NEW YORK (AP) — A makeshift aquarium that popped up this summer in a puddle beneath a leaky fire hydrant has been paved over, to the dismay of neighbors who turned the area into a hangout spot and goldfish shrine.
The city's Department of Environmental Protection has long said the dribbling hydrant created a safety hazard. Workers filled the earthen area that formerly held the puddle Friday morning, and yellow tape cordoned off a patch of freshly poured concrete around the repaired hydrant, leaving it looking like the city’s smallest-ever crime scene.
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FILE - Georgia Ramirez Wright stops to take a photo of goldfish swimming in a tree bed filled with water pooling from a leaking fire hydrant, Aug. 9, 2024, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo/David R. Martin, File)
People gather at the yellow caution-taped area around a once leaky fire hydrant that became a makeshift aquarium goldfish pool, and now has been filled with concrete by the city, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo/Cedar Attanasio)
Osvaldo Heredia, of Inland Empire, Calif., places flowers at a makeshift memorial for the Bed-Stuy Aquarium, the yellow caution-taped area around a once leaky fire hydrant that became a makeshift aquarium goldfish pool, and now has been filled with concrete by the city, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo/Cedar Attanasio)
Yellow caution tape surrounds the area around a once leaky fire hydrant, that became a makeshift aquarium goldfish pool, and now has been filled with concrete by the city, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo/Cedar Attanasio)
FILE - Goldfish swim in a pool of water caused by a leaky fire hydrant in the Brooklyn borough of New York, Aug. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Pamela Smith, File)
A woman tends to the makeshift aquarium goldfish pool created by a leaky fire hydrant in the Brooklyn borough of New York, Sept. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Karen Matthews)
“Oh my God,” said Sofia Talavera, her hands raised to her head as she looked at the spot. “People actually took their time and their money to make it beautiful. This was literally the community coming together.”
The so-called Bed-Stuy Aquarium, named after the surrounding Brooklyn neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant, was formed when the leaky hydrant carved out the shallow pool next to a tree bed on a residential street and residents filled it with store-bought goldfish.
The pond was controversial from the start. Some of the fish were “rescued” over the summer by people concerned about their welfare. That angered others, who said the fish were fine, restocked the pool and set up a watch.
After media attention and some donations, organizers kept building out the site, adding signage, decorations and seating. A bootleg sign designed to look like an official Parks Department plaque read “BEDSTUY AQUARIUM,” and a telephone pole was painted with palm-size goldfish surrounded in blue.
The pond was easy for tourists to find after it became searchable on Google Maps. Two visitors from California who came to the site Friday morning said they had planned to send a picture to friends in Los Angeles who were obsessed from afar.
“Now we have to break the news,” said Adam Aguilar, a visual artist. His friend laid a bouquet of flowers next to two flickering candles at an impromptu memorial site.
It always seemed inevitable that the fish would eventually have to be removed. The Fire Department needs hydrants to be in working order. Winter was coming.
Fire officials fixed the hydrant Tuesday, but residents quickly replenished the pond with water and fish. Videos on social media showed testy exchanges between locals and fire department workers, and police protection for the cement-layers.
The Department of Environmental Protection said in a statement that it was “looking forward to working with community members to find an appropriate alternative location for this impromptu gem,” adding, “This allows us to keep New Yorkers safe by ensuring that the previously leaking fire hydrant doesn’t freeze over and become inoperable.”
The remaining goldfish were removed and placed in a bucket, the department said.
Some residents expressed optimism that the pond could be moved to a nearby community garden, while others are holding out for converting a derelict storefront on the block into an indoor aquarium and hangout space. Organizers most involved in those efforts declined to comment.
On his way to work, Jon Frier passed by the site and joked to friends, “Does anyone have a jackhammer?”
He paused to try to draw a goldfish in the wet concrete. Across the street, an employee in a Environment Protection truck warned him not to with a long honk, backed up by a police officer in another vehicle.
“They just can’t let us have anything can they? I can’t believe Eric Adams,” Frier said, referring to the city's mayor.
