Thirsty New Yorkers battled deadly diseases, raging fires, and even Aaron Burr to finally obtain drinkable water.

New York City is world-renowned for the quality of its water, straight from the tap. Its purity and fresh taste have attracted bakers, brewers, pizza-makers, distillers, baristas, and many other food entrepreneurs. New York’s prized water is shipped around the continent; bagel makers as far away as Alaska claim it’s critical to their success. For chefs and home cooks who wash, steam, or boil their provisions, and to those who enjoy coffee, tea, seltzer or iced drinks, water quality is paramount (yes, the city has water sommeliers.) It’s even been trademarked, bottled and marketed to those who prefer it over spring water. No doubt about it, New York is recognized for having the best drinking water of any metropolis anywhere.

But it wasn’t always this way.

For two centuries, saltwater-surrounded New Yorkers had to get by with limited amounts of H2O gathered from a downtown pond, their main source of fresh water. As the population skyrocketed this polluted pond spread diseases and proved useless for fighting fires. How the city overcame this geographic challenge to become the world’s premier water fountain is an incredible tale, featuring brilliant engineers, hard-working immigrants, and, of course, unscrupulous politicians. It’s the quintessential New York story!

Water, water everywhere

It’s hard to imagine a more bucolic place than the island of “Mannahatta” in the early 1600s. Meadowed and forested with rolling hills teeming with wildlife, the mile-wide isle was crisscrossed by fresh water streams, natural springs, and surrounded by a prolific saltwater estuary (home to half of all oysters on Earth...see the Oyster Chapter.) The comparatively small Native American population and initial Dutch settlers faced no shortages of food or water.

North of the tiny trading post of New Amsterdam at the island’s southern tip lay the spring-fed pond which the Dutch called the “Kolck” (meaning “small body of water.”) The name was later Anglicized (bastardized) into the “Collect.” A principle source for drinking water, fishing and recreation, this pond had been the center of Native American life. With wooded hills encircling its shores, the Collect became a favored picnic area for colonists, and an ice skating venue during winter. There was “no more beautiful spot on the island,” according to early historians.

The Collect’s outlets to the Hudson and East Rivers ran along what became today’s Canal Street. Southeast lay Beekman’s Swamp, a marshy area fed by the East River. Nearby was Smit’s Vly (Smith’s Valley), a large saltwater meadow reaching all the way to Broadway. It featured a fresh water streamlet called Maagde Paetje, where Dutch women performed their household laundering. It’s now Maiden Lane. From today’s Union Square a wide, turbulent brook wound southwest to the Hudson. This “Mannette”, or Minetta, still finds its way into Greenwich Village basements during heavy rains. Many other streams meandered across the island, most notably through today’s Harlem, Central Park, and Times Square.

All of these water features are clearly depicted on an 1865 “Sanitary & Topographical Map” of Manhattan produced by Egbert Viele. Since many of these waterways continue to flow amongst the city’s subterranean infrastructure, today’s developers still refer to this 156-year old Viele Map before planning any construction projects.

The ‘64 British Invasion

No, not that one. In 1664, the Brits took over the Dutch town without firing a shot. At that time the colony had expanded to 350 buildings along a dozen unpaved streets. The tiny streamlets and the Collect’s waters needed to be augmented with other sources. The English built the city’s first public well, and ordered citizens to dig additional wells, to a lackluster response. By 1695, there were only a dozen public wells serving 5,000 New Yorkers.

The problem with drilling wells on the island is the impervious bedrock known as Manhattan schist. The shallow wells produced not much more than ground water, tainted by outflow from privies, filth from roaming pigs, horse traffic, ashes, rubbish, and graveyard residue (yuck!) Households unceremoniously dumped their “Tubbs of Odour” into the gutters, and thus into their drinking water. Although wells continued to be dug, the water had to be boiled and mixed with alcohol to be potable. Taverns, distilleries and breweries flourished, providing the thirsty populace with healthy alternatives to well water (see the Beer Chapter and the Drinks Chapter.)

