![]() ![]() It was fun, and I think I would go out looking for a dowsing no matter how my mother and father would give it to me afterwards. In the 1950s & 60s I was tossed in at every fire hydrant that was open on the Lower East Side. ![]() The Fire Department is not happy with that…it’s one of the reasons playground renovations include fountains that kids can play in. Opening a fire hydrant is a long city summer tradition (Ephemeral New York) NYCHA's staggering repair bill CitiBike's new owner.And much further downstream pigeons squat down and flap their wings for a bird bath. ![]() People drive their cars through for a free car wash. Softee comes round to sell some ice cream. Someone else will bring down a cooler full of ice to keep the beer cold. Someone on the first floor may open the window and boost up some music. They’re followed by grandparents who come down to watch the kids just for the joy that’s in it. Parents bring down the lawn chairs to make sure no one gets hurt. This ritual brings out the neighborhood in a way no officially sanctioned block party can. We used to use a metal garbage pail cover But the older kids want the full on torrent usually controlled by someone’s dad with a coffee can. They still do it here in upper Manhattan. This is magical Peter, thanks for adding the link. Opening a fire hydrant is a city summer tradition ⋆ New York city blog Says:.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.ġ4 Responses to “Opening a fire hydrant is a city summer tradition” You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. This entry was posted on Jat 5:44 am and is filed under Hell's Kitchen, Lower East Side, Lower Manhattan. Tags: Fire hydrants New York City, fire hydrants summer street, heat waves in New York City, open fire hydrant, poor kids New York City summer, tenements summer It’s less common to see kids playing in water in gutters these days, but this summer tradition still lives on. That didn’t end the practice of cracking open a hydrant and reveling in the powerful spray of cool water, of course. Officials had good reason to close hydrants all the water flowing into the street meant there may not be enough to put out a fire.Īnd having so many children playing in the street posed a danger as well.īut instead of fighting residents who had no other way of cooling off, city officials eventually came up with a cap that could be fitted over hydrants and turn the spray into a sprinkler. Shutting fire hydrants that had been opened during heat waves became more dangerous in the 1960s.Ī 1961 Times article explained that police now wore helmets when they went to close a hydrant (opened by children and parents, the paper pointed out), or else they risked getting pelted with bricks. “The complainants declared that the streams had been released by groups of children roaming the streets in bathing suits, trunks, and underclothes improvised for the occasion.” “The trouble arose late in the afternoon when residents along streets in the West 40s and 50s telephoned the station house to complain that their cellars were being flooded by water from nearby fire hydrants,” wrote the Times in June 1933. In 1933, a mob of kids even held a protest in front of a West 47th Street police station, after cops went around shutting off hydrants they had opened. ![]() “In most cases, after opening the hydrants, the children could not close them again and let them run until gutters were filled and the water flowed over into cellars.” In this particular case, the police were ordered to guard the hydrants-but they were no match for crafty tenement kids. Then some one would get a wrench and open the hydrant and a stick would be placed in the nozzle to cause the water to spurt skyward and the children would jump under the shower.” “Small groups of children in bathing suits would gather about a hydrant. “One matter that caused police and firemen in the city much annoyance was the opening up of fire hydrants,” reported the New York Times in June 1925. Who led these activities? New York kids, of course. The hydrants were certainly important when it came to fighting the deadly fires that beset the city in those days.īut it didn’t take long for residents of the tenement districts to start wrenching open hydrants during heat waves and using the high-pressure spray for cooling off in blistering heat. The first fire hydrant in New York was installed in 1808 at William and Liberty Streets downtown.īy the end of the 19th century, city streets were dotted with iron hydrants, the kind we’re used to seeing today. ![]()
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