Adams' media team did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
City officials have sometimes clashed or negotiated with residents over the use of fire hydrants, long commandeered to create cool-off spray zones during hot summer months. A compromise was eventually reached under which residents can apply for a permit to use a low-flow sprayer, lent and installed by a firefighter.
For Talavera the disappearance of the aquarium means the loss of a of late-night hangout that, unlike city parks, couldn't be closed at night.
After the New York Liberty won the WNBA national championship recently, she posted a grainy image of the hydrant to Instagram. It read: “last night was so awesome i had to go to the aquarium to celebrate.”
FILE - Georgia Ramirez Wright stops to take a photo of goldfish swimming in a tree bed filled with water pooling from a leaking fire hydrant, Aug. 9, 2024, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo/David R. Martin, File)
People gather at the yellow caution-taped area around a once leaky fire hydrant that became a makeshift aquarium goldfish pool, and now has been filled with concrete by the city, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo/Cedar Attanasio)
Osvaldo Heredia, of Inland Empire, Calif., places flowers at a makeshift memorial for the Bed-Stuy Aquarium, the yellow caution-taped area around a once leaky fire hydrant that became a makeshift aquarium goldfish pool, and now has been filled with concrete by the city, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo/Cedar Attanasio)
Yellow caution tape surrounds the area around a once leaky fire hydrant, that became a makeshift aquarium goldfish pool, and now has been filled with concrete by the city, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo/Cedar Attanasio)
FILE - Goldfish swim in a pool of water caused by a leaky fire hydrant in the Brooklyn borough of New York, Aug. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Pamela Smith, File)
A woman tends to the makeshift aquarium goldfish pool created by a leaky fire hydrant in the Brooklyn borough of New York, Sept. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Karen Matthews)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Israel pounded Iran with a series of airstrikes early Saturday, saying it was targeting military targets in retaliation for the barrage of ballistic missiles the Islamic Republic fired upon Israel earlier this month. Explosions could be heard in the Iranian capital, Tehran, though there was no immediate information on damage or casualties.
The attack risks pushing the archenemies closer to all-out war at a time of spiraling violence across the Middle East, where militant groups backed by Iran – including Hamas in Gaza, and Hezbollah in Lebanon – are already at war with Israel.
The Israeli military said Saturday it had launched “precise strikes on military targets” and, according to two Israeli officials, it was not targeting nuclear or oil facilities. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the ongoing operation with the media.
“The regime in Iran and its proxies in the region have been relentlessly attacking Israel since Oct. 7 ... including direct attacks from Iranian soil,” Israeli military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said in a prerecorded video statement early Saturday. “Like every other sovereign country in the world, the State of Israel has the right and the duty to respond.”
Initially, nuclear facilities and oil installations all had been seen as possible targets for Israel’s response to Iran’s Oct. 1 attack, but in mid-October the Biden administration believed it had won assurances from Israel that it would not hit such targets.
Iran’s state-run media acknowledged blasts that could be heard in Tehran and said some of the sounds came from air defense systems around the city.
But beyond a brief reference, Iranian state television offered no other details and even began showing what it described as live footage of men loading trucks at a vegetable market in Tehran in an attempt to downplay the assault.
A Tehran resident told The Associated Press that at least seven explosions could be heard, which rattled the surrounding area. The resident spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
People in Tehran could see what appeared to be tracer fire light up the sky as the blasts could be heard. Other footage showed what appeared to be surface-to-air missiles launching up to the sky and other detonations.
Iran closed the country’s airspace early Saturday, and flight-tracking data analyzed by the Associated Press showed commercial airlines had broadly left the skies over Iran, and across Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.
The White House said President Joe Biden had been briefed and would continue to receive updates.
In Syria, the state news agency SANA, citing an unnamed military official, reported “barrages of missiles from the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan and Lebanese territories targeted some military sites in the southern and central regions” early Saturday. It said that Syria’s air defenses had shot some of the missiles down. There was no immediate information on casualties.
