Stantz, Egon Spengler, and Winston Zeddemore set up shop after Ray took out a third mortgage on the place. That Beaux-Arts facade with its single arched truck portal — the one you grin at the second you round the corner onto North Moore Street — is the same shot the cameras captured over forty years ago.

The franchise kept coming back. The firehouse appears again in Ghostbusters II (1989), shows up in the 2016 reboot, and Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024) kept the tradition alive. The building also cameos in Hitch and episodes of Seinfeld.

The Backstory

Long before anyone crossed the streams, this was already a landmark. Built in 1903 as the first in a series of Beaux-Arts firehouses designed by the city’s superintendent of buildings, Alexander H. Stevens, the station originally stood twice as wide with two vehicle doors. In 1913, Varick Street was widened and the building was cut in half — so precisely that the seam is nearly invisible today.

The company’s history runs deep into the real life of the city. The firefighters of Hook & Ladder 8 were among the first responders on September 11, 2001, and Lieutenant Vincent G. Halloran of the company was lost that day. In 2011 the firehouse was threatened with closure, but a public campaign — supported by then-public advocate Bill de Blasio and actor Steve Buscemi, himself a New York City firefighter from 1980 to 1984 — kept it in service.

Production designer Michael Gross spotted the firehouse on a scouting trip — it was around the corner from where he was staying — and after the full location scout it was still the chosen one. Ivan Reitman tried to use the station’s interior too, but couldn’t take over an active firehouse for long enough. So all the interior scenes were filmed at a decommissioned station in downtown Los Angeles: Fire Station No. 23 at 225 East Fifth Street.

What to Look For

Cross the street for the best full-height view. A full-size Ghostbusters no-ghost sign hangs over the arched truck portal, donated in 2021 by a fan organization from Buffalo, and the logo is painted right on the sidewalk in front of the station.

When the big red door is open, you can glimpse the actual Ghostbusters II sign hanging inside, along with memorabilia collected over the decades. Golden rule of this hunt: this is an active firehouse, not a museum. Trucks can pull in or out at any moment — keep the entrance clear and give the crew their space.

Getting There

Address: 14 North Moore Street, TriBeCa (at Varick Street), New York, NY 10013.

The easiest route is the subway: take the 1 train to Franklin Street — the station sits at Franklin and Varick, and the firehouse is about a 3-minute walk away. (The Canal Street stop on the 1, a couple blocks north, works too.)

Trivia

• The interior was an LA stand-in: Fire Station No. 23 in downtown Los Angeles doubled for the headquarters’ interior — its single-bay design is typical of New York, but a rarity in LA.
• The script nerd detail: In early drafts of the screenplay, the real estate agent said the firehouse was 10,000 square feet. Egon corrected her: 9,642.55. (Later drafts adjusted it to 9,655.44. Egon would want you to be precise.)
• A century of heroics: The building has been an operational fire station for over 120 years.

The Hunt Clue

The original rhyme from this post — hunt clue intact, word for word:

“In TriBeCa stands a house of red, where ghosts and ghouls were filled with dread. Look for the sign with the ghost in a ring—be careful of the slime that the busters might bring”