Inside an Urban Water System

Urban water systems are immense -- and little-understood. Places presents this video from the Center for Urban Pedagogy looking down below the streets to illuminate the mystery city water delivery.

1 minute read

May 22, 2010, 5:00 AM PDT

By Nate Berg


New York City is the case study in this video, which shows where the city's water comes from and where it goes after it trickles down the drain.

"'Below the surface of New York City,' says the CUP promo, 'lurks an immense grid of pipes designed to carry water in various states of grossness.' Or, in the words of one of their interviewees, the superintendent of a wastewater treatment plant on Manhattan's Upper West Side: 'You flush the bowl ... it goes to the center of the earth. Somebody else's problem.'

Created by CUP in collaboration with the Lower East Side Ecology Center and City-as-School, the 24-minute video tracks the complex - and aging and sometimes contested - systems of water supply, treatment and waste that serve New York City."

Thursday, May 20, 2010 in Places

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