COLUMBIA LIBRARIES OFFSITE AVERY FINE ARTS RESTRICTED lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll AR01420178 AN EXHIBITION ILLUSTRATING THE HISTORY OF THE WATER SUPPLY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK FROM 1639 TO I917 HELD AT THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY MAY 1 TO NOVEMBER 6, 191 7 SECTION OF CITY TUNNEL OF CATSKILL AQUEDUCT WITH SHAFT UNDER WORTH MONUMENT THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY 1917 form |i-ih)ii Ix 1-10-17 to] AN EXHIBITION ILLUSTRATING THE HISTORY OF THE WATER SUPPLY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK FROM 1639 TO 1917 SOME months ago the Mayor of New York City appointed a general com- mittee of five hundred citizens to arrange for a celebration in observance of the virtual completion of the Catskill Aqueduct, which is to supply water for all the boroughs of the city. On account of the war it was decided to post- pone this celebration, which had been planned for April or May. In order, however, that there might be some early observance of the completion of this great undertaking — which involves such remarkable feats of engineering and concerns so vitally the health of millions of people — The New York Public Library decided to carry out, in co-operation with the Mayor's committee, an exhibition previously planned. This exhibition, which opened on May 1 and v\- i 11 remain on view until November 6, illustrates the most striking events in the history of the development of New York City's water supply, from 1639 to the present time. In the days of the Dutch occupation of Manhattan Island, when there were only a few hundred settlers, water was obtained from local streams, ponds, and springs. These natural water supplies are shown on a recently discovered manuscript survey, made in 1639, of the region of the present city of Greater New York and the neighboring New Jersey towns. The first recorded project for a public well, to be located in Broadway, dates back to 1658, but was not carried out. By 1660, when the houses in New Amsterdam, as shown by an original manuscript census, numbered only 342, there were a few private wells that had been dug in some of the yards. They are shown in a remarkable bird's-eye view of the city, made in that year and recently found in Italy. These wells were all south of the present Wall Street, the best known being those in the brewery yards of Oloff Stevensen Van Cortlandt and Jacob Van Couwenhoven in Brewers (now Stone) Street, and in the yard of Jacobus Kip, the first city clerk, who lived on what is now Broad Street. There was also a well in the yard of the excise collector, Paulus vander Beeck. In 1664, an English fleet anchored before New Amsterdam and demanded its surrender. Peter Stuyvesant, after some parleying, surrendered without resistance, being forced to, he said, because there was no well within the fort and its supply of water consisted of but twenty or twenty-four barrels that had been removed from ships in the harbor. After the city had been taken by the English it was known as New York, and the new governor, Richard [ 3 ] 4 THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY Nicolls, took up his residence in the fort. Shortly after, in the summer of 1667, he had a well dug within the fort which yielded good water — much to the astonishment of the Dutch people, who had not believed such a thing possible. Later a well was dug in front of the gate of the fort, at the present Bowling Green, and the pump placed over it was the first pump recorded in the history of the city. The first stone well was made in the yard of the original City Hall, at Pearl Street and Coenties Alley, in 1671. The growth of the town made it necessary to increase the supply of water, so in 1677 the Common Council ordered a number of community wells to be dug in the middle of the streets at certain designated places. Singularly enough, wells, pumps, and springs continued to supply all the water used in the city for more than a hundred years, though the water became insufficient in quantity and very inferior in quality. As early as November, 1748, a Swedish traveller named Peter Kalm remarked that the well-water of the city was so poor that even the horses balked at drinking it, and that the only good water was obtained from a large spring a short distance from town, which the inhabitants used for their tea and for kitchen purposes. This spring was afterwards covered with a pump, and its water conveyed in wagons and sold throughout the city. It was located at Chatham and Roosevelt Streets, and was long known as the Tea Water Pump — a prominent as well as a useful landmark of old New York. A painting in the exhibition shows the pump as it was in 1807. The first plan for erecting a storage reservoir was undertaken in 1774- 1776 by an engineer named Christopher Colles. Paper money was issued to float