Hot town, summer in the city: how to legally open a fire hydrant to keep cool

It is really hot in New York City! Searing heat is baking the metropolis, scorching flesh, moistening backs, forcing the exposure of pale, bony knees and podgy muffin tops.

It’s as hot as Hades! It’s sizzling and stifling and smothering! It’s like an oven!

So what can people do to stay cool? Well, stay inside in an air-conditioned home or office, for one. But many people don’t have those. And some people who thought they had those have lost power. Like almost everyone in Staten Island.

But you could also pop a fire hydrant. Just like in those famous old pictures of New York. And what’s more, you can do it legally.

The fire department of New York knows how people like their summertime fire hydrants: open, gushing out a steady stream of cooling liquid, allowing children to frolic in its watery blast. Allowing birds to wash their wings as the curtain of H20 gushes down on their backs. Allowing people in convertible cars to get their plush leather interiors sodden with agua.

Because of this, the FDNY will allow open hydrants for you. One per block.

“Anyone over the age of 18 can visit their local firehouse and fill a request form,” the FDNY says on its website.

“The officer on duty will give you an instruction sheet and tell you when the company will open the hydrant and the company will come back later in the day to close the hydrant – keeping you and your neighbors safe.”

They’ll open it, all right, but you have to use a “spray cap” which lowers the flow of water from 1,000 gallons a minute to 25 gallons a minute.

Less fun, sure, but apparently the pressure of a fully open, wildly gushing hydrant could “push small children into the street where they might be hit by passing cars”, which could dampen the occasion somewhat. (And a hydrant splatting out 1,000-gallons-a-minute would cause the water pressure to drop and make it harder for firefighters to actually fight fires.)

If you don’t want to pop a fire hydrant, legally or otherwise, then you might want to consider these cooling tips that I just came up with and you probably shouldn’t follow as health advice (find that here).

• Have an ice cream.
  
• Purchase an electric handfan but make sure to buy lots of batteries because they eat through them like nobody’s business.
  
• Purchase a non-electric handfan but be aware that it could make you look pretentious.
  
• Carry a parasol (see above).
  
• Pour water over your head every three minutes.
  
• Pour a big bucket of Gatorade over your head like sports teams do to their coaches.
  
• Stand in the lobby of an office building until asked to leave.
  
• Wear no clothes.
  
• Get a pigeon to waft you with its feathers.
  
• Get someone to spit a fine mist of water in your face.