Through a series of video stories, each episode of The New York Times series “Living City” explores little-known facts about the major systems and technologies that make life in New York possible for more than eight million people.
It is the gold standard of urban water supplies. The New York City watershed was assembled during the 20th century, and the system’s underground aqueducts are considered an engineering marvel.
It is considered the gold standard of urban water systems. It covers parts of eight New York counties and a sliver of Connecticut. It includes 19 reservoirs and three controlled lakes, which can be used to feed the water supply. It has the capacity to hold approximately 580 billion gallons of water. And 9.4 million people depend on it when they turn on their taps.
It is the New York City watershed, where rainwater and snowmelt make a three-month journey through gravity-powered aqueducts stretching more than 100 miles from the Catskills to the edges of New York City.
The modern-day system was constructed in the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s, as low-lying upstate farms and small towns were flooded to create reservoirs. From there, the water is channeled into underground aqueducts that are considered engineering marvels. The water is then held in smaller reservoirs and finally distributed through huge pipes that feed the five boroughs.
Hillview Reservoir, covering 90 acres and one of the last stops for the water before it reaches the city, holds just shy of one billion gallons. That is about as much water as New York City uses in a day.
With thousands of bridges in New York State deemed structurally deficient, there are two choices: repair or rebuild. The 60-year-old Tappan Zee Bridge and the Brooklyn Bridge are the latest examples.
Working on Living City with the folks at Blue Chalk Media was such a treat. I worked on all these films but I filmed most all of the Tale of Two Bridges story, above.
With more than 100 miles of steam piping and nearly 2,000 buildings served, New York’s steam system is the largest in the world
First developed in the 1880s, New York City’s steam system is the largest in the world. No other urban steam system comes close.
Today, 105 miles of steam pipe run beneath the streets of the city, delivering steam to 2,000 buildings for heating and cooling. Steam also sterilizes hospital equipment, presses clothes, and cleans restaurant dishes and cutlery.
This episode of “Living City,” a video series about New York’s infrastructure, looks at the history of the city’s steam system and explores how a technology that eliminated chimneys from the skyline in the early 20th century is helping reduce carbon emissions and provide a cleaner source of energy for New York in the 21st.
The film tours the East 14th Street Consolidated Edison cogeneration plant, where 55 percent of the city’s steam is produced, and looks at the underbelly of some of New York’s most recent buildings to see how steam is incorporated into modern urban planning and design.
These stories were also broadcast on PBS in NYC. Living City producer Greg Moyer wrote a a short BTS story about how the video stories were put together, including this list of fun facts:
What it took to create this project:
Duration: 6 months
Days of shooting: 40
Personnel: 20 people
Locations: 93
Interviews: 48
Miles driven: 1,100
Pages of interview transcripts: 535
Total footage: 103 hours, 18 minutes