Look up! Grainaries? Nuclear weapon storage? Forgotten relics of the past?

This week I'm breaking away from the neighborhood blogs to focus on one object (or objects). They are omnipresent, looming, and can be seen from every angle and on nearly every rooftop in the city. If you're planning to visit someday, these tidbits of info will deter the cluelessness that struck me when I first gazed upon their rustic beauty. I assumed that they were old...things from the past that the city never removed for some reason, or maybe they were kept there as thousands of roosts for pigeons. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

They go by many names: water tanks, water reservoirs, water supply, etc. These roof-dwellers have more than a strong presence; they have a lengthy history that goes back well over 350 years. Based on their appearances, I quickly assumed that they were no longer being used. Wrong again.

Until the first public well opened at Bowling Green in 1677, the early Manhattan settlers drew their water from poorly dug and shallow wells. At the time, residents didn't realize that they were residing on an island made of granite, Schist, and dirt. This mixture of rock makes welling difficult, and more options needed to be tested. When the population reached 22,000 in 1776, a reservoir was built on the east side of Broadway. Water flowed through hollow logs that were placed on the main streets (ahh, the luxury!)

In 1800 the Manhattan Company (now the Chase Manhattan Bank) sank a well and distributed it to a portion of the elite community. Thirty years later, it occurred to New Yorkers that a tank may come in handy in the case of fire. The City constructed the fire protection tank at 13th Street and Broadway, distributing water through modern, 12-inch cast iron pipes. As the population increased, the well water became polluted and the supply was insufficient. The unsanitary conditions added to the many health problems that already existed.

In trying to solve the water crisis, the City found a way to import water from the Croton River (in what is now Westchester County) and to build an aqueduct to carry the water into Manhattan. This aqueduct, known today as the Old Croton Aqueduct, had a capacity of about 90 million gallons per day and was finally ready in 1842. Since then and oddly enough, there haven't been any major interruptions of service besides brief annual shutdowns for routine inspections during the period from 1842 to the Civil War.

Because of Manhattan's topographical makeup, water can't be pumped naturally more than 80 feet (or 6 stories) or gravity will get in the way. In 1852, Elisha Otis's invention of the elevator brake combined with the construction that allowed water to travel higher than gravity would, the buildings of New York were able to furnish water past six floors.

Today, the water is impounded in three major upstate reservoir systems that have storage capacities of nearly 580 billion gallons.

Now you know that when you're in Manhattan, it's okay to drink the water. Thank god it doesn't come from the rivers that encase the city!