WEBVTT - NYC Water: An Engineering Marvel 0:00:00.560 --> 0:00:06.800 Cuckoo Seattle. We're coming to see you. Yes, and your 0:00:06.840 --> 0:00:08.960 little horn announcement is one of my favorite things that 0:00:09.000 --> 0:00:11.960 you do because I know it means we're going to 0:00:12.000 --> 0:00:14.400 do a live show. And in this case, we're going 0:00:14.480 --> 0:00:18.040 to the great state of Washington, the greatest city in 0:00:18.079 --> 0:00:22.240 the United States, Seattle, at the greatest theater in the world. 0:00:22.560 --> 0:00:25.239 The more the more we're going back. It's like our 0:00:25.280 --> 0:00:27.760 home away from home in Seattle. We're going to be 0:00:27.800 --> 0:00:32.040 there Thursday, January six, and tickets are already on sale 0:00:32.120 --> 0:00:37.680 and they're going like like uh Washington hot cakes fast. Yeah, 0:00:37.720 --> 0:00:39.720 they're going like chew car cherries. And you know what, 0:00:39.880 --> 0:00:41.199 if you want to save the few bucks, I think 0:00:41.240 --> 0:00:43.480 you can even go to the box office there buy 0:00:43.520 --> 0:00:47.040 them without those internet fees. Yes, Or if you don't 0:00:47.080 --> 0:00:48.680 care and you just want to buy them on the internet, 0:00:48.960 --> 0:00:51.360 you can go to s y s K live dot 0:00:51.400 --> 0:00:53.720 com and follow the links there and it will take 0:00:53.720 --> 0:00:55.880 you right to the beautiful ticket site. And also, f 0:00:56.040 --> 0:00:58.600 y I, if you go to buy tickets in person, 0:00:58.680 --> 0:01:00.360 you want to go to the box office of the 0:01:00.360 --> 0:01:04.440 Paramount Theater downtown, not the more the Paramount. We'll see 0:01:04.440 --> 0:01:08.280 you guys in January. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, 0:01:08.520 --> 0:01:16.960 a production of My Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, 0:01:17.000 --> 0:01:20.000 and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles 0:01:19.959 --> 0:01:23.080 so Be, Chuck Bryant, There's guest producer Andrew. This is 0:01:23.160 --> 0:01:28.319 Stuff you Should Know. Let's get this a I'm excited 0:01:28.360 --> 0:01:33.160 about this one. This was your your pick and I 0:01:33.240 --> 0:01:37.520 was like, what is Chuck talking about? Were you really yes? 0:01:37.640 --> 0:01:40.360 And then Chuck I happened to stumble upon I don't 0:01:40.400 --> 0:01:42.880 know what I was looking for, but an email from 0:01:42.920 --> 0:01:47.080 somebody who sent like a Google doc or something that's 0:01:47.440 --> 0:01:50.560 that was a list of episodes we said we should do, 0:01:52.000 --> 0:01:54.120 and people have said those in before, but this one 0:01:54.200 --> 0:01:56.480 was kind of condensed and that was on there. So 0:01:56.520 --> 0:01:59.800 I've I've stumbled upon your dirty little secret. I don't 0:01:59.800 --> 0:02:02.600 think that's where I got it. Oh really, I don't 0:02:02.600 --> 0:02:06.560 think so. But maybe I just know that I am 0:02:06.600 --> 0:02:11.280 always fascinated by not only New York City, but by 0:02:11.520 --> 0:02:15.920 the fact that New York City functions with that many 0:02:15.960 --> 0:02:19.120 people and all that everything. It's just all amazing to 0:02:19.160 --> 0:02:22.080 me that that city functions with that many people, that 0:02:22.120 --> 0:02:24.360 many buildings, that like I want to do an episode 0:02:24.360 --> 0:02:30.040 on trash removal. Okay, I want to do one on 0:02:30.040 --> 0:02:33.160 on wastewater treatment. Yeah, oh yeah, that's just New York 0:02:33.200 --> 0:02:37.200 in general. That's been long brewing. Are you okay with that? Yeah? 0:02:37.600 --> 0:02:40.280 Just just I mean we can mention New York or whatever. 0:02:41.680 --> 0:02:44.960 Big thanks to Dave Rouse, though, one of our great writers. 