Water for Gotham

Water for Gotham PDF Author: Gerard T. Koeppel
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691237840
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 375

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Book Description
Water for Gotham tells the spirited story of New York's evolution as a great city by examining its struggle for that vital and basic element--clean water. Drawing on primary sources, personal narratives, and anecdotes, Gerard Koeppel demonstrates how quickly the shallow wells of Dutch New Amsterdam were overwhelmed, leaving the English and American city beleaguered by filth, epidemics, and fires. This situation changed only when an outside water source was finally secured in 1842--the Croton Aqueduct, a model for urban water supplies in the United States. As the fertile wilderness enjoyed by the first Europeans in Manhattan vanishes and the magnitude of New York's water problem grows, the reader is introduced to the plans of Christopher Colles, builder of the first American steam engine, and of Joseph Browne, the first to call for a mainland water source for this island-city. In this vividly written true-life fable of the "Fools of Gotham," the chief obstacle to the aqueduct is the Manhattan Company. Masterminded by Aaron Burr, with the complicity of Alexander Hamilton and other leading New Yorkers, the company was a ruse, serving as the charter for a bank--today's Chase Manhattan. The cholera epidemic of 1832 and the great fire three years later were instrumental in forcing the city's leaders to finally unite and regain New York's water rights. Koeppel's account of the developments leading up to the Croton Aqueduct reveals it as a triumph not only of inspired technology but of political will. With over forty archival photographs and drawings, Water for Gotham demonstrates the deep interconnections between natural resource management, urban planning, and civic leadership. As New York today retakes its waterfront and boasts famous tap water, this book is a valuable reminder of how much vision and fortitude are required to make a great city function and thrive.

Water for Gotham

Water for Gotham PDF Author: Gerard T. Koeppel
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691237840
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 375

Get Book

Book Description
Water for Gotham tells the spirited story of New York's evolution as a great city by examining its struggle for that vital and basic element--clean water. Drawing on primary sources, personal narratives, and anecdotes, Gerard Koeppel demonstrates how quickly the shallow wells of Dutch New Amsterdam were overwhelmed, leaving the English and American city beleaguered by filth, epidemics, and fires. This situation changed only when an outside water source was finally secured in 1842--the Croton Aqueduct, a model for urban water supplies in the United States. As the fertile wilderness enjoyed by the first Europeans in Manhattan vanishes and the magnitude of New York's water problem grows, the reader is introduced to the plans of Christopher Colles, builder of the first American steam engine, and of Joseph Browne, the first to call for a mainland water source for this island-city. In this vividly written true-life fable of the "Fools of Gotham," the chief obstacle to the aqueduct is the Manhattan Company. Masterminded by Aaron Burr, with the complicity of Alexander Hamilton and other leading New Yorkers, the company was a ruse, serving as the charter for a bank--today's Chase Manhattan. The cholera epidemic of 1832 and the great fire three years later were instrumental in forcing the city's leaders to finally unite and regain New York's water rights. Koeppel's account of the developments leading up to the Croton Aqueduct reveals it as a triumph not only of inspired technology but of political will. With over forty archival photographs and drawings, Water for Gotham demonstrates the deep interconnections between natural resource management, urban planning, and civic leadership. As New York today retakes its waterfront and boasts famous tap water, this book is a valuable reminder of how much vision and fortitude are required to make a great city function and thrive.

Building Gotham

Building Gotham PDF Author: Keith D. Revell
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 9780801870736
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 356

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Book Description
Economists experimented with new approaches to financing urban infrastructure. Architects and planners wrestled with the problems of skyscraper regulation and regional growth. These issues of city-building and institutional change involved more than the familiar push and pull of interest groups or battles between bosses, reformers, immigrants, and natives.

