A Field Guide to New York City Manhole Covers


B & T GAS

Bingham and Taylor Gas

cover image

Like a manhole cover, but smaller!

On the sidewalks and streets of New York there are thousands of small "valve covers". Too small for climbing down, they usually cover a "chimney" leading to a water or gas valve, very often the last valve before the pipe goes into a building. Although there are indeed devotees of these wee ones I will only spotlight a few.

DESIGN:

The idea for this very functional cover is that the arrow will indicate the direction of gas pressure in the pipes below. The arrow would be guided itself by a square notch on the rim of the seat. In this case there seems to have been some disagreement and a great deal of effort putting the round hole over the square notch.

UTILITY:

The B&T of this cover is not the gas company, rather the foundry Bingham and Taylor in Culpeper Virginia. Among all the utilities, gas companies are the most secretive.

RANGE:

This size and type cover is found all over the place.

Related Images Follow


Don Burmeister -- Photographs