#143 Water for New York: Croton Aqueduct

The Bowery Boys: New York City History

Tom Meyers

Places & Travel, History, Documentary, Society & Culture

4.7 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 21 September 2012

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

One of the great challenges faced by a growing, 19th-century New York City was the need for a viable, clean water supply. Before the 1830s, citizens relied on cisterns to collect rainwater, a series of city wells drilling down to underground springs, and the infamously polluted Collect Pond. The solution lay miles north of the city in the Croton River. New York engineers embarked on one of the most ambitious projects in the city's history -- to tame the Croton, funnelling through an aqueduct down to the city, where water would be stored in grand, Egyptian-style reservoirs to serve the city's needs. This is the story of both the old and new Croton Aqueducts, and of the many landmarks that are still with us -- from New York's oldest surviving bridge to a former Bronx racetrack that was turned into a gigantic reservoir. ALSO: A entire town moved on logs, a famous writer's strange musings on Irish laborers, and guest appearances by DeWitt Clinton and Gouverneur Morris (but not the ones you think). www.boweryboyspodcast.com Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/boweryboys

Transcript

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0:00.0	The Bowry Boys Episode 143, Water for New York, The Croat and Aqueduct.
0:05.6	Hey, it's The Bowry Boys!
0:07.2	Hey!
0:08.7	The Bowry Boys is brought to you by EuroChipo.com.
0:13.4	EuroChipo's editors inspect and recommend the best budget hotels in Europe.
0:19.0	On the web at EuroChipo.com.
0:22.7	Hi there, welcome to The Bowry Boys. This is Greg Young.
0:25.2	And this is Tom Myers.
0:26.5	Today we have the story of one of the most important elements in the universe.
0:32.3	Ooh, sounds daring, sounds big, sounds deep.
0:36.4	This is the story of water, drinking water, bathing water, water to brew tea or beer.
0:42.5	And specifically, water and New York City and how New Yorkers in the 19th century first
0:49.2	got fresh water.
0:51.4	During this Roman-inspired engineering marvel called the Croat and Aqueduct, 41 miles of
0:57.0	pipes, bridges, dams and reservoirs that allowed New Yorkers to finally have clean, fresh
1:03.4	and healthy drinking water in the mid-19th century.
1:06.6	The system was truly revolutionary.
1:08.6	It became a marvel that attracted tourists as a site unto itself and city planners from
1:14.6	around the world traveled to New York to check out this aqueduct and reservoir system.
1:19.6	Now we're very proud today of our current drinking water.
1:22.9	It's some of the best-tasting drinking water in all of the United States.
1:26.8	We're going to tell you a little bit about what that is actually made of today.
	...

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