Water for Gotham

by Gerard Koeppel

Water for Gotham tells the spirited story of New York's evolution as a great city by examining its struggle for that vital and basic element--clean water. Drawing on primary sources, personal narratives, and anecdotes, Gerard Koeppel demonstrates how quickly the shallow wells of Dutch New Amsterdam were overwhelmed, leaving the English and American city beleaguered by filth, epidemics, and fires. This situation changed only when an outside water source was finally secured in 1842--the Croton Aqueduct, a model for urban water supplies in the United States.


As the fertile wilderness enjoyed by the first Europeans in Manhattan vanishes and the magnitude of New York's water problem grows, the reader is introduced to the plans of Christopher Colles, builder of the first American steam engine, and of Joseph Browne, the first to call for a mainland water source for this island-city. In this vividly written true-life fable of the "Fools of Gotham," the chief obstacle to the aqueduct is the Manhattan Company. Masterminded by Aaron Burr, with the complicity of Alexander Hamilton and other leading New Yorkers, the company was a ruse, serving as the charter for a bank--today's Chase Manhattan. The cholera epidemic of 1832 and the great fire three years later were instrumental in forcing the city's leaders to finally unite and regain New York's water rights.


Koeppel's account of the developments leading up to the Croton Aqueduct reveals it as a triumph not only of inspired technology but of political will. With over forty archival photographs and drawings, Water for Gotham demonstrates the deep interconnections between natural resource management, urban planning, and civic leadership. As New York today retakes its waterfront and boasts famous tap water, this book is a valuable reminder of how much vision and fortitude are required to make a great city function and thrive.

Genres: History, New York, Nonfiction, Cities

376 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

I write history, mostly New York related so far, mostly in books of my own and others', but also in anything from magazines and journals to historical signage in city parks. I started writing at Wesleyan, for the student paper and in a grueling non-fiction writing seminar with V.S. Naipaul. After college, I was the captain of a charter sailboat with a past, an awful law student, a licensed hack (out of a Greenwich Village taxi garage), and then, for many years, a radio reporter/writer/editor/producer, mostly with CBS News. In radio, I learned to write short and unlearned narrative. With each book of history, I'm trying to do the narrative thing better. I was born at an edge of the Manhattan street grid, in a hospital since replaced by a high-rise condo, raised on the suburban mainland, and for many decades have lived on my native island, mostly at edges of its dominant rectilinearity. I'm married and we have three grown but still health insurance covered children, who may someday cross paths with some of mine. Or not.

Reviews

[K · Rating 5 out of 5]

Water for Gotham is the very readable history of New York City's failure to address its need for clean, fresh water in the 18th and early 19th centuries--a fact that increased disease and death, stagnated its economic development, and created enormous corruption. The creation of the Croton Reservoir would be the beginning of a real quest to find solutions to this problem. Mr. Koeppel's history has a light touch, but is very informative.

[Caterina Gandolfi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pretty interesting to read about the catastrophic path to the establishment of potable water distribution in New York City, as well as learning about all of the important figures involved. I also appreciated the images throughout the book. Having said that, I found the way it was written to be unengaging and quite boring.

[Haiyun · Rating 2 out of 5]

The narrative is fluid and interesting, as if your uncle is telling old-time stories. However, some of the facts are too random and detailed, which distracts the book away from the bigger picture of the history of New York's water system.

[Terence · Rating 3 out of 5]

I struggled with this rating. It is an interesting story and one I was curious about, having lived in Westchester County my whole life. But it could have been better written, and the original maps are tiny and nearly impossible to read.

I decided to give it three stars instead of two.

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

an overall good read on the history of delivering water to NYC. It does get bogged down in minutiae at times but overall it is a good read.

[PJ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Widely renowned for the excellent quality of its drinking water, New York City was once reviled for the same. Only decades of pollution and disease finally motivated the powers-that-were to stop the politicking and do some good for the people of New York. Entertainingly written and well-researched, Koeppel describes the history of drinking water in New York City from the 1600s when water came from ponds and wells through the construction of the Croton Aqueduct in the 1840s which brought water to Manhattan from upstate New York.

Personally, I found the subject matter fascinating and was impressed at the number of first-hand accounts the author was able to unearth. Plus, Koeppel made the potentially dry subject matter (OK, I guess water is by definition not dry subject matter) a pleasant--almost poetic--read.

I deeply wish that the book had covered the period from 1850 to the present in greater detail. It took 280 pages to get us to 1850, and then the subsequent 150 years were covered in 10 pages. If nothing had changed, this wouldn't be a big deal to me, but today NYC gets most of its water from sources other than the Croton Aqueduct, so I was left thirsting for more.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was very insightful, if written a bit like a reworked PhD dissertation (which it might very well have been). The sheer magnitude of the problem of getting water to Manhattan is generally underestimated, even when we stop to be amazed at the aqueducts.

[Carolyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting read but I wish the book would have continued past the construction of the Croton Aqueduct and included more information on New York's modern public water supply. Still, the book was a surprisingly good read considering municipal water supply is a pretty dry subject.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

So far it's great, what a political mess it was for so long. Surprised we ever got fresh water. First I ever heard that Chase Bank was started from money that was suppose to go to building a water system. Bad man that Mr. Hamilton.

[Jesse Blanco · Rating 3 out of 5]

An extremely fact filled history book of how NYC went from a Dutch colony using local wells with wooden buckets to the modern aqueducts pumping full of the best water in America.
TMI actually. I know how it happened but I don't seem to care for or remember the people who did it.

[Yi · Rating 4 out of 5]

reads like a mystery. pretty fascinating, to find out why one of the most important cities in the world was one of the last in the nation to have a good drinking water system...

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting read, but you have to wade through all the sections about politics and personalities to get to the good stuff about water policy in New York.

[Renee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very much enjoyed this book. A great look at a different piece of the history of New York.

[Kathryn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting read, but I ended up skipping through the end. Those damn politicians took forever to figure it out!