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Vintage Summer in New York: The Sweet, Sweaty City Life

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Memorial Day is cool this year, but sweltering days are around the corner. Check out these vintage photos of New York City broiling in the summer heat, going all the way back to 1900.

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Orlando/Getty,Orlando
galleries/2013/05/25/vintage-summer-in-new-york-the-sweet-sweaty-city-life/130524-nyc-summer3_bnr8rd

Memorial Day is cool this year, but sweltering days are around the corner. Check out these vintage photos of New York City broiling in the summer heat, going all the way back to 1900.

Orlando/Getty
galleries/2013/05/25/vintage-summer-in-new-york-the-sweet-sweaty-city-life/130524-nyc-swim-fancy_hyrhfi

Beachgoers enjoy the summer season on Coney Island.

Bettmann/Corbis
galleries/2013/05/25/vintage-summer-in-new-york-the-sweet-sweaty-city-life/130524-nyc-swim-dive_lxj3dg

Miss Elsie Henneman dives into the water near the Hudson River Yacht Club. 

Underwood & Underwood/Corbis
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Children splash about in a flooded street after police opened fire hydrants.

Keystone/Getty
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Madison Square Garden is transformed into a luxurious swimming pool open to the public. 

Bettmann/Corbis
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A river in Bronx Park offers a countrylike setting and a refreshing plunge.

Bettmann/Corbis
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Children on Mulberry St. on the Lower East Side turn an excavation site into a temporary swimming hole using water from a fire hydrant as July temperatures hit record heights in the city. 

AP
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As the sun boils overhead, Upper East Side kids splash in one of the city's then-new swimming pools at 112th Street and First Avenue.

AP
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 A man sleeps outside on the fire escape of his tenement building on New York's Lower East Side during a hot summer night in June.

Weegee/ICP, via Getty
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Children relax atop a rock and swim in the north end of the Central Park Lake while others enjoy boating.

AP
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Harlem kids enjoy a fire hydrant shower during a 100-degree day.

Bettmann/Corbis
galleries/2013/05/25/vintage-summer-in-new-york-the-sweet-sweaty-city-life/130524-nyc-summer1_n2lcel

A crowd of 216,000 New Yorkers jams Jones Beach in the hopes of escaping the intense heat that was blistering New York City and the eastern half of the nation that summer.

AP
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An unidentified New Yorker enjoys street-corner bathing from a fire hydrant on July 16, 1977, when temperatures hovered around 100 degrees. 

Ron Frehm/AP
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Children celebrating the opening of a Brooklyn pool. 

Mario Tama
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Mayor Michael Bloomberg, center, and Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe, second right, join some local youth for a dip at the opening of a floating swimming pool docked at Barretto Point Park in the Bronx.

Malcolm Pinckney
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Members of the Honeys and Bears, a senior synchronized swimming group, perform at Harlem's Thomas Jefferson Park pool. The group, founded in 1979, has 10 men and 31 women aged 62 to 100 who meet at least twice a week to practice.

Kathy Willens/AP

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