A fork in the Yonkers pressure tunnel. 1913.
These incredible vintage photos show how one of the world’s greatest engineering feats was created in 1906-1915 to bring water to New York City. In 1905, the city’s newly established Board of Water Supply launched the Catskill Aqueduct project, which would play an additional role in supplying the city’s ever-growing population of residents and visitors.
These projects rank as the greatest municipal water-supply enterprise ever undertaken, and as an engineering work is probably second only to the Panama Canal.
In 1898, Greater New York with a population of 3.5 million was formed through the consolidation of Manhattan, the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, and Staten Island. New York water engineers in the early decades of the twentieth century began to look further afield, to sources in the Catskill Mountains beyond the Hudson River.
This is a revised version.
Thanks to @MagnetOnlyMotors , for the suggestion to make photo last longer to enjoy.
