I checked out "New York's Unique and Unexpected Places" by Judith and Alexandra Stonehill, and it's amazing how many of them Leena and I have visited. But we hadn't been to the New York City Fire Museum. It's listed in the Greenwich Village & Chelsea section, but it's really SoHo, 178 Spring Street - almost to the Hudson River in a neighborhood that I'm sure once was pretty rough, but it now on the fringes of uber-gentrification.
There were fire engines of every description, hand pulled, horse pulled, motor driven, as well as all sort of memorability like badges, hats, punch sets, and touching tributes to fire dogs (one stuffed) and fire horses (did you know the first fire dept ambulance was for the horses?). And because the NYC firemen firgured so significantly providing emergency services during the 9/11 terrorist attack, there is a room set aside to commemorate their heroism and memorialize the 343 firemen who died.