0:02:44.960 --> 0:02:47.959 They put this together and it's really really fascinating. Dave's 0:02:48.000 --> 0:02:51.160 just an amazing human. All of our writers are amazing, 0:02:51.200 --> 0:02:53.720 for sure. Dave is great as well. He's one of 0:02:53.960 --> 0:02:58.760 a few select amazing people. Right. So, um, the reason 0:02:58.840 --> 0:03:02.079 why New York, why anybody would ask about New York's 0:03:02.120 --> 0:03:05.440 water is because if you've ever interacted with the New Yorker, 0:03:05.800 --> 0:03:08.720 they talk about their water a lot. It's like kind 0:03:08.760 --> 0:03:10.920 of a thing in New York where they're like, our 0:03:11.000 --> 0:03:13.800 tap water is the best water in the country, and 0:03:13.840 --> 0:03:17.640 they have like a lot of um stuff to back 0:03:17.680 --> 0:03:20.000 that up with, and so much so that that that 0:03:20.120 --> 0:03:23.480 they say this this water is actually the reason why 0:03:23.560 --> 0:03:26.840 our bagels and our pizza are so good. Yeah, I was. 0:03:27.280 --> 0:03:29.160 We were both just there for our final shows of 0:03:29.160 --> 0:03:31.519 the year at the Bellhouse. Thanks for people who came out. 0:03:32.320 --> 0:03:35.040 They were great, a lot of fun and by the 0:03:35.040 --> 0:03:37.320 way the guy that fell asleep on the front row 0:03:38.240 --> 0:03:41.960 on night number two, I think it was nine number two. 0:03:42.480 --> 0:03:45.360 I was walking down the street and he randomly passed 0:03:45.400 --> 0:03:49.360 by driving in a car and rolled down his window 0:03:49.400 --> 0:03:53.400 and said, hey man. He said great show the other night, right, 0:03:53.440 --> 0:03:54.960 And I was waiting for him to say, is that 0:03:55.080 --> 0:03:57.560 Freedom Rock? And I said thanks dude. I was like 0:03:57.600 --> 0:03:59.920 front row And he was so excited that I remember 0:04:01.120 --> 0:04:03.520 front Row and he drove on before I had a 0:04:03.600 --> 0:04:08.160 chance to say, you fell asleep. He's like, I feel 0:04:08.160 --> 0:04:10.600 like I was there. Maybe I felt like a dream too, 0:04:11.120 --> 0:04:14.400 I don't know, but um, we were just there. And uh, 0:04:14.440 --> 0:04:17.960 there are many many restaurants in New York where there 0:04:18.000 --> 0:04:21.000 will be like a water cooler or a place where 0:04:21.000 --> 0:04:22.880 you can help yourself to your own cup of water, 0:04:23.520 --> 0:04:25.760 and it will have a big sign on it that 0:04:25.880 --> 0:04:29.920 says New York City tap water and proud all caps 0:04:30.760 --> 0:04:34.440 underlined letters yeah, and and they mean like they're just 0:04:34.440 --> 0:04:37.000 getting water out of the tap, Whereas in other cities 0:04:37.320 --> 0:04:40.080 that's a dirty, shameful secret that people don't talk about. 0:04:40.720 --> 0:04:44.719 In New York, they proudly boast about it. And um, 0:04:45.080 --> 0:04:48.600 that just the fact that New York or any New 0:04:48.680 --> 0:04:53.760 Yorker in the city gets water at all is pretty spectacular. 0:04:53.800 --> 0:04:55.960 It's like you said, there's a lot of people, there's 0:04:56.000 --> 0:04:58.680 a lot of buildings, and something like more than a 0:04:58.720 --> 0:05:02.160 billion gallon ends of water flow into New York through 0:05:02.200 --> 0:05:06.479 the taps every day, I said day with the d yes. 0:05:06.520 --> 0:05:09.120 It is the largest water system in the United States. 0:05:10.400 --> 0:05:15.640 People from all over the world government officials fly in 0:05:16.120 --> 0:05:19.960 and take meetings with the New York City water people 0:05:20.080 --> 0:05:23.280 just to see, like, how have you done it? They're 0:05:23.320 --> 0:05:26.520 just a goog how could we do better? So so 0:05:26.600 --> 0:05:29.600 that's impressive enough that a billion, more than a billion 0:05:29.640 --> 0:05:32.719 gallons of water is delivered every day to New Yorkers 0:05:32.800 --> 0:05:35.960 pretty great. But the idea that you can just drink 0:05:36.000 --> 0:05:42.000 it straight from the tap and it is unfiltered, that 0:05:42.240 --> 0:05:46.640 is a truly impressive feat. Yeah. And by unfiltered, we 0:05:46.760 --> 0:05:52.520 mean of the water is unfiltered and ten is filtered. Right, 0:05:52.560 --> 0:05:54.839 And you might say, look, how can you just filter 0:05:55.760 --> 0:05:58.280 of the water. Well, it comes from different places. So 0:05:59.360 --> 0:06:02.880 of the water comes from two places, two watersheds that 0:06:02.960 --> 0:06:07.160 combined are called the Catskill Delaware Watershed or water system 0:06:07.200 --> 0:06:09.520 I think um and then the other one from the 0:06:09.640 --> 0:06:13.039 Crow Croton. I always want to say crow towing, but 0:06:13.120 --> 0:06:16.600 from the Croton Reservoir, that ten percent is actually filtering. 0:06:16.680 --> 0:06:21.159 We'll get into all of that, but of New York's 0:06:21.200 --> 0:06:24.360 water is not It doesn't go through a filtering process, 0:06:24.960 --> 0:06:27.719 and that makes New York one of only five major 0:06:27.800 --> 0:06:30.360 cities in the United States to get a waiver from 0:06:30.360 --> 0:06:32.240 the e p A that says your water is so 0:06:32.320 --> 0:06:36.960 deliciously pure and delightful that you don't need to filter it. 0:06:37.400 --> 0:06:40.120 Um Almost every other city has to have a filtering 0:06:40.160 --> 0:06:42.960 process before it gets delivered to taps. That's right. And 0:06:43.000 --> 0:06:47.160 the other four naturally Seattle, Portland, or against San Francisco. 0:06:48.600 --> 0:06:51.279 The one that's a bit of a surprise is Boston, Massachusetts. 0:06:51.800 --> 0:06:57.720 What that's that's that's how surprising it is, Chuck. That's right. 0:06:58.040 --> 0:07:00.240 So let's talk a little bit about the history of 0:07:00.440 --> 0:07:03.440 New York in their water, because back in the day, 0:07:03.440 --> 0:07:07.520 we've always talked about how what a disgusting, disease ridden 0:07:08.160 --> 0:07:12.520 poop and horse urine ridden place New York City was. Yeah, 0:07:12.600 --> 0:07:15.119 like supposedly there was a good twelve inches of horse 0:07:15.120 --> 0:07:18.880 maneuver on the street at all times before they before 0:07:18.920 --> 0:07:22.000 they really started cleaning their place up. It's pretty bad. 0:07:22.440 --> 0:07:25.680 I think that was in the Wynn Chries Typhoid Merry episode, 0:07:25.680 --> 0:07:28.520 which is a great one. Another great New York episode. 0:07:28.880 --> 0:07:32.480 So if we're talking New Amsterdam, pre New York City. Uh, 0:07:32.520 --> 0:07:35.000 they got water where you would think from ponds and 0:07:35.280 --> 0:07:39.560 natural springs, underwater springs, and they had a forty eight 0:07:39.560 --> 0:07:43.960 acre pond it's about sixty ft deep, uh in Tribeca 0:07:44.080 --> 0:07:47.520 what is now Tribeca called the Collect and also the 0:07:47.560 --> 0:07:50.880 little Collect that was just south of there. Uh. And 0:07:50.920 --> 0:07:55.200 that name comes from the Dutch word kulk, which means 0:07:55.240 --> 0:07:58.680 small body of water. And the Collect was where they 0:07:58.720 --> 0:08:00.240 got their water for a long time. And of the 0:08:00.240 --> 0:08:05.840 city let Uh, some tanners built a tannery on the 0:08:05.880 --> 0:08:10.240 shores of the not smart New York which ruined everything. Yeah, 0:08:10.280 --> 0:08:13.840 because it started to get polluted. They also were able 0:08:13.880 --> 0:08:17.240 to drill wells and stuff around places where people pooped 0:08:17.240 --> 0:08:20.360 and pete and then dumped their poop and pee. Um. 0:08:20.400 --> 0:08:23.320 It was a dirty, dirty place. Because this is pretty 0:08:23.360 --> 0:08:26.040 germ theory, or at least around the time the germ 0:08:26.080 --> 0:08:29.400 theory was being developed and people didn't understand it. Um. 0:08:29.560 --> 0:08:32.200 And I think it was our great stink episode where 0:08:32.559 --> 0:08:36.760 they traced to cholera epidemic to a public well, um 0:08:36.800 --> 0:08:40.360 a public water pump. John Snow, if I remember correctly, 0:08:40.360 --> 0:08:42.280 did that, and this would have been around the time 0:08:42.360 --> 0:08:45.320 that New Yorkers were suffering from cholera epidemics, one of 0:08:45.320 --> 0:08:48.439 which took place, and they think the eighteen thirties, eighteen 0:08:48.480 --> 0:08:52.319 thirty two. It killed thirty New Yorkers and that was 0:08:52.360 --> 0:08:55.840 a substantial amount of of the population at the time, 0:08:56.000 --> 0:08:59.240 and another hundred thousand New Yorkers had to flee just 0:08:59.280 --> 0:09:02.560 to get away from this caller epidemic. And it was 0:09:02.640 --> 0:09:06.480 because their sewage and their water was coexisting in very 0:09:06.559 --> 0:09:10.360 unhealthy ways. So New York said, maybe we should try 0:09:10.400 --> 0:09:13.120 something else. Let's look a little further outside the city 0:09:13.440 --> 0:09:15.160 where we're dumping our waists and everything, and see if 0:09:15.200 --> 0:09:17.280 we can get our water from there. And they did. 0:09:17.320 --> 0:09:20.080 They built the Croton Reservoir. They dammed the river and 0:09:20.360 --> 0:09:23.280 reservoir collected and they said, now we have some beautiful 0:09:23.320 --> 0:09:26.080 pure water. We will never need to do anything again 0:09:26.280 --> 0:09:29.600 to get our water. That's right. Previous to that, though, 0:09:29.640 --> 0:09:32.280 in the eighteenth century, they had these public pumps like 0:09:32.320 --> 0:09:35.560 you were talking about on street corners about every four 0:09:35.600 --> 0:09:38.840 blocks or so a big wooden pump where you would 0:09:38.840 --> 0:09:43.280 get your water from uh underground underground streams and springs 0:09:43.280 --> 0:09:46.240 and stuff. But there were only a few of these 0:09:46.840 --> 0:09:48.920 that actually delivered good water. A lot of it was 0:09:48.960 --> 0:09:53.880 really brackish and gross tasting. And Americans and early European 0:09:53.880 --> 0:09:57.600 settlers obviously loved their tea, and so they marked this 0:09:57.640 --> 0:10:00.720 was almost like an early yelp or whatever. They had 0:10:00.760 --> 0:10:03.440 these pumps that actually delivered the like the two or 0:10:03.440 --> 0:10:06.000 three good pumps in the city that delivered good water 0:10:06.360 --> 0:10:08.839 labeled tea water pumps, but like it was good enough 0:10:08.880 --> 0:10:11.360 to use for tea, good enough to use for making 0:10:11.360 --> 0:10:13.840 good tea, and so they would go to these tea 0:10:13.840 --> 0:10:16.280 water pumps. You would have to buy the water. Um. 0:10:16.320 --> 0:10:20.680 The best one was apparently at Chathaman Roosevelt there was 0:10:20.720 --> 0:10:23.040 another and sort of what the Lower East Side is 0:10:23.080 --> 0:10:26.080 today that was a good tea water pump. And this 0:10:26.120 --> 0:10:31.040 worked out for a long time until uh, the uh 0:10:31.160 --> 0:10:33.160 the collect and all this stuff it started to sort 0:10:33.200 --> 0:10:36.880 of um get nasty and stinky, and so they built 0:10:36.880 --> 0:10:41.079 a canal to channel that water into the river. Like that, 0:10:41.120 --> 0:10:42.719 we gotta get rid of it and drain this thing. 0:10:43.480 --> 0:10:46.320 So they build this canal forty ft wide, they channel it. 0:10:46.400 --> 0:10:48.880 Right after they finish it, this canal begins to sink 0:10:49.880 --> 0:10:52.640 and in one it got so bad. The smell was 0:10:52.720 --> 0:10:55.400 so bad that they eventually just covered up the canal. 0:10:56.080 --> 0:11:00.720 And guess what that became. I don't know, Central Park, 0:11:01.000 --> 0:11:07.120 Canal Street. Oh, how about that? So stupid? How wasn't 0:11:07.160 --> 0:11:10.040 even in the right part of the city. We've even 0:11:10.080 --> 0:11:13.880 done an episode on Central Park and that wouldn't forget it. Yes, 0:11:13.880 --> 0:11:16.280 Canal Street obviously, that's where Canal Street came from. There 0:11:16.320 --> 0:11:19.439 was literally a canal and then eventually an underground sewage 0:11:19.440 --> 0:11:23.160 system under running under Canal Street. Uh. And there's another 0:11:23.200 --> 0:11:25.520 cool little tidbit if you want, like your little New 0:11:25.600 --> 0:11:27.400 York history, if you like to walk around on subways 0:11:27.400 --> 0:11:30.480 and tell people about cool things. Um. One of the 0:11:30.520 --> 0:11:33.440 first public reservoirs in the city was dug by Aaron 0:11:33.520 --> 0:11:38.360 Burr and his Manhattan company, and that didn't work out. 0:11:38.600 --> 0:11:42.080 They transported it through wooden logs as pipes bury beneath 0:11:42.080 --> 0:11:45.560 the city. Somebody found a piece of that wooden log. 0:11:45.640 --> 0:11:47.679 It's in one of the museums up there. Now, Oh, 0:11:47.720 --> 0:11:51.040 no way, Yeah, that is very cool. But the water 0:11:51.080 --> 0:11:53.959 didn't taste great and it didn't work out for Aaron Burr, 0:11:54.040 --> 0:11:57.600 so he uh change. He still kept the Manhattan Company, 0:11:57.600 --> 0:12:00.079 but he got into banking, and the Manhattan Company he 0:12:00.120 --> 0:12:03.920 became Chase Manhattan Bank. I saw somewhere that that was 0:12:04.000 --> 0:12:06.840 his aim all along, that the water thing was just 0:12:07.040 --> 0:12:10.000 basically a fleece to raise money to found the lake, 0:12:10.360 --> 0:12:14.040 and that that's why the water was so shoddy and 0:12:14.080 --> 0:12:16.320 the delivery was so shoddy. But what they were selling 0:12:16.360 --> 0:12:18.880 was so bad supposedly the horses wouldn't even drink it, 0:12:19.000 --> 0:12:21.200 so it was a scam. It was basically a scam. 0:12:21.200 --> 0:12:26.400 Aaron Burr was not the greatest historical American shot Alexander 0:12:26.440 --> 0:12:29.560 Hamilton's I know that that's enough right there, right, And 0:12:29.600 --> 0:12:33.160 then also scammed a bunch of people out of their 0:12:33.200 --> 0:12:37.240 their um water investment, because I mean, if you want 0:12:37.240 --> 0:12:38.760 to invest in a bank, you want to invest in 0:12:38.800 --> 0:12:40.800 a bank. If you want to invest in a water outfit, 0:12:40.880 --> 0:12:43.280 you want to invest in a water outfit. You want 0:12:43.320 --> 0:12:45.520 people to be above the boards with stuff like that. 0:12:45.520 --> 0:12:50.440 That's right, that's my tirade. So you mentioned the Croton 0:12:50.600 --> 0:12:53.559 Dam and the Croton Reservoir. I want to say crotone 0:12:53.600 --> 0:12:58.040 as well. Uh, that became and that aqueduct became operational 0:12:58.679 --> 0:13:02.480 and things were okay, but then a tragedy struck with 0:13:02.520 --> 0:13:05.480 the Great Fire of eighteen thirty five. Yes, which actually 0:13:05.520 --> 0:13:08.200 I guess that the Great Fire took place right before 0:13:08.320 --> 0:13:12.000 the reservoir was open, which is why the Great bad. Yeah. 0:13:12.280 --> 0:13:16.000 So in eighteen thirty five, Uh, in on a night 0:13:16.040 --> 0:13:20.280 in December, a warehouse caught fire and it just leveled 0:13:20.320 --> 0:13:25.960 Lower Manhattan, like just destroyed something like, um, seventeen city blocks, 0:13:26.320 --> 0:13:29.480 fifty acres of the most densely populated part of New 0:13:29.520 --> 0:13:33.800 York at the time, and um, luckily only two people died. 0:13:34.480 --> 0:13:37.760 Two is too too many, But considering that it was 0:13:37.840 --> 0:13:41.480 seventeen city blocks that got reduced to ash, that's not 0:13:41.640 --> 0:13:45.320 bad actually, especially considering that the way that they ended 0:13:45.360 --> 0:13:48.960 up fighting this fire was by setting buildings on the 0:13:48.960 --> 0:13:51.920 perimeter on fire because they didn't have the amount of 0:13:51.920 --> 0:13:55.240 water that they needed. Yeah, that the reason for that. 0:13:55.280 --> 0:13:57.000 It was just sort of really bad luck. There were 0:13:57.000 --> 0:14:01.240 two smaller fires that drained our hour. Like I'm a 0:14:01.240 --> 0:14:03.840 New Yorker, listen to me, You're an honorary New Yorker. 