What do you think?
Rate this book
American Hydrant
Using conceptual portraits of fire hydrants to document the urban and rural American landscape, this humorous, clever collection of more than 100 images of fire hydrants includes at least one picture from each of the 50 states. Each image of a hydrant creatively mirrors its locality, from a hydrant reflected off a hubcap in Detroit to a hydrant as seen through the window of a Seattle coffee shop. This eclectic mix of photographs provides an entertaining, curbside view of America.
176 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2004
4 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
October 28, 2025
JUST BRILLIANT! I've literally been looking for a book like this for over half a century,* (fifty full years, plus the two weeks waiting for this to arrive from Amazon).
Former advertising copywriter Crane was originally on a cross-country photographic trip looking for wildlife and nature, but what he ultimately found were…fire hydrants. In a variety of different shapes and colors, and (when he went looking for them) unique locations and juxtapositions where they reflected the city or state (all 50 of which are represented at least once) in which they "lived." Just a few samples:
"Along the Yellow Brick Road" — Sedan, Kansas
"A good smoke" — Winston-Salem, North Carolina
"Under the boardwalk" — Atlantic City, New Jersey
"Also nearby: 45 other roads named Peachtree" — Atlanta, Georgia
"On the Strip in Sin City" — Las Vegas, Nevada
Combined with clever captions and a nice clean layout (including little location maps), this is a photography/design book that should be on many more bookshelves than it apparently is — all you artsy/creative types out there, please go to Amazon or eBay and buy your own copy, so you can enjoy the whole thing (for under $10)!
My only…not complaint really, but I guess "comment" here is that based on these photos taken in the early '00s, it appears that the hydrant industry has narrowed down to just a few main players (Mueller Co., American Cast Iron Pipe Company, Kennedy Valve, a couple others); and so the once-wide range of weird shapes and configurations is disappearing if not already totally gone, as these old plugs are replaced, updated and (sadly) standardized. (See if you can spot the "Lost in Space" robot, the "Russian Onion-Dome Church" and the "Venus of Wilmendorf" in the below photos 😀)
____________________________________
* PERSONAL NONSENSE: So...as a graphic/industrial design student back in the early '70s, we were taught to look for design not just in the fancy cars and appliances sold to consumers, but in everyday items that most people overlooked: manhole covers, cast iron tractor seats…and in my case (eventually), fire hydrants. Driving back and forth across New York State (home on the Hudson, school in Rochester), I regularly passed through numerous small towns and began to notice the variety in shapes, styles and colors in these silent sentinels, and so started documenting them (although at the time, not noting where each was found — dammit!), some of which are shown — FOR THE FIRST TIME! — below:
I continued doing so through the bicentennial, during which many towns painted their plugs as historical figures…but that's a whole different set of (back then) slides. I even — up until my move overseas in '78 — did freelance design work under the name "Fireplug Graphics":
(And before you ask: yes, that typeface was really popular back then)
AND YET…for over fifty years, I've felt totally alone in my deep appreciation for (i.e., weird obsession with) these little guys — UNTIL NOW!! So apparently there's at least one other "hydrant head" out there…but Good Lord, there ought to be WAY more. Maybe I should contact Kennedy or Mueller and use my retirement to help them set up a Fire Hydrant Museum or Hall of Fame somewhere…
Former advertising copywriter Crane was originally on a cross-country photographic trip looking for wildlife and nature, but what he ultimately found were…fire hydrants. In a variety of different shapes and colors, and (when he went looking for them) unique locations and juxtapositions where they reflected the city or state (all 50 of which are represented at least once) in which they "lived." Just a few samples:
"Along the Yellow Brick Road" — Sedan, Kansas
"A good smoke" — Winston-Salem, North Carolina
"Under the boardwalk" — Atlantic City, New Jersey
"Also nearby: 45 other roads named Peachtree" — Atlanta, Georgia
"On the Strip in Sin City" — Las Vegas, Nevada
Combined with clever captions and a nice clean layout (including little location maps), this is a photography/design book that should be on many more bookshelves than it apparently is — all you artsy/creative types out there, please go to Amazon or eBay and buy your own copy, so you can enjoy the whole thing (for under $10)!
My only…not complaint really, but I guess "comment" here is that based on these photos taken in the early '00s, it appears that the hydrant industry has narrowed down to just a few main players (Mueller Co., American Cast Iron Pipe Company, Kennedy Valve, a couple others); and so the once-wide range of weird shapes and configurations is disappearing if not already totally gone, as these old plugs are replaced, updated and (sadly) standardized. (See if you can spot the "Lost in Space" robot, the "Russian Onion-Dome Church" and the "Venus of Wilmendorf" in the below photos 😀)
____________________________________
* PERSONAL NONSENSE: So...as a graphic/industrial design student back in the early '70s, we were taught to look for design not just in the fancy cars and appliances sold to consumers, but in everyday items that most people overlooked: manhole covers, cast iron tractor seats…and in my case (eventually), fire hydrants. Driving back and forth across New York State (home on the Hudson, school in Rochester), I regularly passed through numerous small towns and began to notice the variety in shapes, styles and colors in these silent sentinels, and so started documenting them (although at the time, not noting where each was found — dammit!), some of which are shown — FOR THE FIRST TIME! — below:
I continued doing so through the bicentennial, during which many towns painted their plugs as historical figures…but that's a whole different set of (back then) slides. I even — up until my move overseas in '78 — did freelance design work under the name "Fireplug Graphics":
(And before you ask: yes, that typeface was really popular back then)
AND YET…for over fifty years, I've felt totally alone in my deep appreciation for (i.e., weird obsession with) these little guys — UNTIL NOW!! So apparently there's at least one other "hydrant head" out there…but Good Lord, there ought to be WAY more. Maybe I should contact Kennedy or Mueller and use my retirement to help them set up a Fire Hydrant Museum or Hall of Fame somewhere…
Displaying 1 of 1 review