The Collect wasn’t faring much better than the wells. By the 1740s, “nuisance” industries such as tanneries, dyers and slaughterhouses were being banished from the city limits northward to the shores of the little pond. Their effluence began to taint the once-pure water. Around the same time, the infamous Tea Water Pump was inaugurated near the Collect, and remained the major source of drinking (and British tea-making) water for the remainder of the colonial period. A new occupation was born: the carting and selling of this water by “Tea Water Men” for those households which could afford it. By 1774, most New Yorkers got at least some of their water from this single pump. At the time, no one considered that the proximity of the pump to the polluted Collect might cause a problem. They would eventually reconsider.

All in all, you’d rather be in Philadelphia, at that time the nation’s largest city. Providentially situated between two fresh water rivers, the Schuylkill and Delaware (unlike New York’s salty Hudson and East rivers) Philly pioneered the nation’s first public water supply, featuring the beautifully landscaped Fairmount Waterworks. Philadelphia’s water system was called “a model of industry and pastoralism.” Nobody used that language to describe New York’s water.

It gets worse

Warning: Some may find the following section quite unappetizing. Reader discretion advised.

You’re probably sick of hearing about pandemics. But NYC has had some doozies in the past, thanks again to its lousy water. Although the city’s many measles and smallpox epidemics swept through the entire nation, New York has endured a peculiar affinity for two mysterious, deadly diseases. 

Yellow Fever, which first struck in 1702 and repeatedly afterwards, slaughtered thousands. Victims first experienced severe fever and exhaustion, but would recover. Then the delirium hit, accompanied by yellowed, jaundiced skin. Death was preceded by vomited black bile.

It wasn’t understood until the 20th century that Yellow Fever was spread by mosquitoes, which thrived in swamps and stagnant ponds. Know any place like that? (Look at the map again!) During summer, wealthy Manhattanites would escape the dreaded Fever by fleeing to their Greenwich Village country retreats, while the poorest suffered downtown in crowded, swamp-adjacent slums. Their death toll was astounding, especially among children. Carpenters toted handwagons through the streets, hawking “coffins of all sizes!”

Tenement families which escaped Yellow Fever might have to face Cholera, a nasty piece of work which causes evacuation of bowels, violent vomiting and complete dehydration. Many victims’ final pleas of “Give me cold water!” were left unanswered. The first cholera epidemic hit the city in 1832; thousands died each month, most of them poor.

Scientists were baffled by this ugly, agonizing killer. Was it caused by dampness? Cold? Heat? Miasmic vapors? So many impoverished folks perished that some “experts” wondered if ignorance and laziness were the causes. Nobody knew.

Except Robert Koch. He knew. Koch discovered Vibrio cholorae, the comma-shaped bacteria which massacred thousands. And­—get this—it’s spread via feces-contaminated water. I wonder where we might find any of that? How about in a city which generates 100 tons of excrement a day into a dwindling public aquifer?

Countless thousands of lives could have been saved, if only Gotham had clean water. The cries for a new source of fresh water grew louder. Washington Irving lamented, “It is a pity that so rich and luxurious a city can not afford itself wholesome water.”

It gets even worse.

A city ablaze

New York remained a compact town for its first two and a quarter centuries. By 1850 it had only expanded up to 23rd Street. Much downtown construction was squeezed into the original maze of tiny Dutch streets. The jammed-together wooden city was a tinderbox awaiting the inevitable fires which would destroy vast swaths again and again and again.

One would think that a city surrounded on all sides by water would be able to douse fires before they raged out of control. The problem was delivering this water to the flames. There were no hydrants or hoses; fires were fought by bucket brigades, later by hand-pumps. Add to this the city’s two rival fire departments, who would both race to conflagrations and battle each other instead of the inferno.

No sooner had the British Army captured the evacuated city in 1776 than a stupendous fire broke out. Empty of firefighters, the city had no one who even attempted to douse the flames (not that they could.) Two years later, still under British rule, a second, greater blaze erupted, destroying much of what escaped the first. The entire remnants of Dutch New Amsterdam were wiped out, and with it, much of the city’s past. (That’s why New York is not considered a “historic” city like Boston and Philly...although it should be!) 

As the 1800s began, the expanding city dealt with 20 fires a year, including the devastating 1804 fire and another in 1831 which left hundreds of families homeless. But it was the Great Fire of 1835 that “turned the tide” for those demanding a new water source. During this December blaze, any available water was frozen solid. The only recourse for firefighters was to blow up buildings with gunpowder to provide a fire “break,” but the firestorm raged anyway, completely out of control, for two full days. 674 buildings were destroyed, including the entire business district, resulting in the bankruptcy of 23 of New York’s 26 insurance companies. The city was a mass of smoking ruins.