A Mighty Capital under Threat

A Mighty Capital under Threat PDF Author: Bill Luckin
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN: 0822987449
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
Demographically, nineteenth-century London, or what Victorians called the “new Rome,” first equaled, then superseded its ancient ancestor. By the mid-eighteenth century, the British capital had already developed into a global city. Sustained by its enormous empire, between 1800 and the First World War London ballooned in population and land area. Nothing so vast had previously existed anywhere. A Mighty Capital under Threat investigates the environmental history of one of the world’s global cities and the largest city in the United Kingdom. Contributors cover the feeding of London, waste management, movement between the city’s numerous districts, and the making and shaping of the environmental sciences in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Principles of Water Resources

Principles of Water Resources PDF Author: Thomas V. Cech
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118790294
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 530

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Book Description
Proper management of water resources can take many forms, and requires the knowledge and expertise to work at the intersection of mathematics, geology, biology, geography, meteorology, political science, and even psychology. This book provides an essential foundation in water management and development concepts and practices, dissecting complex topics into short, understandable explanations that spark true interest in the field. Approaching the study of water resources systematically, the discussion begins with historical perspective before moving on to physical processes, engineering, water chemistry, government regulation, environmental issues, global conflict, and more. Now in its fourth edition, this text provides the most current introduction to a field that is becoming ever more critical as climate change begins to threaten water supplies around the world. As geography, climate, population growth, and technology collide, effective resource management must include a comprehensive understanding of how these forces intermingle and come to life in the water so critical to us all.

Taming Manhattan

Taming Manhattan PDF Author: Catherine McNeur
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674725093
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
From 1815 to 1865, as city blocks encroached on farmland to accommodate Manhattan’s exploding population, prosperous New Yorkers developed new ideas about what an urban environment should contain—ideas that poorer immigrants resisted. As Catherine McNeur shows, taming Manhattan came at the cost of amplifying environmental and economic disparities.

The chronicles of Gotham; or, The facetious history of official proceedings

The chronicles of Gotham; or, The facetious history of official proceedings PDF Author: Gotham
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Glasgow (Scotland)
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description


The Urban Origins of Suburban Autonomy

The Urban Origins of Suburban Autonomy PDF Author: Richardson Dilworth
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674015319
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Using the urbanized area that spreads across northern New Jersey and around New York City as a case study, this book presents a convincing explanation of metropolitan fragmentation—the process by which suburban communities remain as is or break off and form separate political entities. The process has important and deleterious consequences for a range of urban issues, including the weakening of public finance and school integration. The explanation centers on the independent effect of urban infrastructure, specifically sewers, roads, waterworks, gas, and electricity networks. The book argues that the development of such infrastructure in the late nineteenth century not only permitted cities to expand by annexing adjacent municipalities, but also further enhanced the ability of these suburban entities to remain or break away and form independent municipalities. The process was crucial in creating a proliferation of municipalities within metropolitan regions. The book thus shows that the roots of the urban crisis can be found in the interplay between technology, politics, and public works in the American city.

New York Underground

New York Underground PDF Author: Julia Solis
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000101304
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
Did alligators ever really live in New York's sewers? What's it like to explore the old aqueducts beneath the city? How many levels are beneath Grand Central Station? And how exactly did the pneumatic tube system that New York's post offices used to employ work? In this richly illustrated historical tour of New York's vast underground systems, Julia Solis answers all these questions and much, much more. New York Underground takes readers through ingenious criminal escape routes, abandoned subway stations, and dark crypts beneath lower Manhattan to expose the city's basic anatomy. While the city is justly famous for what lies above ground, its underground passages are equally legendary and tell us just as much about how the city works.

The chronicles of Gotham, or, The facetious history of official proceedings

The chronicles of Gotham, or, The facetious history of official proceedings PDF Author: Richard Grant White
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description


The Oxford Handbook of New York State Government and Politics

The Oxford Handbook of New York State Government and Politics PDF Author: Gerald Benjamin
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195387236
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 1035

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Book Description
The Oxford Handbook of New York State Government and Politics brings together top scholars and former and current state officials to explain how and why the state is governed the way that it is. The book's thirty-one chapters assemble new scholarship in key areas of governance in New York, document the state's record in comparison to other U.S. states, and identify directions for future research.