560 



NEW YOKK (CITY). 



After due consideration, the construction 

 of the proposed Quaker Bridge Dam and 

 Reservoir, and the plan of a tunneled aqueduct, 

 were determined upon by the commission, and, 

 after the completion of soundings for that pur- 

 pose, plans, etc., for the proposed crossing of 

 the aqueduct by a tunnel under the Harlem 

 river, and its continuance under the north 

 side of u Manhattan valley " at 135th Street, 

 were adopted by the commissioners. The line 

 for the aqueduct, as decided upon, begins at 

 Croton Dam, on Croton river, and rans in a 

 southerly direction along the Pocantico and 

 Saw-Mill River valleys across the Harlem, and 

 thence to the northerly side of Manhattan valley 

 at 135th Street. The general features of the 

 plans comprise the construction of a conduit, 

 beginning at Croton Dam, on Croton river, 

 with its mouth 60 feet below high- water level 



iron pipes to the Central Park Reservoir. The 

 length of the tunnel and open cuts from Croton 

 Dam to Harlem river, when completed, will 

 be 28J miles. From the northeasterly shore 

 of Harlem river to the gate-house at 135th 

 Street and Convent Avenue its length will be 

 2 miles. The total length of tunnel, when 

 completed, will be 30| miles. The length of 

 pipe-line from the gate-house at 135th Street 

 and Convent Avenue will be 12,525 feet, or 

 about 2f miles. The total length of the aque- 

 duct, when completed, will be 33 miles. Of 

 the 30f miles of tunnel, 22 T ( ^ - miles were com- 

 pleted by Jan. 1, 1887. At the present time 

 there is about 30 miles completed. 



At the time when the old Croton Aqueduct 

 was completed the population of New York 

 was fewer than 350,000. It is now over 

 1,300,000. This great increase of population, 



POCAXTICO GATE-HOUSE LOOKING EAST. 



of the proposed Quaker Bridge Reservoir, 

 at an elevation of 140 feet above tide at the 

 Invert, and to discharge into the Central Park 

 Reservoir, the total fall from the water-level 

 of greatest flow in the aqueduct at Croton Dam 

 to high water in Central Park Reservoir being 

 33-8 feet for a length of 33 miles. The inte- 

 rior of the conduit is to have a cross-sectional 

 area such that its flowing capacity will be 

 equal to that of a circle 14 feet in diameter, 

 and to run mainly in a tunnel built on a uni- 

 form grade of ^ of a foot per mile to near 

 shaft No. 20. The tunnel then to run to and 

 under the Harlem river as an inverted siphon, 

 and to continue under flow pressure to 135th 

 Street on the north side of Manhattan valley. 

 From this point the water to be conveyed in 



together with the great and increasing demand 

 for water by the rapidly-growing manufactures 

 of the city, has so largely increased the con- 

 sumption of water, that in many parts of the 

 city where the water was formerly delivered 

 on the highest floors of buildings, it will now 

 often run only on the lowest floors, and some- 

 times only in the cellars and basements. By 

 the new aqueduct from 80,000,000 to 100,000,'- 

 000 gallons a day are reserved for the Twenty - 

 third and Twenty-fourth Wards north of the 

 Harlem to supply a proposed distributing 

 reservoir at or near Jerome Park. Four waste- 

 weir gate-houses have been located, the first 

 at the Pocantico river, near Tarrytown, 9 

 miles south of the beginning of the conduit; 

 the second at Saw-Mill river, 6J miles farther 