Iran has launched two ballistic missile attacks on Israel in recent months amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip that began with the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. That initial attack killed some 1,200 people and saw 250 others taken hostage back to the seaside enclave.
In the time since, more than 42,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to local health officials who don’t delineate between civilians and combatants. The U.N. has said hundreds of thousands of people have been trapped with little food or supplies as Israeli forces close in on the northern Gaza town of Jabaliya, while food and other aid remains scarce in the enclave. Israeli military operations in the West Bank in the time since have killed hundreds more.
Israel also has launched a ground invasion of Lebanon and a series of punishing airstrikes that have rattled that country.
The strike Saturday happened just as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was arriving back in the U.S. after a tour of the Middle East where he and other U.S. officials had warned Israel to tender a response that would not further escalate the conflict in the region and exclude nuclear sites in Iran.
White House National Security Council spokesman Sean Savett said in a statement that “we understand that Israel is conducting targeted strikes against military targets in Iran” and referred reporters to the Israeli government for more details on their operation.
Two U.S. officials said the U.S. was notified by Israel in advance of the strikes. They said there was no U.S. involvement in the operation. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing operation.
Israel had vowed to hit Iran hard following a massive Iranian missile barrage on Oct. 1. Iran said its barrage was in response to deadly Israeli attacks against its proxy in Lebanon, Hezbollah, and it has promised to respond to any retaliatory strikes.
Israel and Iran have been bitter foes since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Israel considers Iran to be its greatest threat, citing its leaders’ calls for Israel’s destruction, their support for anti-Israel militant groups and the country’s nuclear program.
Israel and Iran have been locked in a yearslong shadow war. A suspected Israeli assassination campaign has killed top Iranian nuclear scientists. Iranian nuclear installations have been hacked or sabotaged, all in mysterious attacks blamed on Israel. Meanwhile, Iran has been blamed for a series of attacks on shipping in the Middle East in recent years, which later grew into the attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels on shipping through the Red Sea corridor.
But since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, the battle has increasingly moved into the open. Israel has recently turned its attention to Hezbollah, which has been firing rockets into Israel since the war in Gaza began. Throughout the year, a number of top Iranian military figures have been killed in Israeli strikes in Syria and Lebanon.
Iran fired a wave of missiles and drones at Israel last April after two Iranian generals were killed in an apparent Israeli airstrike in Syria on an Iranian diplomatic post. The missiles and drones caused minimum damage, and Israel — under pressure from Western countries to show restraint — responded with a limited strike.
But after Iran’s early October missile strike, Israel promised a tougher response.
Meanwhile Friday, Israeli strikes on residential areas in southern Gaza killed 38 people, including 13 children from the same extended family, Palestinian health officials said.
In northern Gaza, health officials reported that Israeli forces had raided Kamal Adwan Hospital, one of the few medical facilities still functioning in the area. Israel has renewed its offensive against Hamas in the north in recent weeks, and aid groups are sounding the alarm over dire humanitarian conditions.
In Lebanon, Israeli strikes on the country’s southeast killed three journalists working for news outlets that are considered to be aligned with Hezbollah.
Associated Press writers Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Iran, Abby Sewell in Beirut and Lolita C. Baldor, Farnoush Amiri and Zeke Miller in Washington contributed to this report.
Another wave of explosions echoed across Iran’s capital early Saturday as Israel launched retaliatory strikes that, according to two Israeli officials, are not targeting nuclear or oil facilities.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the ongoing operation with the media.
There was no immediate comment from the Iranian government. However, people in Tehran could see what appeared to be tracer fire light up the sky and the blasts could be heard.
Iran had just shut the country’s airspace over the attacks.