0:14:03.920 --> 0:14:07.080 I would guess it drained the cisterns, the reserve cisterns 0:14:07.080 --> 0:14:09.800 that they had, and because of those two smaller fires, 0:14:09.800 --> 0:14:12.320 they didn't have enough to fight the Great Fire. And 0:14:12.360 --> 0:14:14.160 the long and short of all of this is New 0:14:14.200 --> 0:14:16.680 York said, we got to really speed up this Croton 0:14:16.720 --> 0:14:19.680 Reservoir work. Yep, and they did. And so the Croton 0:14:19.720 --> 0:14:22.520 Reservoir was brought online in the middle of the nineteenth 0:14:22.520 --> 0:14:26.640 century and they had a big old parade and everything, um, 0:14:26.680 --> 0:14:32.400 and it delivered something like ninety million gallons of delicious 0:14:32.440 --> 0:14:35.880 pure water to New York. Um in the in the 0:14:35.880 --> 0:14:38.120 middle of the nineteenth century was a really big deal 0:14:38.480 --> 0:14:40.720 and it worked really well for a very long time. 0:14:40.760 --> 0:14:43.720 But um, there was also they built the murray Hill 0:14:43.800 --> 0:14:48.200 Reservoir so the the the Croton Reservoir would be where 0:14:48.200 --> 0:14:50.440 the water collected up state. And then they build an 0:14:50.440 --> 0:14:53.800 aqueduct system which is still around in parts today and 0:14:53.920 --> 0:14:57.760 elevated aqueduct to what's called the murray Hill Reservoir, which 0:14:57.760 --> 0:15:02.160 is a four acre above ground swimming pool. Basically, it's 0:15:02.160 --> 0:15:05.040 pretty cool if you look at pictures. Yeah, yeah, it's 0:15:04.880 --> 0:15:07.840 it was like a real um spot in the city. 0:15:08.040 --> 0:15:12.360 While it was around, I think something. Untill eighty two, 0:15:13.280 --> 0:15:15.400 it was around and people used to take strolls around 0:15:15.440 --> 0:15:17.440 it and make paintings of it and that kind of thing. 0:15:17.680 --> 0:15:20.200 And it is where the New York Public Library is 0:15:20.240 --> 0:15:23.520 now today, where the Ghostbusters did some of their early work. 0:15:24.280 --> 0:15:27.720 All right, right, but the the it worked really well 0:15:27.880 --> 0:15:30.480 for for you know, the time. But then as New 0:15:30.560 --> 0:15:33.440 York grew and grew and grew, it became very painfully 0:15:33.440 --> 0:15:37.200 obvious yet again that New York had outgrown its water supply. Yeah, 0:15:37.240 --> 0:15:42.240 they needed more water. Ninety million gallons a day wasn't enough. Uh. 0:15:42.280 --> 0:15:47.640 And then what made matters worse was New York City 0:15:47.680 --> 0:15:51.120 officially made it a declaration that we are now not 0:15:51.240 --> 0:15:54.200 just Lower Manhattan. Of course, they didn't call Lower Manhattan 0:15:54.200 --> 0:15:56.440 at the time. That was just sort of where the 0:15:56.440 --> 0:16:00.840 city ended. They called it Manahatta Manhatta. I saw that episode, 0:16:00.840 --> 0:16:02.800 by the way, it was one of the better ones ever, 0:16:03.080 --> 0:16:06.040 which one of think of what we do in the dark, 0:16:06.400 --> 0:16:09.880 that's right where they go to party in Manhattan. Man 0:16:09.960 --> 0:16:13.080 I had a um, what we do in the shadows? 0:16:13.520 --> 0:16:17.480 Yeah yeah, yeah, um, so stupid, that's all right. The 0:16:17.520 --> 0:16:22.520 five boroughs were included in officially, so New York um 0:16:22.560 --> 0:16:24.560 and the water needed to get to the people was 0:16:24.640 --> 0:16:28.720 officially uh grown to more than three million people by 0:16:28.760 --> 0:16:33.160 the time the century turned right, which is just precious today. 0:16:33.160 --> 0:16:36.000 Three million New Yorkers, Oh my gosh, they do. So 0:16:36.200 --> 0:16:38.320 they started to look up state again because they had 0:16:38.400 --> 0:16:41.680 hit upon like a pretty good idea. The city is 0:16:41.680 --> 0:16:44.720 is a cess pool. Um, we need our water from 0:16:44.720 --> 0:16:47.720 outside of the cess pool. And they started looking up state. 