A black and white photo of a large stone railway viaduct with tall arches crossing over a road. Piles of tires are stacked near the base, and leafless trees are visible in the foreground.High Bridge, Bronx and Manhattan, 2000. | Stanley Greenberg

Waterworks by Stanley Greenberg is a sweeping photographic portrait of New York City’s water system, featuring 362 black and white images made between 1992 and 2024.

Over three decades in the making, the book traces the often-invisible infrastructure that brings water into and out of the city: reservoirs, aqueducts, tunnels, gatehouses, pumping stations, water tanks, wastewater treatment plants, stormwater facilities, and maintenance covers. A fold-out map charts more than 400 locations from upstate to the outer boroughs, grounding the work in geography and scale.

A large water tower rises above a residential neighborhood with several houses, parked cars, bare trees, and a stop sign at a street intersection, all under an overcast sky.Pumping Station No. 22, Jamaica Water Supply, Queens, 2014. A small, old stone building covered in graffiti stands surrounded by dense, overgrown vegetation and trees. The structure has arched windows and appears weathered, blending into the forested background.Weir Structure, Old Croton Aqueduct, Tibbetts Brook, 2023. A small brick building with two barred windows and graffiti on the walls stands at the end of a metal footbridge over water, surrounded by leafless trees.Wantagh Gatehouse, Brooklyn Water Supply, Nassau County, 1997.

While working at the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), Greenberg saw the city’s water systems up close and later returned to help catalog the agency’s long-neglected archives — an extensive collection of 10,000 photographs and drawings dating back to 1840. Around that time, he began working on Invisible New York, a book that featured some of the city’s concealed water structures. Greenberg asked repeatedly for permission to photograph the city’s water system but was denied for years. Access was finally granted in 1997, and he completed the work in 2001 — just months before the 9/11 attacks shut down access to City infrastructure for good. Waterworks was first published in 2003. DEP tried to block its release but later purchased 200 copies.

A grassy, sloped canal lined with vegetation leads to a calm body of water, surrounded by grassy fields and trees; the image is in black and white.Stilling Basin, Neversink Reservoir, Sullivan County, 1999. A spiral metal staircase descends into a dark, cylindrical industrial space, illuminated by dramatic lighting that casts strong shadows and reveals a network of pipes along the curved concrete walls.South Reservoir Gatehouse, Central Park, Manhattan, 1996. A stone column stands alone on a leaf-covered path in a forest. Sunlight filters through the trees, casting shadows on the ground. The scene appears peaceful and deserted.Ventilator 5, Old Croton Aqueduct, Croton, 2023. Black and white photo of an industrial, concrete interior with large pipes overhead, exposed beams, and two large metal valve mechanisms on the ground, creating a gritty, abandoned atmosphere.Interior New Croton Dam, Westchester County, 1999.

Though Waterworks was published in 2003, Greenberg’s exploration of the system didn’t end there. After publishing several other books he returned to photographing water infrastructure around the city, looking for above-ground signs of the water system hidden in plain sight; invisible to the casual observer. Studying city planning documents, property records, old and new maps, he walked the routes of the three water distribution tunnels and biked some of the upstate aqueducts.

Sunlight streams through small holes in a brick arched ceiling, casting a pattern of bright dots onto the walls and floor of a dark, empty, and dusty underground room with scattered debris.Lower Gatehouse, New Croton Dam, Westchester County, 2000. A stone dam with cascading waterfalls is spanned by two arched bridges, surrounded by trees and a cloudy sky, with water flowing into a river below.New Croton Dam, Westchester County, 1999.
Four square concrete slabs are arranged in a row on a grassy field, with trees and bushes in the background under a clear sky. The image is in black and white.Douglaston Bay Stormwater Retention, Queens, 2021. Black and white photo of industrial machinery, featuring metal beams, gears, pipes, and a lattice tower structure, set against a brick wall inside a factory or workshop.Dewatering Apparatus, Shaft 21, City Tunnel No. 1, Manhattan, 2000.