the project. A large well, thirty feet in diameter, was dug, and a reservoir erected with a capacity of twenty thousand hogsheads of water, on the east side of Broadway, between the present White and Pearl Streets. The water was pumped into the reservoir by a steam engine to be conveyed through the streets in wooden pipes made of pine logs. This undertaking, known as the New York Water Works, failed on account of the occupation of the city by the British army in September, 1776. Most of the plans for an increased water supply, before the old Croton Aqueduct was settled upon, provided for taking the water from a pond known as the Collect, in the region where are now the Tombs and Criminal Court building on Centre Street. Plans of this pond are shown in the exhibition and also documents of Thomas Poppleton, a Baltimore surveyor, who came to New York in 1812 to aid a city committee in supervising the drainage of the Collect and the Lispenard Meadows, which had become unsanitary and a menace to the public health. HISTORY OF THE WATER SUPPLY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK Aaron Burr and his friends succeeded in obtaining a charter from the legislature on April 2, 1799, which incorporated the Manhattan Company, ostensibly for the purpose of supplying wholesome drinking water, yet with a joker that gave unlimited banking privileges. The passage of the bill aroused a good deal of contention at the time, and the opposition continued for many years thereafter. The company drew water from the Collect and stored it in a reservoir on Chambers Street, whence, by means of hollow logs, it was con- veyed through certain streets to the customers. In the exhibition are shown the original legislative records, the oaths of office of the first president and first cashier of the corporation, and an autograph subscription list of stock- holders, containing the names of many famous old New York families, among them the Livingstons, Rutgers, Brashers, De Peysters, and Speyers, as well as such prominent men as General Horatio Gates, General Marinus YVillett, and De W itt Clinton. There is also on view what is perhaps the best extant example of the wooden water main, with cut-outs and house connection. This exhibit, lent by the Engineers' Club, was dug up in June, 1915, during sub- way excavating. As the city entered the second quarter of the nineteenth century, past epidemics and imminent scourges of yellow fever or cholera made evident the urgent need of a better water supply. Several water companies were chartered by the legislature, but none was successful. In 1829 the first public water works was erected at Broadway and 13th Street. It consisted of an elevated tank with a capacity of about 230,000 gallons, into which the water was pumped by a steam engine. The quality of this water deteriorated, however, and Samuel Stevens, president of the new Board of Aldermen, urged the necessity of a better supply. A report was made to the Board of Aldermen in 1831 by Judge Wright and Canvass White, and another the following year by Colonel De Witt Clinton, the latter report being a landmark in the docu- mentary history of the city's water supply. On February 26, 1833, the legis- lature passed the first act authorizing a new supply, and with it begins all legislation with respect to the building of the old Croton Aqueduct. The final enabling act was passed on May 2, 1834, and in 1837 the actual construction of the Aqueduct was begun. It was built in four divisions, and connected Croton Dam with the Murray Hill distributing reservoir, now the site of the Central Building of The New York Public Library. This reservoir was completed in 1842, and the event was marked by a great civic celebration on October 14, 1842. The exhibition shows the documents in relation to this undertaking, and numerous views of the Murray Hill reservoir and the Central Park reservoir, constructed in 1857-1862, as well as of the High Bridge con- 6 THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY duit and reservoir, finished in November, 1848. Six showcases are filled with the reports, maps, profiles, sectional drawings, and other objects, illus- trative of the history of the old Croton Aqueduct, to the year 1880. In three showcases are presented the publications bearing upon the exten- sion of the Croton Aqueduct, beginning with the reports and plans of Chief Engineer Isaac Newton, made in 1881 and 1882. The enabling act for the new Croton Aqueduct became a law on June 1, 1883. Construction com- menced in January, 1885, and water reached the Central Park reservoir in July, 1890. The Croton Dam was completed in 1907, and the Jerome Park reservoir was so far completed in 1906 that the west basin was put in service. It soon became apparent that this new water supply could not be increased so as to keep up with the great growth of population, and there was much discussion