Years after year, fire after fire, epidemic after epidemic, not a single step was taken to obtain the necessary supply of water. New York needed a water savior, a hero who would promise to construct a modern hydraulic system.

Aaron Burr to the rescue?

Vice President, future assassin of Alexander Hamilton and Broadway superstar, Aaron Burr was the nation’s most infamous famous man. He announced the formation of a private company to solve New York’s water problems. Why a man with no known interest in water wanted a water company was uncertain, but the state assembly approved his plan in 1798. Capitalized at $2 million in $50 shares, The Manhattan Company planned to dam the Bronx River, channel it through a long open canal to a “grand reservoir” holding 2 million gallons, and pipe it to every Gothamite.

According to Gerard T. Koeppel’s Water for Gotham, the ultimate treatise on the subject, the Manhattan Company was unlike any entity existing in America. It had full rights of eminent domain, did not have to repair streets torn up for pipes, could set water rates as they saw fit, and declined providing free water to fight fires. With 12 influential New Yorkers as Directors, the precedent-setting company enjoyed broad rights and few obligations.

If anyone read the company’s charter closely, they would discover a novel provision, unheard of in U.S. business law, slipped in by Burr at the last moment: “It shall be lawful for the company to employ surplus capital for any transactions or operations for the sole benefit of the company.” In other words, The Manhattan Company had the power to do anything with the investors’ money, engaging in any business it chose, not just water.

Armed with this provision, Burr used the company’s funds to start a bank, to rival his enemy Alexander Hamilton’s Bank of New York. The uber-jealous Burr had concocted the entire water plan just to get his own bank. Take that, Alex! Burr’s Bank of the Manhattan Company opened at 40 Wall Street in 1799. And immediately New Yorker’s hopes of a new water supply went down the drain.

Now a banker, Burr turned his back on the city’s water problems. He abandoned the expensive Bronx River dam, figuring the polluted Collect Pond was good enough. Prospective water customers had to apply in person for service, were forced to connect their own pipes, and were required to pay up to $20 quarterly, in advance. There were few takers. The 2 million gallon reservoir, although very attractive when unveiled, was downsized to 100,000 gallons. Hollowed-out logs were used for street pipes. There remained little or no water to fight fires, and sickened citizens received less water than ever before. The filthy Collect, bobbing with animal corpses and murder victims, was finally filled in and became the nation’s first super-slum, The Five Points.

However, Burr’s Bank of the Manhattan Company thrived. By 1804 it was firmly established as one of America’s most powerful financial institutions. It eventually became the Chase Manhattan Bank, now J. P. Morgan Chase, the global financial behemoth. When I recently visited a local branch, the manager proudly pointed out an original piece of Burr’s log water pipe, framed on his office wall. He was apparently unaware of the bank’s sordid history.

The amazing Aqueduct

After many devastating fires and epidemics, frustrated New Yorkers gave up on Aaron Burr. A special Common Council concluded that the Manhattan Company was not complying with its charter; it had never delivered the “pure and wholesome water” it had promised. The state legislature transfered the Manhattan Company’s water rights to the city, but left Burr his bank (which was all he really wanted.)

The search for an adequate off-island water source began in earnest. The nearby Saw Mill and Bronx Rivers were deemed insufficient for the city’s needs. Only the Croton River, Westchester’s largest and northernmost waterway, could quench the city’s thirst. Now a conglomerate of the state’s and city’s brightest and best went to work to deliver Croton Water from this distant source to the downstate masses.

Senator Myndert Van Schaick, founder of NYU, secured the passage of laws which gave New York City the river rights. De Witt Clinton Jr. created the basic plan for a 41-mile-long gravity-fed channel from the Croton to the city. Then Major David Bates Douglass, West Point professor and supervisor of the Erie Canal, surveyed and refined Clinton’s ideas, envisioning a buried aqueduct along the Hudson River as the water delivery route. These ideas were made reality by John B. Jervis, who coordinated the massive construction project. All this at a time when there were no books on American civil engineering, and only one school teaching the subject, West Point.

