Wednesday, April 15th Today is not tax day

By admin

This is the 26th edition of

FROM THE ARCHIVES

Wednesday, April 15, 2020

Let’s start the Schetlin story in 1900

Water VI  The story continues

Take Out the Crayons, time to color

A RECOLLECTION OF FAMILY LIFE ON BLACKWELL’S / WELFARE ISLAND
PART 1
Eleanor SCHETLIN
2002

TOMORROW;

Cottage Row, The Blackwell Mansion, The Quarry, The Farm 1920’s and 1930’s

Traveling the Bridge

How Do We Get Our Water?
Part VI
Bobbie Slonevsky

The Water Grid Connected to the city’s three water tunnels is an incredibly extensive and complicated network of shafts, trunks, and water mains. Shafts are vertical conduits spaced along the tunnels that bring our drinking water to a level just below the street. Natural pressure pushes the water up via risers, steel pipes encased in concrete. These days each shaft contains two risers for redundancy and valves that can control the flow of water into the trunk and water main distribution system.

The city currently has about 284 miles of trunk mains, typically ranging from 30 to 72 inches in diameter. (There’s one hiding under Third Avenue.) Distribution mains are smaller, measuring only 6 to 30 inches wide. The city has nearly 7,000 miles of those, enough—if one cared to—to send water to Seattle and back. We hear a lot about mains in the news. That’s because, unfortunately, they seem to be the most vulnerable part of the system; they periodically break and leak, as one did several months ago, flooding Lincoln Center and the west side subway. To help remedy the problem, the city recently announced a capital investment of $800 million over the next two years to install new water mains and related infrastructure. In addition, staff will be expanded to provide pro-active inspections that will identify and repair small leaks before they grow.

The project is part of a plan to replace approximately one percent (almost 70 miles!) of the system’s water mains annually. Mimicking the aqueduct system, the distribution system is also designed to be flexible. Water can be exchanged from one zone to another in order to meet varying demand and water pressure requirements. And because the mains ultimately connect to individual building service lines, those “demand and water pressure requirements” are us—over eight million people turning on the taps and consuming some 1.5 million gallons of water a day without giving it a second thought! As J. Waldo Smith, designer and chief engineer of the Catskill water system, famously said of New York City’s residents way back in 1905: “Drawing a bath is their birthright.” The End

TAKE OUT YOUR CRAYONS

E-MAIL US YOUR COMPLETED MASTERPIECES 
ROOSEVELTISLANDHISTORY@GMAIL.COM

These images were the work of Autumn Ashley for the RIHS Coloring Book (c) RIHS 2016

EDITORIAL

Yesterday we started our biography of Eleanor Schetlln. Today, you can read her historical story of her family and her life on the island.  This story is 45 pages long, the most written, to my knowledge of any person who was a resident here.  Eleanor
kept in communication with me for many years and we have preserved her e-mails and all the materials she forwarded to the RIHS.  This 3 inch thick notebook is a treasure trove of information, stories, legends, myths, tales and remembrances. Hope you enjoy the series.

Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her series on our water supply.  She has some time to write about Bisland and Bly for our May edition of Blackwell’s Almanac.

Sadly, we heard today on the passing of Jack McManus, the retired Director of R.I. Public Safety Department.  We will have more information tomorrow.


Judith Berdy
jbird134@aol.com

Text by Judith Berdy
Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS
Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website
Edited by Melanie Colter and Dottie Jeffries