News

8+ Rediscovering the Iconic Fire Hydrant Cool-Downs of 1952 in New York City

I’m not sure exactly when the first New York City fire hydrant was wrenched open so neighborhood kids could play in the cool rush of water on a hot summer day.

But this very New York way to chase away the heat may have caught on and been officially sanctioned in the late teens, when John Hylan was mayor (below, in 1921, in a NYC Municipal Archives photo).

“The mayor is particularly good to children,” the Queens borough president was quoted saying in a New York Times article from 1925.

“It was his great heart that ordered the streets closed so that children could have a safe place in which to play, and it was his heart that ordered the policemen and firemen in summer to give the children baths from fire hydrants so that they might keep cool.”

Since then, the spray—or trickle, as this NYPL photo of some boys on the Bowery in 1919 shows—from fire hydrants has cooled off millions of little New Yorkers, legally or otherwise.

This AP photo was taken on Mulberry Street in 1936, the year of an exceptionally brutal heat wave.

Turning Mulberry Street into a river looks a lot more exciting than hanging out under a giant shower at Lexington and 85th Street of “Croton surf,” as the caption to this 1920 NYC Municipal Archives photo calls it.

New York in the 1960s could be pretty gritty, but at least the hydrants worked. Photographer Bruce Davidson captured this photo in 1966 of a boy on 100th Street.

A 10-day heat wave gripped the city in 1953, and Life magazine photographers captured some wonderful images of kids opening a hydrant (and then a police officer putting a stop to the fun).

Related Posts

Australia passes world-first legislation banning children from using social media – with tech giants set to face $50M fines if they don’t adhere to the strict new rules

Young Aussies aged under 16 will be banned from social media by the end of next year after federal parliament passed world-first legislation. The Senate passed laws to block under-16s from platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and TikTok to protect their mental health late on Thursday night. The bill passed the Senate by 34 votes to 19 on the final parliament sitting day for 2024.

Horrifying bodycam shows Houston mom mowed down by cop before screaming children sob by her body

Police screamed in panic and desperately tried to revive a mother they ran over in the street as her distraught children watched, bodycam and dashcam footage shows. Desire Pool, 41, was mowed down at full speed by Houston policewoman Shelby Kennedy at 9.52pm on September 19 and died on the road despite CPR efforts. The Houston Police Department released video from five differnet angles just hours before Thanksgiving showing Pool being hit, and the immediate aftermath.

Judge throws out 28,000 rail fare evasion prosecutions by Northern Rail in just TWO minutes after declaring cases ‘void’

More than 28,000 prosecutions brought by two rail firms for alleged fare evasions have been quashed. Northern Rail, which covers large swathes of northern England, brought 28,631 prosecutions against passengers using the single justice procedure (SJP) between August 6, 2020 and May 21 2024, despite not being permitted to do so. TransPennine Express, which operates in the North of England and in Scotland, brought 41 prosecutions in January 2024.

Trump gives a VERY personal Thanksgiving message to Democrats

President-elect Donald Trump delivered one of his trademark holiday greetings on Thanksgiving eve and offered a special wish for what he called ‘Radical Left Lunatics.’ The 78-year-old incoming president posted the backhanded well wishes to Truth Social at nearly 1 a.m. Thursday. Trump is spending Thanksgiving at Mar-a-Lago, while he works on the presidential transition.

ムロツヨシが熟年再婚した大物女優の正体…「だれかtoなかい」を降板させた本当の理由に驚愕…「ドラフトキング」で有名な俳優の明かされた本名や国籍に驚きを隠さない…

室ツヨシが熟年再婚した大物女優の正体が明らかに。 室ツヨシが「誰かtoなかい」のMCを卒業し、12月1日の放送で特別回が放送される。 室ツヨシは父親との複雑な家庭環境を語り、過去の経験が現在の活躍に繋がっていると述べる。 結婚に対する考え方が変化しており、タイミングと出会いがあれば結婚を考える可能性があると発言。 室ツヨシは結婚に対する不安を抱えており、幼少期の家庭環境が影響していると分析。 2021年には結婚感に変化があったことを明かし、結婚生活を経験してみたいとの意向を示す。

Former Tory minister and MP Andrea Jenkyns defects to join Nigel Farage’s Reform UK as party passes 100,000 members

Former Tory minister Dame Andrea Jenkyns has defected to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK and will run as a candidate in next year’s local elections. The former skills minister, who lost her Morley and Outwood seat in Yorkshire in the Labour landslide in July, will stand to be mayor of Greater Lincolnshire in May. She was unveiled at a London press conference today in which Mr Farage revealed that the party had passed 100,000 paying members for the first time.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *