City fountains were popular spots for cooling off, especially among youngsters.

In July 1925, as “the sun rose intolerantly over a baked and soaked city,” children jumped into the fountain in City Hall Park. Newspaper Row, the center of the newspaper industry, faced the park, and newsboys had set their sights on its fountain. Looking on with a grin, Mayor John F. Hylan told city police to let the children splash. Mopping his sweaty brow, Hylan remarked, “That cool water looks good to me. I wish I could join them myself!”

Water hydrants and sprinklers have long held a special place in New Yorkers' memories of dealing with the heat. Residents who wanted to temporarily transform their sun-baked neighborhoods into fountains of cool relief would often jump in sprinklers or even open water hydrants illegally.

In 1933 the New York Times claimed 400 youngsters, identifiable by their bathing attire, protested “against police interference with their heat-relief activities” outside the West 47th Street police station. Closing hydrants often proved impossible for authorities, and hydrants that were opened without authorization could run until gutters and cellars flooded.

Since the mid-1900s, the city has distributed fire hydrant spray caps to residents. These fittings reduce hydrant streams from more than 1,000 gallons per minute to 20-30 gallons per minute, preventing waste, drops in water pressure, and flooding.

The city monitors water pressure, water supply, and water waste during heat waves. A lack of water can be dangerous, as low reserves combined with low pressure might impede firefighters' efforts when combatting a blaze.

Photo taken at East 4th Street between 1st and 2nd Avenues.

"I was living on East 3rd Street and Avenue B in the summer of 1987. I was meeting some friends at Broadway and 8th Street, so I was zigzagging around the East Village streets to get there, heading north and west. I saw the hydrant gushing on East 4th Street and got a shot of the neighbors cooling off on that hot summer day." Photo taken by Meredith Marciano.

When temperatures soar, New Yorkers often head to the beach to escape overheated pavement and find some relief in ocean water and cool breezes. The large sandy beaches on the south shore of Brooklyn and Queens perennially draw large summer crowds.

Reflecting on his youth, author Arthur Miller remembered crowds at Coney Island that made it hard to find a spot for a towel. City police routinely estimated from 200,000 to 400,000 visitors flocked to city beaches during heat waves. Finding shade was just as difficult, so beachgoers had to improvise with umbrellas and makeshift canopies.

For those who couldn't make it to the beach, the city's many public pools have long offered a refreshing neighborhood swim.

New York opened its first two municipal baths, floating pools moored at Manhattan piers, in the summer of 1870. Located near tenement districts where people lacked home baths, the municipal baths were immediately popular. By their second summer in operation, more than 860,000 bathers visited the city’s floating baths to wash and cool off. At the peak of the program, the Department of Public Works oversaw a fleet of nearly a dozen floating baths that hosted millions of visitors each summer.

Public baths that floated in the Harlem and East Rivers cooled 19th-century New Yorkers. In the 20th century, especially during the New Deal, the city built huge, modern outdoor public pools. The summer of 1936 alone saw 11 WPA pools open. Today, the city maintains 53 seasonal pools.

Closeup shot of a group of children standing in a swimming pool in the mid-1950s. The caption reads: "Beat-the-heat prescription--South Brooklyn kids take the water treatment at Sunset Park, 5th Ave. and 41st St., to get away from the heat naturally."

A photograph of a youngster helping his friend satisfy her thirst. The caption reads: "Temperature boost--Thomas O'Neill, 2, of Stratford Road, offers manly assistance to Lourie Young, also 2, of 15 Stratford Road, at [Prospect Park] parade grounds fountain as mercury climbed to record-breaking figures."