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new york city is the pinnacle example of american development and being the most populated city
in the united states it requires a tremendous amount of infrastructure chief amongst the most
important of these systems is its waterworks which has a long and complex past today we
discover a fascinating tale of underground piping aqueducts and forgotten tanks this
is the history of new york's waterworks i'm your host ryan socash and you're watching it's history
let's start off at the beginning at the time of new york's city founding in the 1600s the
city was known as new amsterdam and located on the southernmost tip of manhattan water collection was
rather primitive here coming from wells ponds and rivers at this time its water came primarily from
the kelch hook pond also known as collect pond it no longer exists as the city's growth necessitated
its filling from collect ponds citizens collected whatever water they needed in buckets taking them
back to their home other water collection methods included private wells from which
more fortunate citizens drew water although these types of wells were much less common the primary
method of collection came from open water sources however as time moved onward the city
became increasingly populated as more people came in the older collection methods became
less and less efficient there was simply too many people for the lakes rivers and wells to supply
as this continued another problem came up that of wastewater considering that more people
means more waste human waste or trash one may wonder how the people of this developing city
disposed of unwanted materials well in the early days of america the answer was the same across
all the smaller settlements be it new york or chicago you throw it in the water if you
don't want it well the river's flow took away smaller amounts of waste the waterways
quickly became polluted with the sheer amount of garbage finding its way in even more startling was
the pollution of wells as the contaminated river water seeped into the groundwater
the hudson and the east river's saltwater found its way into these wells this way making the water
unfit for human consumption the city also wouldn't have indoor plumbing until the late 19th century
until then outhouses and chamber pots were the typical method of waste collection outhouses were
toilets located outside the building that linked directly to a cesspit chamber pots were pots used
as temporary toilets in bedrooms until the morning came at which point they would be emptied either
into the outhouse or the nearest waterway further contaminating them by the early 1700s manhattan
was devoid of safe and clean drinking water as a result the city began hauling water from brooklyn
into manhattan the drinking water problem remained a primary concern of the young town but this made
dealing with it much easier brooklyn's fresh groundwater seeded much of the city's needs
but it was simply not enough there were already too many people living in an area to keep supplied
without a proper water supply a city will quickly find itself inundated with problems one of the
more threatening problems is fire new york city didn't have enough water to quench its people's
thirst let alone the flames of a burning building fires rapidly burned out of control in these
early days in the same year that the founding fathers issued the declaration of independence
the people suffered the great fire of new york city where on september the 21st 1776 a quarter of
the city's buildings burnt to the ground another major issue the city faced was frequent epidemics
as any younger municipality without an efficient water supply would meet chief among these diseases
was cholera a waterborne illness that played havoc on the nation's largest cities conditions for the
disease could not have been more perfect and it killed scores of new yorkers for example in 1832
new york city suffered a cholera epidemic that killed 3 500 people with the primary culprit being
contaminated water that's not to say the state legislator was sitting on its hands for 60 years
in 1799 with the nation finally on relatively stable footing it gave the right to supply water
to new york city to the newly formed manhattan company headed by aaron byrne the same man that
would eventually kill alexander hamilton in a duel the company sunk more wells at collect pond
rather than bringing in water from outside of manhattan as was initially intended they stored
the water at a reservoir at chambers street and distributed the water through wooden pipes
the company's surplus went towards founding a bank nowadays known as chase manhattan
considering for the fact that the manhattan company seemed more interested in the bank project
than the purpose it existed to serve it's a small wonder they did a poor
job of supplying water the shoddy state of the water supply led to more fires and epidemics
by the late 1820s the city leaders decided that the current state of affairs could no longer
continue with all these issues plaguing the city there had to be a way to get a good water supply
connected to new york and one of the first places designers looked to solve the problem was history
there had been several places in which one could find cities that were much less fortunate for
running water yet ancient civilizations still made them into beautiful cities for example
ancient rome quite literally invented plumbing as plumbing it is from the latin word for lead
plum bum okay lay off me in the comment sections about that mess up guys let's move on well the
romans were not aware of the health side effects of lead plumbing they did know how to get water to
places where it was needed the romans constructed sewers faucets and even functional toilets but
most prevalent to new york at the time was the aqueduct this construction feat brought water
from a distant source towards a location that the source would serve better taking inspiration from
these old designs major david d douglas began planning an ambitious new public works project
he laid out plans for the route structures and its hydraulic principles well his successor
john b jervis finished the design for what would become the croton aqueduct
in 1836 work began on the aqueduct in 1837 performed mainly by irish immigrants not unlike
the erie canal the majority of this majestic structure is a brick tunnel in the shape of
a horseshoe 8.5 feet high by 7.5 feet wide the tunnel sits on a stone foundation with a cover of
earth supporting its stone embankment walls as in the roman model the tube is gravity fed dropping
13 inches every mile with that extremely specific guide its builders had to maintain that perfect