by civic and other bodies of possible remedial measures. A private water company sought to make a contract with the city for an additional sup- ply, and endeavored to preempt the outlying watersheds. These controversies over the Ramapo Water Company are remembered by the present generation. In 1899, Governor Roosevelt brought about the repeal of its charter, and the city was then free to look for relief in other directions. In 1897, the Manu- facturers' Association of the City of Brooklyn appointed a special committee, of which Charles N. Chadwick was chairman. This committee recommended, among other things, that plans be devised "for the ultimate sources of supply for the Greater New York to contemplate a period of not less than fifty years." In 1900, John R. Freeman made to the Comptroller of the city a report which has been considered one of the most influential documents in the whole history of New York's water supply. In the same year another report was made by the Merchants' Association. A special commission appointed to take up the sub- ject reported in 1903 to the head of the Department of Water Supply, Gas and Electricity. The growth of Brooklyn, now a part of the consolidated city, produced a shortage of water in that borough. To meet these various problems, a Board of Water Supply Commissioners was appointed by Mayor McClellan in 1905, under authority of a constitutional amendment passed in November, 1904, which exempted water supply bonds from the debt limit. This legislation cleared the way for the Catskill Aqueduct. The printed matter relating to the Catskill Aqueduct, including the con- tract books, is exhibited; and also dozens of large photographs which illustrate the processes of construction of dams, tunnels, coverts, bridges, basins, river crossings, and other features, such as contractors' camps, plants, and equip- ment. A large plaster cast model is shown of a section of the Kensico Dam, which is situated twenty-five miles north of New York City. This is the HISTORY OF THE WATER SUPPLY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK 7 finest dam in the system, and is 1,843 feet long, with a maximum height of 310 feet. It is built of concrete, faced with granite; and the reservoir has a capacity of thirty-eight billion gallons. The region traversed by the Catskill Aqueduct is shown by geological maps and profiles, which demonstrate the difficulties of carrying it through bedrock on the eighteen-mile city tunnel. These difficulties are further illus- trated by an exhibit — lent by the Board of Water Supply — of actual bor- ings of Yonkers gneiss, Inwood limestone, Fordham gneiss, Manhattan schist, Ravenswood granodiorite, and other rock formations. The Department has also lent a colored relief model map of the watersheds from the Schoharie and Esopus to Greater New York, including a portion of New Jersey. This map measures 1 1 feet 9 inches by 5 feet 2 inches. Its horizontal scale is a mile to an inch, and the vertical scale shows an elevation of one inch to 1,600 feet. The different watersheds are depicted by distinctive colors; the route of the Aqueduct is indicated, from its source to all parts of the city; and the con- nections of the Catskill Mountain watersheds, with the Croton, Bronx and Byram watersheds, and the Ridgewood system on Long Island, are shown. The Board of Water Supply has also lent a profile map of the entire Catskill water system, measuring about sixty-three feet in length. In 1851, there was much discussion of Brooklyn's water supply problem. On June 3, 1853, the legislature passed an act which provided a water supply for the City of Brooklyn. This legislation, as well as reports of the Long Island Water Works Company, the Nassau Water Company, the Williams- burg Water Works Company, the Brooklyn Water Commissioners, and other water supply agencies before the consolidation of Greater New York, are systematically arranged in two showcases. A few publications about Queens and Richmond Boroughs are also shown, and, in a separate showcase, some general histories of New York's water supply. The Board of Water Supply is a construction board exclusively, and has nothing to do with the administration of the finished system; this rests with another official body, the Department of Water Supply, Gas and Electricity, which made its first annual report in 1898. In two showcases are displayed all the reports of this Department. This exhibition is of historical interest as a study of the gradual develop- ment of one of the most important of the public utilities of the City of New York. It is of additional interest and value because it enables us to under- stand, in some measure, how the problem of supplying great cities with ade- quate supplies of wholesome water is being solved by modern engineering methods. _ Victor Hugo Paltsits. PRINTED AT THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY