The rain barrel sat under the downspout and caught what fell from the sky. Free water. The city charged you for water from the pipe but the rain was free and the rain barrel knew it. Every building had one. Every tenement had one. The rain barrel was the first act of independence on the block.

The barrel was oak. Coopers made them the same way they made whiskey barrels. Iron hoops. Tight staves. A spigot near the bottom. You filled your bucket from the barrel and you carried the bucket to the garden or the washtub or the horse trough. The rain barrel was the middleman between the sky and the street. The sky did the work. The barrel held the result.

My mother kept a rain barrel behind our building on the Lower East Side. She used the water for the plants on the fire escape. She said the rain water was softer than the city water. She said the tomatoes could tell the difference. I do not know if tomatoes have opinions but my mother's tomatoes were the best on the block and she credited the rain barrel every time.

The rain barrel collected more than water. It collected leaves. Dead insects. Soot from the chimney. A rain barrel that sat too long became a science experiment. The mosquitoes loved it. The board of health hated it. The city passed an ordinance about standing water and the rain barrel became a violation. The thing that saved you money became the thing that cost you a fine.

The rain barrel is coming back. They sell them now at the hardware store. Plastic. With a screen on top to keep out the leaves. They call it rainwater harvesting. They act like they invented it. My mother was harvesting rain in 1955. She did not need a catalog. She needed a barrel and a downspout and the sense to put one under the other.

See also: Fire Escape, Horse Trough