Cooling It at Blair and Newhouse

In the summer months, the city sets up sprinklers for inner-city kids in schoolyards, connecting the apparatus to nearby fire plugs with fire hoses. But these heat relievers are often left unused in favor of more creative designs. At the corner of Blair and Newhouse, for instance, during last week's 100-plus degree heat wave, a creative young urban planner built a giant fountain by encircling a fire hydrant with two old car tires and then wedging a board inside of them. A few well-placed turns of a monkey wrench opened the valve releasing a torrent, which hit the board, spraying water 15 to 20 feet in the air.