gradient through all kinds of terrain as a result it was cut into the hillside tunneled through rock
carried over valleys and streams by massive bridges while maintaining that perfect 13 inch
per mile incline on its way from the croton river to manhattan while the tunnel opened to the air
the workers covered it with dirt shielding it from the wrath of nature by burying it water from the
river first entered the tunnel at 5 am on june the 22nd 1842 following the water a boat called the
croton maid traveled shortly behind it its crew making sure it completed its path successfully
by 3 am the next day the vessel entered the harlem river completing its journey in 22 hours
now that the aqueduct was functional it filled up two massive above-ground reservoirs located where
the great lawn in central park and the 5th avenue new york public library currently are as a result
of this enormous engineering feat the croton water celebration was held on october the 14th 1842
in new york city a seven mile long parade took place several songs were written and performed
and enormous jets of water shot 50 feet into the air at the croton fountain finally clean and pure
you won't believe how this innovation changed the city forever in a way it reminds me of how
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aqueduct was complete clean water was finally generally accessible to the city running water
for drinking and bathing was now not exclusive to the richest of new york city's residents
the general public had access to this as well but only thanks to the ingenuity of the aqueduct and
one of the direct ramifications of the success is that new york finally with its water supply could
accommodate a massive population influx in many ways making the city what we know it to be today
and that's not to mention all the new functions that the city could implement
now with its constant water supply as the city expanded both new and old areas had installations
of sewers flush toilets and faucets the city was entering the cutting edge of water technology
and demand was only increasing especially with the merger of brooklyn queens staten island the
bronx and manhattan into one city in 1898 and a dark reality set in when the need for water
increased beyond the aqueducts limits the city saw these challenges coming and in 1885 construction
of the new croton aqueduct another structure three times the size of the old aqueduct running roughly
parallel to it began opening in 1910 the two aqueducts supplied the new mega city with all
the water it needed most residents believe that the water supply issues were solved once and for
all with the foundation of the board of water supply in 1905 new york city continued to bring
in all the water it needed thanks to legislation passed by the city around the turn of the century
the board purchased watershed land in the catskill mountains allowing it to create more reservoirs
by damming waterways however many villages had to completely relocate to make these reservoirs
as the old locations would entirely flood to create the new water pools regardless of the
hurdles the cat's kill reservoir system went into service in 1927 and another reservoir of greater
note followed within the next 40 years but all these achievements pale in comparison to this
final implementation of new york's water supply by the 1930s water needs began to strike the city
again but grand designs were already in motion construction started on the delaware system in
1937 and work continued quickly especially on the delaware aqueduct by 1939 the tunnel nearest
to the city was ready for concrete and all 85 miles of tunnel excavation were completed by 1942
this was and still remains the longest tunnel in the world however progress slowed significantly
with the surprise attack on pearl harbor and the united states entering world war ii in december
of 1941 with the war production boards program the board of water supply couldn't acquire the
equipment and material necessary to complete the tunnel however progress increased when concern
about the potential destruction of the catskill aqueduct by access bombing assaults or sabotage
surfaced forcing the aqueducts completion to the absolute forefront of the board of water
supply's priorities emergency tunnels came into effect throughout world war ii but construction
on the delaware aqueduct halted in 1944 as the war efforts reached their climax and with the
atomic ages baptism and nuclear fire in the end of world war ii construction on the delaware system
resumed within months construction sped along rapidly with the completion of the entire system
aqueduct reservoirs and all occurring in 1965 being the largest tunnel in the world the
delaware aqueduct supplied new york city with much more water than the previous solutions
this aqueduct supplies the city with around half of its drinking water to this very day that
brings us to the modern moment the three systems croton catskill and delaware collectively have a
watershed of 2 000 square miles roughly the size of the entire state of delaware with a collective
storage capacity of 550 billion gallons it's safe to say that new york is in a much better situation
than it was during its founding and in many ways it's still remarkably similar to the historic
examples we spoke about previously 97 of the city's water reaches its destination using gravity
only with the other three percent needing pumps to reach the final destination water health remains
a concern and chlorine added into the system in low doses clears any bacteria the system also adds
fluoride to prevent tooth decay the croton system contains 12 reservoirs and three controlled lakes
with the croton reservoir having an impressive maximum of 19 billion gallons of water
catskill has two reservoirs and supplies 40 percent of the city's total water use the
delaware has four reservoirs largest of which has a maximum of 140 billion gallons of water
whenever i visit a major global city i'm amazed that the water runs out of the tap
when you imagine how many sinks pools and toilets are in a city like new york it becomes difficult
to even imagine how many resources go into fueling life there this is civilization
in a nutshell because without our creative ability to sculpt the land in triumphant ways
the 8.4 million people who call themselves new yorkers wouldn't even need to worry about water
because their city would not exist in the first place and on a lighter note let me
know in the comments section is it aqueduct or aqueduct check out our new york city playlist
subscribe to its history and as the youtubers say smash the bell this is ryan socash signing off