{"id":352194,"date":"2026-09-21T05:55:30","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T05:55:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/352194\/"},"modified":"2026-09-21T05:55:30","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T05:55:30","slug":"where-brooklyn-gets-its-fresh-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/352194\/","title":{"rendered":"Where Brooklyn Gets Its Fresh Water"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s not the only Brooklyn manhole cover with \u201cCatskill water\u201d embossed<\/a> in iron. But it\u2019s the one that caught my eye when I found myself at St. Marks Place and Washington Avenue in Prospect Heights earlier this summer. <\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

And it led me to do a little research and discover that in 1917, Brooklyn began getting the bulk of its fresh water from the then-new Catskill Aqueduct.<\/p>\n

I knew about the Croton Aqueduct\u2014the engineering marvel<\/a> that brought clean water to Manhattan in 1842 and helped the city develop into a modern metropolis (and stop residents from relying on fetid wells and polluted ponds, which spread disease). <\/p>\n

But the Catskill Aqueduct? This upstate watershed, meant to ease the enormous demand for water in the early 1900s, featured 92 miles<\/a> of tunnels and distribution pipes that carried water under the East River to the faucets of the borough\u2019s homes, schools, hospitals, and businesses.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

Click into the map in the second image for a closer look at the route the Catskill Aqueduct was to take when construction began in 1905. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to imagine just how important healthy water was to Brooklyn in the late 19th century. It was so crucial, the promise of a mightier water source helped motivate the independent city to consolidate with Manhattan and form the City of Greater New York in 1898, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers<\/a> (ASCE).<\/p>\n

Before the building of the Catskill Aqueduct, Brooklyn relied on a system that brought fresh water from Long Island to the Ridgewood Reservoir, a distribution reservoir on the Brooklyn-Queens border. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

That worked in the 1850s, when the system was created. But with the population of Kings County booming toward the end of the 19th century, officials realized that a more modern water source would be needed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the completion of the Catskill Aqueduct (third photo) and City Water Tunnel No. 1 in 1917, Brooklyn was connected to the New York City water supply system, which brought water from watersheds located north of the city,\u201d states ASCE.<\/p>\n

The Ridgewood Reservoir was still in use, particularly as a backup water source later in the 20th century. In 1989, however, it was officially decommissioned.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Today, the Catskill Aqueduct continues to supply water to thirsty Brooklyn. My understanding is that the \u201cgate\u201d part of this manhole lid simply indicates that a shutoff valve or distribution pipe lies beneath the street.<\/p>\n

Since 1965, the Catskill system has been joined by the Delaware Aqueduct to form the Catskill\/Delaware Watershed\u2014one million upstate acres that provide 90 percent of New York City\u2019s drinking water<\/a>, according to The New York Times. <\/p>\n

[Map of the planned Catskill Aqueduct: NYPL Digital Collections<\/a>; third photo of Catskill Aqueduct under construction, NYC Water<\/a>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s not the only Brooklyn manhole cover with \u201cCatskill water\u201d embossed in iron. But it\u2019s the one that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":352195,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-352194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=352194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352194\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/352195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}