Through the System

ave you ever given much thought to where New York City’s water comes from?

Before it gushes out from your faucet, the city’s water has traveled through some 6,181 miles of water mains. Almost half of these mains were laid before 1930, and 10 percent of those were constructed before 1870. Additionally, 88,600 valves are used to regulate the flow of water.

Amazingly, 95 percent of the system is delivered via gravity. Without any other means of conveyance, the water simply flows from its upstate origins into the city. Because of the simplicity of the system, only buildings over six stories tall need pumps to bring water to their loftier residents.

But it wasn’t always this easy.

ccording to Gerard T. Koeppel, author of "Water for Gotham: A History," the city’s water was so badly polluted in the early 19^th century that animals would resist drinking it. At the time, New Yorkers got their water from contaminated wells that had been sunk alongside sewers and waste pits. The problem knew no social boundaries; rich as well as poor suffered from the city’s lack of a clean water supply.
In 1799, the State Legislature authorized the Manhattan Company to be the exclusive supplier of water for New York City. Supplying New Yorkers with fresh water, however, was low on the list of priorities for the Manhattan Company, whose leadership was much more interested in using their assets to form a new bank. The company, then headed by Aaron Burr and now known as Chase Manhattan Bank, did a shoddy job managing New York’s water resources.

Illustration depicting the fire of 1835.

Fires, burning out of control due to the lack of water, devastated the city in 1835 and polluted water caused a cholera epidemic in 1832 that killed thousands of New Yorkers. Catastrophes such as these convinced city leaders that they needed to develop a better system to ensure an abundant supply of clean drinking water.

Since the 1830s, when New York’s Water Commission first started looking upstate for new, uncontaminated water sources, the supply system has steadily expanded, now encompassing almost 2,000 square miles – an area the size of Delaware.

he foundation of the city’s water supply consists of three vast upstate reservoir systems that have a storage capacity of more than a half trillion gallons. The three upstate watersheds – the Croton, Catskill and Delaware – produce and store 97 percent of the city’s water supply. For maximum flexibility, the systems are all interconnected in order to alleviate the effects of drought or to ensure that excess water from one reservoir can be stored in another.

After years of dealing with contaminated water and chronic shortages, the city began work on the Croton system in 1837. Water from the newly constructed system first flowed into the city on June 27, 1842, delivered via 41.5 miles of aqueduct and over the Harlem River by way of the High Bridge (still standing at 173^rd Street).

Water from the system was collected in two reservoirs, one at Murray Hill (presently the site of the New York Public Library’s main branch), and the other at York Hill (now part of Central Park at 86^th Street). Distributed throughout the city for the first time from the Murray Hill reservoir on July 4, 1842, New Yorkers celebrated the event with a parade and an enormous fireworks display.

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