0:16:47.840 --> 0:16:50.040 So this time they looked up to the cat Skills 0:16:50.560 --> 0:16:53.200 and they found two watersheds, which we did an episode 0:16:53.200 --> 0:16:55.600 on watersheds that I would love to forget, but it 0:16:55.640 --> 0:16:58.400 came up just now. I thought it was good. Oh man, 0:16:58.440 --> 0:17:00.720 it was horrendous. What was it? Yes, I thought it 0:17:00.760 --> 0:17:05.280 was terrible and boring January. I don't remember when it 0:17:05.320 --> 0:17:06.919 came out. Like I said, I tried to forget that 0:17:06.920 --> 0:17:09.639 it ever happened. I thought it was pretty good. But anyway, So, 0:17:09.720 --> 0:17:16.840 a watershed is basically a specific topographical air area where rain, snow, 0:17:17.119 --> 0:17:21.359 whatever precipitation falls down into this area and is delivered 0:17:21.400 --> 0:17:25.879 to a specific creek, river stream, something like that that 0:17:25.960 --> 0:17:28.679 eventually and empties into like a lake or a reservoir 0:17:28.760 --> 0:17:31.800 or something like that. So there's two watersheds, the Delaware 0:17:31.800 --> 0:17:35.880 and the Catskill Watershed that put together create something like 0:17:36.480 --> 0:17:41.640 um two thousand square miles of water catching goodness, and 0:17:41.840 --> 0:17:44.720 it delivers it to a number of different reservoirs. And 0:17:44.800 --> 0:17:49.200 that is now today where New York gets like its water. Yeah. 0:17:49.200 --> 0:17:51.280 So you know, obviously they had too damn up rivers 0:17:51.680 --> 0:17:54.679 to create these reservoirs. And this all happened to, you know, 0:17:54.760 --> 0:17:58.160 in the early nineteen hundreds. And then finally they were like, great, 0:17:58.200 --> 0:18:01.480 We've got all these reservoirs and the skills. But let 0:18:01.480 --> 0:18:04.480 me remind you, we're on the lower eas side of Manhattan, 0:18:05.119 --> 0:18:09.719 surrounded by horse, hearon and and poop. We need our 0:18:09.760 --> 0:18:12.560 fresh water. How do we get it here? So in 0:18:14.560 --> 0:18:17.520 the engineers of New York City completed the ninety two 0:18:17.600 --> 0:18:23.480 mile cat Skill Aqueduct, which is amazing. It's basically a 0:18:23.640 --> 0:18:29.480 big concrete tunnel that sends water two miles from the 0:18:29.520 --> 0:18:32.359 cats Skills down to New York. It's as wide as 0:18:32.400 --> 0:18:36.159 thirty feet in some places. It is not a tunnel 0:18:36.240 --> 0:18:39.000 the entire length as we will see here in a minute. 0:18:39.240 --> 0:18:42.160 Not a continuous tunnel. I'm not sure what that means. 0:18:42.200 --> 0:18:45.280 What is it just like open. So there's parts of 0:18:45.280 --> 0:18:48.159 it that aren't technically a tunnel in that it's a 0:18:48.400 --> 0:18:51.160 covered trench. They cut a trench and then they covered 0:18:51.160 --> 0:18:52.959 it back up, which I don't know how you do that, 0:18:53.040 --> 0:18:57.600 but it's not technically a tunnel like a circle or tube. Interesting, 0:18:57.720 --> 0:18:59.240 And here is to me one of the facts of 0:18:59.280 --> 0:19:01.840 the show. You get this water down there in the 0:19:01.880 --> 0:19:05.119 aqueduct and you get to the Hudson River, and what 0:19:05.160 --> 0:19:09.000 are you gonna do? You gotta go under it. To me, 0:19:09.040 --> 0:19:10.879 it just be like just pump it in the Hudson 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:13.960 and hope it comes out the other side. But then 0:19:14.000 --> 0:19:17.560 I would have gotten fired immediately when I he's no engineer, 0:19:18.800 --> 0:19:23.480 he's a shamp he's a rapscallion. So it gets to 0:19:23.520 --> 0:19:26.960 the Hudson River and then it goes way down into 0:19:26.960 --> 0:19:30.920 the ground, about eleven feet below sea level and then 0:19:30.960 --> 0:19:33.880 climbs back up the other side. And it does all 0:19:33.960 --> 0:19:38.080 this via gravity. Yes, and they did that not just 0:19:38.119 --> 0:19:41.639 to show off, but because they decided. I read this awesome, 0:19:41.880 --> 0:19:44.240 you know how I'm always like read the contemporary articles. 0:19:44.640 --> 0:19:47.640 I read one from seven where they were talking about 0:19:47.680 --> 0:19:50.600 the construction of the aqueduct and they said that the 0:19:50.720 --> 0:19:53.879 reason why they were going down that far is because 0:19:53.880 --> 0:19:57.200 they wanted to hit bedrock because it would be fisher free, 0:19:57.400 --> 0:20:00.119 meaning there would be no leakage and they could just 0:20:00.160 --> 0:20:02.199 pumped the water through the hole that they board in 0:20:02.280 --> 0:20:04.200 the bedrock. Well. They thought the bedrock was going to 0:20:04.240 --> 0:20:07.560 be about five feet down, and by seven when they 0:20:07.560 --> 0:20:11.040 wrote the Scientific American article, they'd reached like seven feet 0:20:11.080 --> 0:20:13.400 still hadn't hit it. It ended up being like eleven 0:20:13.480 --> 0:20:17.280 hundred feet below sea level where they finally hit bedrock. 