Although the Erie Canal has drawn many accolades as the 19th century’s greatest engineering achievement, the Croton Aqueduct deserves equal recognition. Based on ancient Roman principles, the 41-mile brick-lined masonry tunnel, 8-1/2’ tall by 7-1/2’ wide, had to burrow through hills, leap over valleys, and somehow cross the Harlem River into Manhattan, all the while maintaining a gentle drop of 13 inches per mile. The Croton River needed to be dammed, receiving and distributing reservoirs constructed, and new hydraulic methods and materials invented. All this using 1830s technology.

The work was recorded by a highly skilled draftsperson, Fayette B. Tower. His Illustrations of the Croton Aqueduct is filled with exceptional renderings:

The Mill River Crossing required a massive, 70-foot-high embankment. A unique double-arched bridge (one bridge under another) carried Croton water across the Sing Sing Kill. The spectacular High Bridge over the Harlem River, now the city’s oldest bridge, was a structure of unprecedented size, allowing river and land traffic to flow beneath its sixteen arches. Once the water reached the city, it had to be “siphoned” through Manhattan Hill, then elevated over the Clendenning Valley from 102nd to 79th Streets (allowing traffic and pedestrians to pass beneath it), until it reached two great receiving reservoirs located where today’s Great Lawn in Central Park and New York Public Library stand. (Remnants of the original Central Park reservoir can still be found peeking out of the perimeters of the Great Lawn, and a large section of the Aqueduct’s stone wall still stands inside the south wing of the Public Library.)

There were troubles all along the way. Property had to be procured from entrenched Westchester scions. The mostly Irish immigrant workforce would go on strike, whiskey up, and fight one another (the “Corkonians” versus the “Far Downs”.) After a long period of heavy rain, the dam burst, flooding homes, farms and mills downstream, and had to be redesigned and rebuilt bigger and stronger.

Once completed, Croton water first entered the Aqueduct on June 22, 1842, and emerged at the Harlem River 22 hours later. This was followed by courageous inspectors who actually rode a boat called “The Croton Maid” through the length of the tunnel! When Croton water finally arrived at the Murray Hill Reservoir on July 4, it was greeted by a 45-cannon salute, while 25,000 New Yorkers received “a glass of fresh water cooled with ice.” It was the first taste of uncontaminated NYC water in 200 years.

Aquapalooza

New Yorkers love to party, and the wonderful new water system being connected to their homes, fire hydrants, and public fountains inspired a memorable blowout. On October 14th, 1842, a quarter million people joined the Croton Celebration, featuring “the largest procession ever known in the city.” Tens of thousands marched a seven-mile route strewn with bands, banners and speeches. Alongside them clopped a horse-drawn printing press rolling off music sheets for the Croton Ode, so everyone could sing it together:

Water leaps as if delighted / While her conquered foes retire! / Pale contagion flies affrighted / With the baffled demon Fire!

People simply marveled at their new aqua-structure. They loved parading atop the Murray Hill Reservoir for stunning views of the city. The mesmerizing City Hall Park Fountain with 18 jets creating a myriad of forms attracted huge crowds. One recalled, “My soul jumped, and clapped its hands, rejoicing in exceeding beauty.” Today, a gas-lit 1872 fountain still enthralls. New Yorkers’ favorite fountain, featuring Emma Stebbins’ Angel of the Waters at Central Park’s Bethesda Terrace, celebrates Croton water.

Best of all, New Yorkers began receiving fresh, clean water in their kitchens and bathrooms, and rushed to install the latest miracle invention: the flushing toilet, accompanied by another innovation: toilet tissue. Firefighters celebrated hundreds of new pressurized hydrants. Generations of foul water, rampant disease and unstoppable infernos began to fade into misty memory.

By the early 1880s, per capita water use reached 100 gallons a day, the highest in the world. A new Aqueduct was constructed further inland. A larger Croton Dam was built, the tallest on Earth. In 1917 the water supply was augmented by the Catskill Aqueduct, creating the world’s largest municipal water supply, providing 555 million gallons a day. When the Delaware Aqueduct was added in 1965, the supply grew to an astounding 1.5 billion gallons daily.

