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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  

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