Liquid Assets: A History of New York City's Water System

by Diane Galusha

The New York City water system is, by every measure, an engineering marvel. Delivering 1.2 billion gallons of water each day to more than nine million people, it is a complex network of reservoirs stretched out over a vast upstate region and connected by a web of subterranean aqueducts to rival the aqueducts of the ancient Romans. The system, so pivotal to the development of the nation's largest city and its northern suburbs, was realized over the past century and a half, and indeed is still being built beneath the subways and skyscrapers of New York. But clean, abundant water has not come without peril and pain. Thousands of people were forced to relinquish their homes in dozens of communities leveled to make way for the reservoirs of the Croton, Catskill, and Delaware Supplies. Hundreds of workers died building the tunnels and dams; countless more were injured. The story of the New York water system is one of genius and daring, sacrifice and tragedy. It is peopled with visionaries, scoundrels and "the little men with the picks and shovels" who tore away mountains and built new ones to capture the sweet essence of wild rivers far from the Big Apple's teeming streets.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

303 pages, Paperback

First published November 28, 1999

Reviews

[Ari · Rating 3 out of 5]

Galusha offers both an engineering and a social history of the New York water supply. The book is well illustrated, and I found the technical discussion generally easy to follow.

One of the things the book highlights is the way that the Upstate communities were disrupted and even destroyed by dam construction. New York City was happy to condemn and relocate whole villages if they were in the way of a needed reservoir.

I have two hesitations. First, the author incorporates long stretches quoted from previous histories, and it's not always clear what details are interesting or important. Why do we care, for each dam, how many cubic feet of concrete were poured or how fast the tunnel advances were made? It feels like there should have been some analysis or summary to tie together the minutia, that wasn't there.

Second, the book doesn't really analyze any of the decisions that were made. I'd like to know what the Board of Water Supply (BWS) got right and what they got wrong. I didn't learn that and don't understand it. My sense is that the author has no particular technical expertise, so any such analysis would have to lean on other sources, but still, it should be possible to tell us what mistakes the BWS itself acknowledged, or which decisions they congratulated themselves for.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

ILL
A big piece of NYC's history--an important piece in the hx of the big cities of the world==good pictures

heard author on Radiolab-this is an exciting story which is ongoing

from Worldcat:
Contents: The thirsty settlement. Water, water everywhere- -- Claiming the Croton. John B. Jervis : an engineer's engineer -- Of "life and stir" : the city grows. A visit below ; An unquenchable demon -- Lake effects. Island tapping -- Liquid links. Disaster in Pennsylvania -- A new aqueduct. Jerome Park's "hay days" -- The New Croton Reservoir. "On the move!" -- Finishing the Croton system : Cross River and Croton Falls. The terror of typhoid -- To the Catskills -- The Catskill Aqueduct. Tunneling under the Hudson -- Beneath city streets. Crossing the Narrows to Staten Island -- Building the Ashokan. On patrol -- Kensico and Hill View reservoirs . To filter, or not to filter- -- Fire and flood : the Schoharie Project. An ancient forest -- Fighting for the Delaware. New sources, new conduits -- The Delaware Aqueduct. Sam Rosoff : rags to riches -- Waiting for "The Water." Courts and compacts -- Pepacton. Building reputations, too -- Cannonsville. When the rains didn't come -- Assessng the damage. Tax disputes -- Tunnel vision -- To the future- -- Conclusion : pride and sorrow.

[Peter Wheelwright · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quite exceptional - rigorous research combined with the anecdotal

[Matt Haynes · Rating 4 out of 5]

There was an astounding amount of research that went into this book.

[Codered Summer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ever wonder why New York City's tapwater tastes ridiculously good?