As another steamy summer approaches, New Yorkers can find relief in the luxury of modern day air-conditioning, as well as one of the city’s 43 outdoor pools. But for those who endured sweltering temperatures during the early 20th century, cooling off meant diving into the Hudson River, busting open a fire hydrant, swimming in Central Park's ponds and sleeping outside on fire escape stairs.
From Brooklyn in 1900 to the Manhattan block parties of the Seventies, a series of fascinating black and white images reveals how New York City residents endured heat waves and sleepless nights.
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| Coney Island Beach ca. 1900 |
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| Girls play in the street and sidewalks during a block party in New York during the summer of 1970 |
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| Madison Square Garden transformed into swimming pool scene in Tex Rickard's luxurious indoor swimming pool which was thrown open to the public in 1921 |
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| With one youngster manning the hydrant, three boys of New York's super-heated Lower East Side get a cool and refreshing shower as a brief respite in 1957 |
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| Miss Elsie Henneman dives into the water near the Hudson River Yacht Club. |
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| Children welcomed sweltering weather in 1954 because it gave them a chance to frolic under the spray of fire hydrants; pictured, near New York City's Columbus Circle |
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| The long, hot summer of 1971 meant children cooled off with a water hydrant - now a classic New York summer scene |
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| Dozens of children play in a water-filled 104th street in Harlem during 1939 |
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| During summer months, the Lower East Side's tenement buildings' tiny rooms became so stifling that many children and tenement dwellers would sleep on the roof, or more frequently, on accessible fire escapes |
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| Children on Mulberry St on the Lower East Side turn an excavation site into a temporary swimming hole using water from a fire hydrant as July temperatures hit record heights in the city in 1936 |
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| While adults can complain about the heat of summer, many children delight in it; a little girl in Harlem skips away the hours in the refreshing spray of a fire hydrant in the 1950s |
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| Seated in a WPA wheelbarrow beside a gushing fire hydrant on the Lower East Side, four boys cool off in 95degree heat during 1939 |
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| The cooling waters of the little river that runs through Bronx Park offered a delightfully refreshing plunge for neighborhood boys in 1922, in the midst of paved streets and brick buildings |
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| As the sun boils overhead, Upper East Side kids splash in one of the city's then-new swimming pools at 112th Street and First Avenue during 1938 |
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| A crowd of 216,000 New Yorkers jams Jones Beach in the hopes of escaping the intense heat that was blistering New York City and the eastern half of the nation in 1957 |
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| Perched atop a rock in the north end of the Central Park Lake in 1944 are children who take frequent dips while others enjoy boating |
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| Children on East 101 Street, near Lexington Avenue play in a makeshift shower during 1948 |
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| Two children in New York City keep cool during the hot weather by sleeping outside on the fire escape in 1929 |