Walking the Old Croton Aqueduct

The route of the original water tunnel is now Croton Aqueduct State Historic Park. A 26.2-mile level, grassy, tree-lined trail follows the route of the invisible water tunnel lying beneath, from the mighty Croton Dam to the Bronx border. Any section of it makes for an exceedingly pleasant escape from anywhere. The trail is a short uphill walk from a dozen Metro North Hudson Line stations, from Yonkers to Croton-Harmon. Along the path you’ll pass through forests, quaint riverside towns, historic homes, gardens, campuses, and even backyards! You’ll experience dozens of Aqueduct structures, such as stone ventilators, weirs, unique bridges, and absolutely amazing embankments soaring high above street traffic and gurgling streams below. The Aqueduct’s Keeper’s House in Dobbs Ferry has been transformed into a fascinating museum and Welcome Center. And don’t forget to stroll across the recently reopened High Bridge for a view you’ve never had. I highly recommend you obtain the official Map and Guide, sold by the Friends of the Old Croton Aqueduct, a non-profit group of folks who tirelessly work to preserve their beloved trail. (Full disclosure: I’m the map’s cartographer.)

The Frozen Water Trade

Any history of water demands a discussion of ice, critical to the preservation, distribution, preparation, and enjoyment of many foods. 

Until the late 19th century, only nature could make ice. It had to be searched for, harvested, then kept frozen for as long as possible. It’s hard to imagine ice as a luxury product, but it was a costly, perishable extravagance for many centuries, reserved for the refreshment of kings and queens.

Since the earliest times, ice was hand-sawed from the surface of frozen lakes and rivers, with crude attempts at storage. This demanding, time-consuming task was replaced in 1827 by the invention of the ice cutter, a plow-like device drawn by a horse across a frozen pond, making a checkerboard pattern of deep grooves. The large blocks were dislodged and floated to ice houses on the shore, made more efficient by straw and hay insulation. These advances made ice a commodity available to everyone. They also provided upstate farmers, the main ice workforce, with a source of winter income. It was the beginning of what was called “The Frozen Water Trade.” 

Ice made a significant contribution to food production and distribution in New York City. The biggest ice concern was the Knickerbocker Ice Company, located north of the city on the Hudson River. Its supply came from the river and upstate lakes, most notably Rockland Lake, source for more than half of Gotham’s ice by the 1850s. The eight ice houses surrounding the lake could store 40,000 tons of ice.

Once floated to the city, 1.9 million tons of ice per year were delivered to homes, restaurants, hotels and markets, by over 1,500 horse-drawn ice wagons, piloted mostly by Italian-Americans. Manufacturers began to market home and retail refrigerators (still called “ice boxes” today by many.) These popular appliances depended on regular ice deliveries, and regular emptying of the “drip pan” at the bottom. Your great-grandparents may have recalled waiting for the “Ice Man” to arrive, hauling a huge block through the kitchen with his big metal tongs. When the men left for WWI, strong, patriotic women took over the back-breaking work.

Dairy, meat and fish could be kept fresh far longer. There had been no east coast access to midwest beef until refrigerated railcars were invented by Chicago meatpacker Gustavus Swift. Salmon was virtually impossible to find in New York until the advent of ice transport made it wildly popular. The city no longer had to depend on local farms, pastures and fisheries to feed its expanding population. The New York inventions of cocktails, lager beer, fountain drinks and frozen desserts would never have happened without a consistent ice supply.   

Another successful application was the use of ice in hot theaters during the summer. Movie houses proclaimed they were “cooled by refrigeration,” meaning big ice blocks stored behind the walls or in huge pits beneath the floor. City swelterers raced to the theaters during sweaty NYC Augusts, as they still do today. 

By the 1920s electric refrigeration crippled the frozen water trade. Ice became a manufactured product, easily made in home and commercial freezers. But since the quality of ice depends upon the quality of the water, ice made in New York City, just like bagels and pizza, has been proclaimed to be superior.

Drink Up!

Thanks for joining me on this watery NYC journey, from the original natural springs, to the polluted pond, followed by disease and fires, and finally to today’s clear, abundant supply. If you’re in New York, you don’t need to waste your money on pricey imported, purified, or designer-labeled water. Just open up the tap and quench your thirst with that pure, delicious, upstate spring water. Let’s all raise a toast to the former persevering generations who delivered the world’s most wholesome and dependable libation to our faucets.