Q. I often see standpipes with “Siamese connections” outside of buildings. Why do some of them have spikes on top?
A. To stop you from sitting on them or placing things on them, of course. Or to use more political language: to prevent loitering. Spikes of all kinds have a history of deployment against the homeless, in particular. And although it’s unlikely, someone sitting on a Siamese connection could damage the system, potentially causing serious problems should a fire occur. fire hydrant in ship
Officially known as fire department connections and more casually called couplers, Siamese connections are so named because, like the conjoined twins Chang and Eng Bunker, they have two heads. During a fire, firefighters can connect a hose from a nearby hydrant to one or both couplers, boosting pressure and providing additional water to systems inside the building.
A 2009 city law governs the color-coding of a Siamese connection. If it is painted green, it connects to the building’s automatic sprinkler system; red indicates it connects to the building’s standpipe system, the vertical pipes in stairwells from which firefighters inside the building can draw water. Yellow indicates a connection to a combination sprinkler and standpipe system.
Siamese connections first gained traction in the 1870s, but it probably wasn’t until after World War II that spikes began appearing, said Glenn Corbett, an associate professor of fire science at John Jay College.
Spikes are not sold with the connection itself; they have to be retrofitted, which is why you see such a variety of them. And in case you want to complain, just know that this particular use of spikes is not prohibited by the city’s building code, said Andrew Rudansky, a spokesman for the New York City Department of Buildings.
Siamese connections made headlines in 2007, after a fire at the condemned former Deutsche Bank building in Lower Manhattan claimed the lives of two firefighters and injured 100 people. The contractor overseeing the demolition had cut off the standpipe connection, forcing firefighters to carry hoses from street level up several flights of stairs.
Standpipe connections can also be cut off when the caps on the couplers’ exteriors are removed by collectors, resellers, or — you guessed it, bored loiterers — not by firefighters in need of a hose connect. This can lead to dangerous blockages.
“The open pipes become repositories for trash,” Professor Corbett said. “Dr Pepper cans fit very nicely in them.”
red and white fire hydrant An earlier version of this article incorrectly described the anatomy of conjoined twins, Chang and Eng Bunker. They had two bodies and two heads, not one body and two heads.