pumping

Probably this: “PUMPING CASCADES FOR THE FIRE CHIEFS Motor Apparatuses Draw 6,000,000 gallons form the Hudson Demonstrating Efficiency” WOMEN MOVED TO TEARS The world’s Fire Chiefs who are here attending the forty-first annual convention and fire exposition of the International Association of Fire Engineers, spent the whole of yesterday making observations at a capacity test of motor fire pumps on the pier at Fifty-fourth Street and the North River. To the thousands of residents who went to De Witt Clinton Park, overlooking the pier, the test must have appeared like an attempt to pump the Hudson River dry.” NEW YORK TIMES September 4, 1913

Nice detective work, puzzlemaster! This must be the event. I've found licence plates on the engines in other photos for Miss. and Minn., suggesting that it was a nationwide exposition.

What an amazing picture with the tall ship in the background. I love it.

The schedule for the event is described in NYT of August 3, 1913 query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9A04EFDD113BE633A... (Don't be confused by headline and first paragraph. The fire chiefs come later in the same column. and another report on the convention is in NYT of September 3, 1913 query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9D0CE3DB123FE633A...

Like Cassies grandma, I was intrigued by the "tall ship." I think it might be a coal schooner or similar east coast freighter. See pressherald.mainetoday.com/specialrpts/shipbuilding/story... for a picture of a very similar vessel, the Paul Palmer. It can't be the Paul Palmer, because she caught fire and sank off Cape Cod earlier in 1913. But apparently there was a fleet of such vessels. www.fishermensvoice.com/archives/mar01.html#bigger has a 2001 article about building such schooners in Maine. www.ahrtp.com/TallshipsOnLine/pages/PALMER1.htm is another picture of the Paul Palmer (being launched in Waldoboro, Maine in 1902)

Margaret Young, singer, comedian, see:

Thank you, Art—we'll note Margaret Young's full name in our catalog