Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-08-16
NEW YORKS AQUEOUCT.
IT COST TWENTY-FIVE MILLION DOL
LARS AND EIGHT LIVES.
i. WIN Bring 31s,0O0,oOO Gallons OF
Water Into the City Daily-A
Thirty-dile Tunnel.

In 1898 Aaran Burr got charter
through the New York Legislature allow
ing a company to go into the business of
supplying the city with water. and also DO
a little banking business. A big tank, or
what was considered big for those days, 81
feet in diameter and 40 feet high, was
built at Reade and Center streets. where 1t
may still be seen by the curious. 1t is
kept partly full Of water from a spring,
and will be kept full SO long as there is
any question as to its disappearing affect
ing the charter of the rich corporation
which has built for itself one of the finest
banking houses in the country.
This was New York's first water supply.
When the Croton Aqueduct was finished,
in 1912, it was insisted by many of our
citizens that it would furnish more water
than the city could use for the next hun
dred wears. And this view would have
been sound, even with more than our pres
ent population, if the system of using
water had remained the same as IN those
days. In 1912, when the aqueduet was
opened with great rejoicings, water was
furnished only in the easements. Water
in the upper part of the house was con-
sidered an extravagant luxury. Bath-tubs
were rare.
About thirty years ago began the custom
of running water pipes right up to the
tops of the best houses giving basins and
baths on every floor. Soon what was at
first thought an extravaganza grew to be
looked upon as a necessity. Then, about
twenty years ago, began the tenement and
apartment era. 1t is safe to say that there
are now hundreds of apartment houses In
this city, occupying not more than two city
lots, which use more water than whole
blocks of houses used in 1912. But they
are eight or ten stories high, and on every
floor are from two to five apartments, each
having baths, closets, basins, sinks, wash
tubs, etc, of its own, and using more water
than an oldfashioned house, because there
is rs carrying of water 1t IS always on
tap from the big roof-tank, kept full by
steam pump.
Recent estimates give the number of
apartment houses in New York at 5000,
the difference in tenement and apartment
houses consisting in the number of rooms
occupied by one family. One has only to
glance through the new fiat houses which
seem to rise by the mile every year to see
where the water goes. The moment the
rent rises above So month the tenant
expects every convenience IN the way OF
water supply. If the rent rises above $40,
an elevator, also run by water power, is
expected. The daily supply of water
furnished to New York by the Croton
Aqueduct is, upon the average, 100000
gallons In 1S49 this amount sufficed to
give each inhabitant about 300 gallons
a day.
At present we have less than eighty
gallons per capita. Ten years ago the sup
ply grew so insufficient for the demand
that, notwithstanding the introduction of
meters into every big building where water
was largely used, it became evident that
something had to be done. The water
would not rise to the second story in many
buildings unless it was pumped up, and there
was constant danger that fire might find
the city with a short supply. In adj
dition to this danger, the Croton Aque-
duct, a brick conduit eight feet in diane
ter, had for years been carrying more
water by twenty per cent. than it was built
to carry, and was showing signs of weak
ness. Water was so badly needed that the
necessary time to make the repairs could
not be granted to the engineers. A bad
break in the aqueduct might leave New
York without water for month, a calam-
ity almost as terrible as pestilence.
Roughly speaking, the Croton watershed
tUp
or about four hundred square miles, with
an outlet thirty-fiYe miles from New York.
1t j. a country of brooks and springs,
oecr ed by dairy farms. The average
raj i 4 is forty six inches year. If the
who rainfall could be saved it would be
sufli at to give three million people two
hunored gallons of water every day
in the year. The present aqueduct
Is so inadequate to take all the
water of the Croton watershed that big
river runs to waste the year ruund. In the
spring l have seen a stream three hundred
feet wide and six feet deep pouring over
the Croton dam for days at t;me. This
is the water which our new aquedHet Is go
ing to save. Within a fortnight New
York will, if nothing goes wrong, begin to
enjoy the first fruits OF an expenditure of
more than twenty million dollars and of
seven years time.
The Croton Aqueduct, which has done
such excellent service for the last fifty
years, is brick structure, running above
ground, and passing into the city over the
Harlem river by way of High bridge, an
Imposing structure, which suggests the
Roman aqueducts. The present aqueduct
is a work compared to which the old one
is an insignificant affair. In place of
brick conduit, eight feet in diameter, me-
andering through hill and dale, with
few small tunnels, we have a brick and
stone pipe, thirteen feet in diameter, pass
ing from Crotou dam to New York City,
at an average depth Of 140 feet below the
surface of the ground. 1t is, therefore,
tunnel thirty miles long. The reasons for
building it underground were that, while
the actual cost would be more than for a
surface conduit, the claims for damages by
property-owners along the route would be
insignificant; the aqueduct runs under
miles and miles of handsome estates
whose owners would never suspect it had
they not been told Another reason is
that, if ever New York should be bonn
barded, shells viii not cut off our water
supply, Us might NC lne Ease WIN Jul
present aqueduct.
The engineers plans were finished in
1884. The work was divided up INTO
thirty-6ve sections, and dozen contract
ors began to dig the shafts Forty of
these shafts have been dug, varying in
depth from thirty to three hundred feet,
according to the depth of the tunnel at
that point. These shafts served to yentl-
late the tunnel while work was going on,
to take out the rock and earth excayated,
and now that the work is done they serve
as openings by which the tunnel can be
examined at distances of mile apart.
Some notion of the amount of stuff which
has had to be carried out through these
shafts is given by the official statement
that 5000 tons of dynamite were used in
blasting out the rock; the actual material