A Special Installment of “A Helluva Town”
[New Yorkers looking for
ways to beat the heat in the summer often turn to opening city fire hydrants to
create impromptu sprinklers. In the dog
days of summer, New Yorkers are always looking for ways to beat the heat. This has been one longtime tradition. But is that water safe to swim in—or drink? And what risks can come with opening a
hydrant?
[Opening hydrants occurs in other major U.S. cities like Philadelphia and Chicago. New York City, however, stands out because it formally regulates and legalizes the practice. While other municipalities crack down on and strictly prohibit unauthorized hydrant opening, the Big Apple has institutionalized a way for residents to do it safely.
[The Philadelphia Water and Fire Departments strictly ban recreational hydrant opening, viewing it as a dangerous hazard that drops water pressure for firefighting and risks street or basement flooding. Instead of issuing spray caps (a policy Philly phased out), the city directs residents to official public pools and city-operated “spraygrounds.”
[Chicago residents in neighborhoods far from Lake Michigan (such as the South and West sides) still pop hydrants informally during severe heatwaves. The city, however, aggressively discourages or locks down units due to risks of low water pressure in upper floors and flooded basements, relying on official park district cooling centers and pools rather than sanctioned hydrant attachments.
[Incidentally, Los Angeles doesn’t have a recreational hydrant-opening culture like New York City at all. While LA suffers from intense summer heatwaves, the city doesn’t offer a spray cap program. (The only notable hydrant-tampering in LA occurs in high-density encampments (like Skid Row), where individuals sometimes illegally tap hydrants for basic sanitation, drinking water, or bathing. The city, however, aggressively locks down these units.)
[NY1’s Dean Meminger spoke with New York City officials about the safety concerns surrounding open fire hydrants and whether they want to put a damper on the summertime tradition.]
A Special Installment of “A Helluva Town”
“IS IT SAFE TO
COOL OFF UNDER AN OPEN FIRE HYDRANT?”
by Dean Meminger
[Anchor Meminger’s human interest story aired on Spectrum Cable’s NY1 News on 20 August 2026.]
NY1’s Dean Meminger hits the streets to explore how the tradition began, hear from New Yorkers who grew up cooling off in hydrant water, and find out who really controls the city’s hydrants — the city or the people?
CHAPTER 1: INTRO TO NYC’S HYDRANT CULTURE
Dean Meminger, NY1 News: On a hot summer day in the city, you’re guaranteed to see people cooling off in hydrant water. Thousands of gallons of water just splashing on people, keeping them nice and cool when the temperatures are 90 and above.
Now, if you grew up in the city like I did—I’m born and raised here—perhaps you remember cooling off in this water. Thousands of gallons of water just spraying all over everybody.
Now, the city tries to discourage that. They actually give people [MUSIC] the caps to put on the water so that they don’t waste. so much of it. Full blast is dangerous.
Don’t just open the hydrants. It’s illegal to just open them like that. If every hydrant had this [SHOWS A SPRINKLER CAP] on it, we wouldn’t have pressure problems in the buildings.
I’m going to dive into this issue to find out how the tradition started. I’m going to speak to people who are actually turning on the hydrants and those playing in the water to see what they know. I will also speak to city officials to find out what they’re doing to make sure people are doing it safely.
So, now I’m on a mission to find out who controls the hydrants in our city. The city or the people? Let’s go.
So, first, let’s rewind. How did the summer tradition of opening a fire hydrant even begin in the first place?
CHAPTER 2: HISTORY OF OPENING FIRE HYDRANTS
Lilly Tuttle, Museum of the City of New York, Senior Curator for the Collection: I can tell you—kids were doing it in the 1930s—that there was an issue around 1933, of actually [MUSIC] an uprising, sort of a protest because the fire department shut off the water.
