As I walk home from school on a daily basis, I see the rainbow fire hydrant that is located on Avenue J between East 15th and 16th streets. The fire hydrant is situated right outside of the Avenue J subway station for the public to view. The painted fire hydrant is readily visible during daylight hours when I walk home from school. Yet, it is very hard to notice the detailing on the fire hydrant when it is dark outside. Seeing a brightly colored fire hydrant is a very big contrast to the other rusted fire hydrants that I pass on my walk. It always brightens my day to see art in the most unexpected place. The first couple of times I walked by, I didn’t notice it. I didn’t pay attention to the slightly unexpected twists in my surroundings. While walking on the other side of the street, I would have never noticed the fire hydrant. After walking right past it on the same side of the street for many days, I started to look around and notice things that I never noticed before. After about two weeks, the rainbow spray painted fire hydrant piqued my interest.
An anonymous artist used different colors of spray paint in order to create the rainbow themed fire hydrant and its adjacent poles. The fire hydrant has been there forever, yet it was only spray painted in the fall of 2015. During the summer before it was spray painted, on June 26th, 2015, the United States Supreme Court legalized same sex marriage. By spray painting the fire hydrant as a rainbow, the gay pride flag colors, the anonymous artist is celebrating the court’s verdict in Obergefell vs. Hodges, the Supreme Court case that legalized same sex marriage. The artist is publicly making a statement about the recent victory in the court for couples of the same gender who are now able to get married.
The fire hydrant is a form of street art that was not commissioned by anyone. The artist chose to remain anonymous and not sign his initials anywhere near his work, perhaps because it is a form of vandalism. He used spray paint on an existing fire hydrant to create a dripping effect where the colors bleed into one another. This piece of public art is the size of an average fire hydrant, which makes it relatively small in comparison to its surroundings. Surprisingly, the spray paint has lasted for a while even if the artist only intended for it to be temporary. The artist created a permanent reminder for the public of the Supreme Court case Obergefell vs. Hodges and its effects on the gay population.
Despite the fact that spray painting a fire hydrant is illegal, the spray painted fire hydrant is still a unique site. Even if it is not a conventional form of art, the fire hydrant is still a pop of color on my walk home that never fails to brighten my surroundings.
