Despite the blazing afternoon sun on July 15, dozens of Chinatown residents, city officials and Tufts Medical Center staff gathered at a small alleyway in Chinatown. It was the dedication ceremony for a new Boston EMS Ambulance Station located at 25 Harvard Street. Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino and Ellen Zane, President and CEO of Tufts Medical Center, kicked off the dedication ceremony along with Boston Councilor Bill Linehan, Boston EMS Chief James Hooley and a former member of the Chinatown Safety Council; John Townsend, Director of Administration and Finance for the Boston Public Health Commission, and Bill Moy, co-moderator of the Chinatown Neighborhood Council.

This ambulance station enables the City to permanently locate two more ambulances in a dense area near downtown Boston as well as providing accessible and immediate emergency medical services to the town community and surrounding neighborhoods. “The City is proud to partner with Tufts Medical on this great project that will help Boston EMS provide rapid, critical care for our residents,” Menino said. “Tufts has demonstrated once again their dedication to their surrounding community.”

Boston EMS employs over 350 EMTs and Paramedics who respond to an average of 300 emergencies each day, and more than 100,000 each year. With one of the busiest services in the country, Boston EMS will utilize this new station to help alleviate the heavy load downtown.

The new station will make shift changes more efficient and cut down the time ambulances currently spend going to Brighton to re-fuel and re-stock medical supplies. By operating more efficiently, the new EMS ambulance station will help yield savings to the City of Boston in fuel and time, while benefiting the community by reducing emissions from idling.

In his address, Moy said the new station is a product of friends. The Mayor, Tufts Medical Center and Boston EMS had worked tirelessly over the year to make this new ambulance, which will greatly benefit the Chinatown community, possible.

“This ambulance station will not only help us improve the way we serve the surrounding neighbor­hoods, but will benefit all resi­dents and visitors of Boston. This station also provides a respite for the dedicated staff who respond to these high volume areas,” EMS Chief Hooley said. “I’d like to thank Tufts once again for all their efforts to make this station a reality.”

The new EMS Ambulance sta­tion, 25 Harvard Street, is a for­merly unused loading dock be­longing to Tufts Medical Center. The station provides an enclosed parking area for two ambulances as well as a rest area and locker-room space for the EMS techni­cians that will be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The ambulances will not sound sirens as they leave the station, and will take all necessary precautions to ensure safe operation by account­ing for pedestrian and automo­tive traffic in the area.

“Tufts Medical Center is honored to play a role in this important contribution to the health and well-being of the City and the lo­cal community,” Zane said. “We look forward to helping provide even better emergency health care and access to the commu­nity.” Zane also gave special thanks to Sherry Dong, Director of Community Health Programs at Tufts Medical Center, for her continuous outreach efforts on this project.