Boys Playing in Open Fire Hydrants, Lower East Side

 

Name
Myers, Hiram (Photographer)
Community Service Society of New York (Former owner,Issuing body)
Title
Boys Playing in Open Fire Hydrants, Lower East Side
Abstract
Box 298 Folder 9 #3006 Hiram Myers? Looking North on Mulberry Street from between Grand and Hester. According to long-time residents of the neighborhood, this type of fire plug was called a "Johnny" plug. Why, they do not know. How does it happen that a fire hydrant is often called a "fire plug? According to Kenneth Holcomb Dunshee, in his book about New York's early Volunteer Fire Companies, entit led "As You Pass By (published by Hastings House, N.Y., c1952), at page 101, When sections of old New York were excavated, old water mains, buried for well over a century, were brought to light. These were the bored-out logs by which water was carried to the first hydrants. The openings for the engines were reached by the removal of large wooden plugs and it was from this device that the street hydrant got the name of a fire 'plug'." Before this innovation, "... the engine companies were forced to get as close as possible to the docks along the North and East Rivers, or else draw their supply from wells and pumps which were often incapable of meeting their requirements."
Collection Name
Community Service Society records
Shelf Location
Box no. 13, Folder no. 36, Item no. 119, Photograph no. 3006
Subjects
Streets; Play; Hydrants; Children; Boys; New York (N.Y.); Lower East Side (New York, N.Y.)
Format
photographs
Genre
photographs
Date
between 1879 and 1950
Note (Date note)
Date based on the date range (1879-1950) of the photographic portion of the Community Service Society Collection.
Note
Same scene as depicted in image no. 0117 of this digital collection.
Annotation on back: negative on file
See #3009 - Same scene
Library Location
Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University
Persistent URL
https://dx.doi.org/10.7916/wzvc-5585