The fire hydrant wrench was a pentagon. Five sides. You needed a five-sided wrench to open the hydrant and the city made it five sides so you could not use a regular wrench. That was the security system. A shape. The city thought a shape would stop the kids. The city was wrong. Every block had a wrench. The wrench was community property. It lived under somebody's stoop and everybody knew where it was.

The wrench turned the bolt and the water came out like a cannon. The first kid to open the hydrant was the hero of the block. He stood in front of the water and the water blasted him ten feet down the street and the block cheered. The fire hydrant wrench was the key to the best day of summer. The key cost nothing. The day cost nothing. The water cost nothing. The only investment was the nerve to turn the bolt.

The city put locks on the hydrants. Locking caps. You needed a special tool to open the locking cap and the city did not give the tool to the kids. The city gave the tool to the fire department. The city decided that the fire hydrant belonged to the fire department and not to the block. The block disagreed. The kids figured out the locking caps in a week. The city made a better lock. The kids made a better wrench. The arms race between the city and the children lasted twenty years.

I opened a hydrant on East Fifth Street in 1968 with a wrench that belonged to nobody and everybody. The water came out and the street flooded and the little kids danced in it and the old people sat on the stoop and watched and the ice cream man came because the ice cream man always knew where the hydrant was open. The hydrant wrench created an economy. Water brought kids. Kids brought the ice cream man. The ice cream man brought music. The wrench started all of it.

The hydrants have spray caps now. The city gives you a regulated spray cap that produces a gentle fountain. The gentle fountain is safe and efficient and it does not flood the street and it does not blast a kid ten feet. The spray cap is the city compromising with the children. The wrench was the children refusing to compromise with the city. The wrench was better. The wrench was the first act of civil disobedience every kid on the block ever committed.

See also: Fire Hydrant Cap, Block Party