0:20:17.320 --> 0:20:19.480 And that's why they had to drill so far down. 0:20:20.040 --> 0:20:24.320 And they drilled a tunnel, a vertical shaft from the 0:20:25.359 --> 0:20:29.240 from the Hudson down to that tunnel, and they built 0:20:29.280 --> 0:20:33.359 like a tube to pressurize it. So the water even 0:20:33.800 --> 0:20:37.040 feet under the Hudson is that like fifteen tons per 0:20:37.080 --> 0:20:40.480 square foot of pressure, which also helps. But the fact 0:20:40.480 --> 0:20:42.639 that there's no pumps or anything, it's all gravity and 0:20:42.640 --> 0:20:46.760 pressure driven. Yes, And sadly though, that story has a 0:20:46.800 --> 0:20:50.639 sad ending because it took so long that their fisher 0:20:50.720 --> 0:20:53.480 free and oh three T shirts were all rendered useless. 0:20:55.280 --> 0:21:01.800 What No, I don't know. That's a great joke. I'm 0:21:01.800 --> 0:21:04.040 gonna go back and listen to it and I'll probably 0:21:04.080 --> 0:21:09.720 think it's hilarious, So compliments on it in advance. Oh man, 0:21:10.200 --> 0:21:16.360 that was a quality joke. Three got you? Okay, sure, sure, yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:21:16.400 --> 0:21:18.399 I got you? All right, I got you. We're all 0:21:18.400 --> 0:21:21.720 together now, Okay, that was a pretty good joke. Uh geez. 0:21:21.720 --> 0:21:24.399 Should we take a break after that? Yeah, all right, 0:21:24.480 --> 0:21:26.399 let's take a break. We'll talk a little bit more 0:21:26.440 --> 0:21:47.240 about this so called aqueduct right after this stuff you 0:21:47.240 --> 0:22:07.880 should know, gosh and shuck stuff you should know. Okay, chuck. 0:22:07.960 --> 0:22:12.520 So we've got the Catskill Aqueduct delivering water. Um. There's 0:22:12.560 --> 0:22:17.639 another one too, called the um the Delaware Aqueduct. And 0:22:17.680 --> 0:22:20.280 this one actually is like a genuine tunnel. Yes, it's 0:22:20.320 --> 0:22:24.120 eighty five miles, completed in forty four. I'm not gonna 0:22:24.160 --> 0:22:27.479 make a T shirt joke about that, and it is 0:22:27.920 --> 0:22:32.200 still the longest continuous tunnel in the world at eighty 0:22:32.200 --> 0:22:35.239 five miles. And they did this all, you know, just 0:22:35.320 --> 0:22:39.080 this digging process is amazing in and of itself, digging 0:22:39.080 --> 0:22:43.600 these tunnels and these trenches with steam shovels and pouring 0:22:43.640 --> 0:22:46.399 the concrete tunnel, which I was like, how do you 0:22:46.440 --> 0:22:49.600 do that? Even you do the bottom half, let it set, 0:22:49.640 --> 0:22:52.160 and then you do the top half and let that's set. 0:22:52.600 --> 0:22:54.959 So they were like Charles Bronson in The Great Escape, 0:22:55.359 --> 0:22:57.879 they were digging tunnels. Yeah, I mean we're talking like 0:22:58.000 --> 0:23:00.600 dynamite and stuff like that. Like the really did it 0:23:00.640 --> 0:23:03.160 the old school way to build these aqueducts, and they're 0:23:03.200 --> 0:23:06.040 still in use today, so much so that there's there's 0:23:06.080 --> 0:23:09.280 three tunnels. Tunnel number one and tunnel number two have 0:23:09.359 --> 0:23:12.800 been in operation since nineteen seventeen and nineteen thirty six. 0:23:13.920 --> 0:23:17.520 They've never stopped operating. They've never been stopped up and 0:23:17.640 --> 0:23:21.080 drained and inspected in over a hundred years. For tunnel 0:23:21.160 --> 0:23:24.520 number one, Yeah, I think the current memo going around 0:23:24.600 --> 0:23:28.280 is I'm sure it's fine. Well, so they're building tunnel 0:23:28.400 --> 0:23:31.480 number three, and they decided to start building tunnel number 0:23:31.480 --> 0:23:34.919