The photographs themselves are a mammoth undertaking — an endeavor that matches the scale of the system they depict. Rendered in crisp, large-format black and white, the images reveal the majesty of monumental sites like the Croton Dam, High Bridge Tower, Neversink Stilling Basin, and Shandaken Tunnel, alongside soaring conduits, vast chambers, and the elegant geometry of giant pipes. Greenberg’s style is at once rigorous and reverent, offering a visual language that honors the ambition and beauty of these man-made structures.

Accompanying the book is a printed map, designed by Larry Buchanan, that charts more than 400 sites across the city and upstate. A more detailed version is available online, serving as a free, public field guide to the system. While the printed map offers refined design and visual clarity, the online map includes greater location detail. Together, they reflect Greenberg’s decades-long effort to document the full reach of New York’s water infrastructure — like the water system itself, it is a work in progress.

Four large cylindrical metal structures stand in front of round, dome-shaped industrial buildings, with pipes, fences, and vertical posts visible; the scene is in black and white.Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant, Brooklyn, 2023. Black and white photo looking up the center of a metal spiral staircase with three large vertical pipes, geometric patterns, and a view of the sky framed by the upper opening.High Bridge Tower, Manhattan, 1995. A concrete dam bridge spans a rocky hillside, with water cascading down spillways into a calm reservoir below. Trees line the top of the hill, and rocks cover the shoreline in the foreground. The image is in black and white.Dam and Spillway, Cross River Reservoir, Westchester County, 2000.
Black and white photo of a large, empty hall with high ceilings, arched windows, and a central doorway. The space has exposed beams, metal railings, and visible wear, giving an abandoned, industrial feel.135th Street Gatehouse, New Croton Aqueduct, Manhattan, 2001.

“New York City’s water system is vast and complex,” Greenberg writes, “But it can be divided into just a few functions: collection, conveyance and distribution, and treatment.”

The water collects in 18 reservoirs from rain and snowmelt, travels to the city through aqueducts, and is stored in three large reservoirs before reaching the city. There, it is distributed via three tunnels to water mains, smaller pipes, and eventually into every city building. Wastewater, along with rainwater, travels through sewers to treatment plants, and then reenters the waterways around the city, evaporating back into the atmosphere.

A black-and-white photo of a grassy hill sloping upward, bordered by dense, leafy trees on both sides under a bright, overcast sky.Catskill Aqueduct, Orange County, 2018. A black-and-white photo shows a rectangular canal bordered by stone walls and metal railings, surrounded by leafless trees. A small control building with solar panels stands on the right side.Shandaken Tunnel Outlet, Allaben, Ulster County, 2024. A large industrial tunnel or duct with gears and pipes inside a spacious, arched facility, viewed from a central walkway with railings. Overhead lights illuminate the concrete walls and metal machinery.Shaft 2b, City Tunnel No. 3, Bronx, 1992.

New York City’s drinking water is collected in two upstate systems: the smaller Croton system, begun in 1837 and located in Westchester and Putnam Counties. This water is filtered at an underground facility in Van Cortlandt Park. The much larger Catskill/Delaware system is unfiltered and generally considered to be of very high quality. Many towns and valleys were flooded to create the reservoirs, and the city is still often regarded as a bully to the people who live in the watershed.

What flows in must also flow out. The city’s combined sewer system carries both sewage and stormwater runoff, a design increasingly challenged by climate change. When rainfall overwhelms the system, combined sewers often overflow into the waterways, bypassing wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). In response, the city has started building rain gardens and large underground storage tanks to retain stormwater, alongside more ecologically integrated solutions like the Bluebelt in Staten Island, which manages runoff naturally while preserving vital habitat.

A blue-tinted image of a waterfall and a bridge in the background. Vertical yellow text reads, “She Breaks Up Nature’s Flow, but May Do Wonders for Laundry and Light.”.

Though rooted in documentary practice, Waterworks also offers a meditation on access, labor, and the often-hidden systems that undergird civic life. Greenberg invites us to see infrastructure not just as a physical system, but as a reflection of political will, public investment, and collective memory. The book is a record of a system and a city, both in constant flux.

Waterwork is published by KGP.