[On 9 June 1933, in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan (part of Midtown West’s Theatre District), during a brutal heatwave, approximately 400 neighborhood children and teenagers wearing bathing suits, swimming trunks, and improvised underclothes, marched through the streets and used wrenches to crack open neighborhood hydrants, placing sticks in the nozzles to spray the water skyward.
[Temperatures in New York City climbed aggressively into the mid-to-high 90’s Fahrenheit with oppressive humidity, creating suffocating, greenhouse-like conditions inside the city’s un-air-conditioned brick tenements. It was described by contemporary news reports as “stifling” and “stifling heat” across Manhattan.
[NYPD officers marched through the neighborhood with wrenches to systematically shut down the open fireplugs, the neighborhood youth revolted. Outraged at losing their only relief from the sweltering heat, the crowd of kids marched directly to the West 47th Street Police Station to stage a boisterous demonstration against the police crackdown.
[This 1933 protest marked the first time the city’s informal hydrant culture escalated into organized civil defiance, setting off a multi-decade battle between residents seeking cooling and helmet-wearing police officers that ultimately forced NYC to invent the modern “spray cap” system, which arose in the 1950s.]
Historically, not every [MUSIC] New York City neighborhood has had sort of an even distribution of [MUSIC] playgrounds and sort of recreational infrastructure.
And so definitely, the hydrant is kind of a creative workaround.
Meminger: Opening fire hydrants in New York has been a part of its history for a long time. Now let’s see what city residents have to say about it.
CHAPTER 3: WHAT NEW YORKERS THINK OF OPENING HYDRANTS
Man in the Street by a Hydrant: For those that’re not close to the pool or to the beach, this is your beach.
Muslim Woman on Sidewalk (heavy accent): I grew up in the lower east side in Manhattan near Fifth Street. To be a swimming pool day because they are but yeah, we playing the hydrants and now my children are enjoying it
Meminger: How cold or cool is that water?
Little Girl: Really cold and I really like it!
Young Man: You know what we in the city and I feel like—if
there’s a way for kids to have fun in a safe manner without having to go
somewhere far, let them have [MUSIC] their fun
Another Young Man: People in the heat got to find a way to survive the heat
Meminger: And what do you remember about playing in the hydrant as a kid?
Older Man in a Wheelchair: This [LEANS OVER AND SPLASHES MEMINGER. THEY LAUGH].
Meminger: So, this is the situation that city officials are trying to discourage.
[MUSIC] We’re driving across the Bronx and we see this hydrant open. No one’s cooling off. Thousands and thousands of gallons of water just wasted. And as we walk right over here, we actually see the cap in the corner. So, someone took it off maybe to cool off, but they put the cap over here. That water is being wasted.
CHAPTER 4: WHAT THE CITY SAYS ABOUT OPENING HYDRANTS
But what does the FDNY think about open hydrants?
Tim Keenan, FDNY Deputy Assistant Chief, Traditionally, right, we do cool off in the fire hydrants in New York City. Right, that’s been going on for many years. In fact, I’m on the job almost 30 years and we’ve had sprinkler caps for hydrants since I first got on the job.
Okay, but where the problem comes in is if people don’t use the sprinkler caps. If they just turn the hydrant on and they let the water just free-flow in the street, that can pose a problem to us.
New York City’s water grid is a gravity-fed system. primarily a gravity-fed system with water coming down aqueducts from upstate and so there’s no quick way to just turn up the pressure. So if we get a lot of hydrants open in the city, it reduces the water pressure and the volume of water.
The best way to do it is with the sprinkler cap. There’s a lot of advantages if you come to a firehouse. They’re available at every firehouse citywide. We have 200 firehouses in the city. Anyone 18 years or older can come to the firehouse and get a spray cap.
Meminger: Have fun, but be safe.
Keenan: Have fun but be safe, right? We want everybody to enjoy. We want everybody to be cool.
Meminger: After speaking directly to firefighters, people who need to cool off, and seeing the issues with open hydrants, we decided to go directly [MUSIC] to the city’s Department of Environmental Protection or DEP.
