New Yorkers Have Been Illicitly Cracking Open Fire Hydrants For Centuries

http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/new-yorkers-have-been-illicitly-cracking-open-fire-hydrants-for-centuries

by rshrsh • 11 years ago

56 57 11 years ago

plonh• 11 years ago

This is good government as a public service, better than viewing the public as criminals-in-waiting:

Since 2007, the New York City DEP has multiple programs to combat the illicit opening of the city’s hydrants. With very few exceptions, you can go to pretty much any firehouse in the five boroughs and ask for a spray cap. The fire department will come to the hydrant of your choosing, open it up for about 12 hours, and install a cap that creates several thinner streams of water, like a giant lawn sprinkler. This cap uses only about 25 gallons of water per minute
And the DEP has a team called the Hydrant Education Action Team (HEAT), arrays of volunteer teens who go around their neighborhoods telling people about the dangers of opening hydrants and the benefits of spray caps.

pavel_lishin2• 11 years ago

I live in New York, I've seen kids on our block, and their parents, playing with one of those - including a shower-head attachment! - pretty much every day this week. It looks great - it's hot and humid as hell right now, a lot of families don't have an air conditioner, and there's not exactly a lot of public pools around (and forget water parks, or swimming in the rivers.)

This seems like a pretty good way of making sure people are happy and healthy.

setpatchaddress• 11 years ago

From a native Californian perspective, it just looks insanely wasteful of water. These are fed from some non-potable source, at least?

...Read TFA, nope. OK then. It is insanely wasteful of water.

fnordfnordfnord5• 11 years ago

Yup, and we have an annual summer program to give air conditioners away to elderly people and such. Why not also a little water, especially considering the difficulty of stopping it.

toomuchtodo2• 11 years ago

I wonder if you could replace hydrants with intelligent nodes. They'd still have mechanical openings for fire department hookup, but they'd call have spray caps on permanently, and could be remotely controlled, monitored, and even opened for yearly hydrant flushing without staff venturing out to each hydrant. You could even monitor water pressure through the entire hydrant system.

pavel_lishin2• 11 years ago

It would make more sense to put pressure sensors someplace where a drunken yahoo with a brick couldn't cost the city $250.

ArekDymalski• 11 years ago

For Centuries

Forgive me, pure pet peeve: it's a tiny bit more than one century - the 1st reported issue is from 1906.

Anyway, it's great to see an example of looking for a solution instead of penalizing people.

a1369209993• 11 years ago

My first though on reading the headline was "has New York even had fire hydrants for centuries?". It seems they actually just barely have.

jimmcslim• 11 years ago

As the adage goes, "Americans think 100 years is a long time, Europeans think 100 miles is a long way"...

Zikes2• 11 years ago

From the article:

The earliest “hydrants” in New York City (dating back to the early 1700s but lasting until the late 1800s) were simply buckets of water scattered around the five boroughs, left locked by the fire department so as to keep out thieves and vandals.

jameshart• 11 years ago

But there are no reports of New York residents illicitly cracking those buckets open for fun, as claimed in the headline.

partisan• 11 years ago

I have memories of being in a school bus during the summer and driving through streets with open hydrants. Without fail, the kids manning the hydrant would grab a can and use it to direct the water towards the bus. The first time it happened, we all got wet, along with our books, papers, calculators, etc. After that, the bus driver would stop the bus and we would close all of the windows before going through.

AlexC042• 11 years ago

OH my god! I've just had the greatest idea.

It's like UBER for cracking open fire hydrants.

See you all at the next YC pitch-day

Facemelters• 11 years ago

Uber would just add a tab to their app.

AlexC042• 11 years ago

of course! I was actually just trying to make a dumb joke though. "It's like uber for dumb jokes"

doki_pen• 11 years ago

In the 80s, the local FD used to attach some weird pipe/sprinkler system to the fire hydrants around my hood to prevent people from doing it themselves. It was pretty awesome, we'd be playing in that all day.

noer• 11 years ago

I think it's mentioned in other comment threads, but IIRC, you can go to pretty much any firehouse and ask for sprinkler cap for a hydrant

weeksie• 11 years ago

One of my favorite things is when my dog gets near an open pump in the summer. The little maniac makes lunges at the stream(s) with his snout and then backs off, then repeats the whole routine until he's pretty much water-logged himself. Then he lays down in the gutter like a tiny hippo.

But for serious, those open pumps are so much a part of city life. You get families out barbecuing on the sidewalk, the kids playing in the water, people stopping to douse their heads or wash their hands. Cars slowing down as they pass to get a half-assed wash. That sort of stuff.

New Yorkers Have Been Illicitly Cracking Open Fire Hydrants For Centuries

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