In this image taken from video released by the Israel Defense Forces early Saturday, Oct. 26, 2024, Israeli military spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari announces that the IDF is conducting strikes on military targets in Iran. (Israel Defense Forces via AP)
Palestinians sift through the rubble of a building destroyed by Israeli airstrikes in the city of Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP Photo)
Palestinians check a body bag of a relative killed in Israeli airstrikes, in a morgue in the city of Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP Photo)
Family members unzips a body bag of children killed by by Israeli airstrikes in the morgue in the city of Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP Photo)
EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT - A Palestinian kisses a relative killed in Israeli airstrikes, in a morgue in the city of Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP Photo)
Palestinians check a building destroyed by Israeli airstrikes in the city of Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP Photo)
Palestinians sift through the rubble of a building destroyed by Israeli airstrikes in the city of Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP Photo)
EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT - A Palestinian kisses a relative killed in Israeli airstrikes, in a morgue in the city of Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP Photo)
People observe a mosque destroyed by Israeli airstrikes in the city of Khan Younis, sothern Gaza Strip, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP Photo)
Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi meets with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in London, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (Nathan Howard/Pool photo via AP)
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets with Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi in London Britain, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (Nathan Howard/Pool photo via AP)
A journalist carries the flack jacket, at the site where an Israeli airstrike hit a compound housing journalists, killing three media staffers from two different news agencies according to Lebanon's state-run National News Agency, in Hasbaya village, southeast Lebanon, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
People observe the site where an Israeli airstrike hit a compound housing journalists, killing three media staffers from two different news agencies according to Lebanon's state-run National News Agency, in Hasbaya village, southeast Lebanon, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
A Druze man walks by the site where an Israeli airstrike hit a compound housing journalists, killing three media staffers from two different news agencies according to Lebanon's state-run National News Agency, in Hasbaya village, southeast Lebanon, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
A flack jacket and other items left inside a destroyed car, at the site where an Israeli airstrike hit a compound housing journalists, killing three media staffers from two different news agencies according to Lebanon's state-run National News Agency, in Hasbaya village, southeast Lebanon, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
An injured cameraman flashes victory sign as he moved by the Lebanese Red Cross to a hospital after he injured at the site where an Israeli airstrike hit a compound housing journalists, killing three media staffers from two different news agencies according to Lebanon's state-run National News Agency, in Hasbaya village, southeast Lebanon, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
An injured cameraman is moved by the Lebanese Red Cross to a hospital, at the site where an Israeli airstrike hit a compound housing journalists, killing three media staffers from two different news agencies according to Lebanon's state-run National News Agency, in Hasbaya village, southeast Lebanon, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
A destroyed journalists car is seen at the site where an Israeli airstrike hit a compound housing journalists, killing three media staffers from two different news agencies according to Lebanon's state-run National News Agency, in Hasbaya village, southeast Lebanon, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
People observe the site where an Israeli airstrike hit a compound housing journalists, killing three media staffers from two different news agencies according to Lebanon's state-run National News Agency, in Hasbaya village, southeast Lebanon, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
A policeman checks a destroyed journalists' car, at the site where an Israeli airstrike hit a compound housing journalists, killing three media staffers from two different news agencies according to Lebanon's state-run National News Agency, in Hasbaya village, southeast Lebanon, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
A journalist observes the site where an Israeli airstrike hit a compound housing journalists, killing three media staffers from two different news agencies according to Lebanon's state-run National News Agency, in Hasbaya village, southeast Lebanon, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
Journalists' items on the ground next to a destroyed vehicle, at the site where an Israeli airstrike hit a compound housing journalists, killing three media staffers from two different news agencies according to Lebanon's state-run National News Agency, in Hasbaya village, southeast Lebanon, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
Destroyed vehicles used by journalists at the site where an Israeli airstrike hit a compound housing journalists, killing three media staffers from two different news agencies according to Lebanon's state-run National News Agency, in Hasbaya village, southeast Lebanon, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
A destroyed journalists' car at the site where an Israeli airstrike hit a compound housing journalists, killing three media staffers from two different news agencies according to Lebanon's state-run National News Agency, in Hasbaya village, southeast Lebanon, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
Smoke rises from an Israeli airstrike on Mansouri village, as it seen from the southern city of Tyre, south Lebanon, Thursday, Oct. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