Lisa F. Garcia, Commissioner of NYC DEP: I know how much it means to the community. Um, for us in the Bronx, it was like we knew this is part of our summer fun. And what I love about this program of the spray caps is we’re not saying don’t turn on the hydrant.
This is understanding the culture [MUSIC] of summer in New York. So, we want you to be able to turn on that hydrant, but use a spray cap so we’re not [MUSIC] wasting water. The fire department has the right pressure, right? And the community and we . . . the kids can still run around in that sprinkler of water and cool [MUSIC] off.
We’re not saying no to using your hydrant. So, come to us, to the fire department. We want to work with you to make sure you can still enjoy it.
Meminger: When it comes to water coming out of the hydrant . . .?
Garcia: Yeah.
Meminger: . . . is it safe to drink that water if it’s been running for a while?
Garcia: Yes. Yeah. So, the water that’s going to come out of the spray cap is delivered from the same water tunnels that come from the reservoirs all the way upstate. So, we maintain 19 reservoirs starting in the Catskills. So, [MUSIC] think of it like . . . almost like natural spring water from the mountains that’s preserved. So it’s . . . it is clean drinking water.
We make sure to sample it and test it. Make sure that you are enjoying the best drinking water I think in the world.
Meminger: So this was a gadget that in the Bronx they made up [LOOKING AT AN IMPROVISED DEVICE INSTALLED ON A HYDRANT]. They actually did some plumbing and they have their [MUSIC] own cut off valve on it to make it spray. I mean people are coming up with their own concept . . . .
Garcia: Yes, we appreciate the imaginative solutions.
Meminger: So they put a . . . they put a PVC pipe and then ran it up [ANOTHER IMPROVISED SPRAY DEVICE]. So, it’s like a shower.
Garcia: Wow. But that’s kind of like a sprinkler part. The . . . Okay, these folks should be sending [MUSIC], their creative ideas to us so we can figure out is this really reducing the amount of gallons we’re using per minute. And like again, this is [MUSIC] safer because the kids can play on the sidewalk.
Meminger: Yeah. So, maybe we’re very creative.
Garcia: So, maybe we can have like a contest. For now, we want to use the ones that have already been certified and authorized, but we could continue [MUSIC] to think of ways to work with communities. Like, ‘What works for you?’
CHAPTER 5: WHO REALLY CONTROLS THE HYDRANTS
Meminger: Now, with that, who really controls the hydrants?
Lilly Tuttle: The city controls the hydrants, but I think it’s amazing to think [MUSIC] about New Yorkers going out and sort of taking ownership over this piece of infrastructure, particularly on a really hot day.
Man by a Hydrant: Well, the city makes sure the water’s in there, but the people control it.
Man in Wheelchair: I believe the people control it.
Meminger: Why?
Man in Wheelchair: Because it’s too hot!
Young Man: It falls more towards the [MUSIC] people. Like there’s always a method to opening . . . .
Muslim Woman: So the city control the hydrant, but I know there’s some people that they have it. You know how it is. The Bronx it down Bronx.
Meminger: So the city may control the water and fire hydrants, but we New Yorkers know if it’s a hot summer day, we’ll always find a way to stay cool.
Hi, I’m Dean Meminger.
[Born in Harlem and raised in the Bronx, Dean Meminger, Jr., is a prominent American television journalist who serves as an anchor and criminal justice reporter for Spectrum News NY1. Based in New York City, he has spent nearly 30 years—he joined the NY1 news team in 1997, after starting his broadcast career at BronxNet TV in 1995—covering high-profile crime, policing, and community issues across the five boroughs.
[Meminger’s reporting frequently
captures the heart, history, and unique culture of New York City. His special digging into the multigenerational
tradition of opening fire hydrants is a perfect example of his ability to blend
local heritage with lighthearted community reporting.]
