Читать книгу Antiquity in Gotham - Elizabeth Macaulay-Lewis - Страница 13

Like the grid, clean water was crucial to New York City’s economic development. When New York was settled, the murky Collect Pond in lower Manhattan was the city’s primary source of water. As early as 1774, the need for an improved supply of water and a better water system was acknowledged. The search for a permanent source of potable water for New York City would be an on-again, off-again pursuit until 1832, when yet another outbreak of cholera finally convinced the Common Council that the situation had to be rectified.¹⁰ Five water commissioners were appointed to report on possible water sources by January 1834, and the engineers Canvas White and D. B. Douglass of the US Corps of Engineers were to assess the technical requirements and engineering challenges of bringing water to New York City. A resolution to create the aqueduct was then approved by the electors of the city and county of New York. Douglass served as the chief engineer until October 1836, when John B. Jervis replaced him. Construction started in May 1837 and was completed on June 22, 1842.

The dammed reservoir at Croton-on-Hudson fed the aqueduct, which crossed the East River at the High Bridge into upper Manhattan. The water then flowed to a receiving reservoir between Seventy-Ninth and Eighty-Sixth Streets between Sixth and Seventh Avenues. From here, the water traveled to the colossal Murray Hill distributing reservoir, which had a capacity of 20 million imperial gallons.¹¹ The reservoir stretched from Fortieth to Forty-Second Street at Fifth Avenue, occupying half of a crosstown block. As the highest point in the middle of Manhattan, Murray Hill was an ideal place for the reservoir because gravity helped distribute the water to the low-lying, densely populated tip of lower Manhattan.

On June 27, 1842, the water began its forty-odd-mile-long journey from Croton to New York City, arriving at the distributing reservoir for the Fourth of July celebrations. American flags flew from the reservoir’s corners, and thousands of New Yorkers trooped uptown to marvel at what was sure to be the first of their city’s many engineering and architectural achievements. Rather than enjoying a celebratory glass of cider, early Americans’ favorite drink, more than twenty thousand New Yorkers received a glass of fresh, pure water.¹² Like the Erie Canal, the aqueduct and its reservoirs were representative of what the new American nation could accomplish.¹³

In their accounts of the aqueduct’s construction, Jervis and his contemporaries do not cite ancient Roman aqueducts as a technical model.¹⁴ However, the scope, scale, and achievement of the Croton Aqueduct were framed through the lens of ancient Rome and Europe. Writing in 1843, Fayette Tower, one of the aqueduct’s engineers, justified its whopping $12 million cost,¹⁵ arguing that “the vast expense incurred in the construction of Aqueducts by the Ancient Romans, as well in Italy as in other countries of Europe, proves the value that was attached by that people to a plentiful supply of pure water.”¹⁶

A July 9, 1842, article in New World announced: “This great work surpasses in magnificence and magnitude the famous aqueducts of ancient Rome; and we earnestly hope it may prove as durable as those stupendous structures. As a work of art and enterprise it may be considered a monument of the age in which it was created.”¹⁷ The reservoir system was a technical and artistic achievement that heralded New York’s arrival not merely as a city but as a metropolis. The observation that the Croton Aqueduct had eclipsed Rome’s aqueducts reflects the idea that Americans could create versions of ancient and European architecture superior to the original. Likewise, the author’s comment that infrastructure should have an artistic quality demonstrated that aesthetics and utility could work harmoniously to produce something exceptional.

FIGURE 1. Murray Hill distributing reservoir, Manhattan, 1842.

Source: The Library of Congress.

Working under Jervis, James Renwick Jr., later the architect of Grace Church in New York City and the Smithsonian, designed the distributing reservoir and supervised its construction.¹⁸ The distributing reservoir was built of massive gray stone blocks in the style of an Egyptian temple (Figure 1). Furthermore, it had an Egyptian cornice, which was noted as an extra expense in the construction bill,¹⁹ suggesting a deliberate choice. The corners of the reservoir were decorated with forty-foot Egyptian “pilasters,”²⁰ which are more accurately identified as pylons. The “pilaster” over the Fifth Avenue entrance rose up seven feet above the main wall, while the others only rose up four feet. The walls also sloped inward, another feature typical of Egyptian architecture, and this slope also helped counter the pressure and weight of the water.

According to Jervis, the Egyptian cornice “accord[ed] with the general style of the work.”²¹ His approval implies that the employment of Egyptianizing architecture for a distributing reservoir was a suitable choice. At this time, travel to Egypt was not possible for most. However, starting in the mid–eighteenth century, publications of Egyptian antiquities started to popularize Egypt’s art and architecture and sparked a wave of Egyptomania—a desire for all things Egyptian.²² The detailed illustrations and analysis of Egyptian art in the Comte de Caylus’s Recueil d’antiquités égyptiennes, étrusques, grecques, romaines et gauloises (1752–1767) and Piranesi’s Diverse maniere d’adornare i cammini ed ogni altra parte degli edifizi desunte dell’ architettura Egizia, Etrusca, e Greca con un ragionamento apologetico in difesa dell’ architettura Egizia e Toscana (1769) made Egyptian art more accessible. When he invaded Egypt in 1798, Napoleon, like Alexander the Great, brought scientists and scholars to document the campaign. Published over a period of two decades and in twenty-two volumes, the Description of Egypt (1809–1822) was revolutionary;²³ it was a major scientific publication that contained extensive descriptions and plates of Egypt’s archaeological sites, people, flora, and fauna. The Description brought Egyptian antiquities to a much broader audience in Europe and the United States. Patrons, architects, and engineers soon started to perceive Egyptian architecture as having the qualities of strength, permanence, technical superiority, and monumentality.²⁴

Contemporary responses to the building underscored the fitting nature of the Egyptian architecture. On June 22, 1842, the New-York Daily Tribune observed that “the style of the architecture is Egyptian—well fitted by its heavy and imposing character for a work of such magnitude.”²⁵ Other newspapers and magazines reprinted this article in part or full, indicating the widely held sentiment that Egyptian architecture was suitable for such a structure.

The Board of Aldermen’s reports and contemporary accounts do not identify a specific model for the distributing reservoir. Albany’s modest reservoir (1811) was constructed in an Egyptian style and had a “Moorish”-style pump house.²⁶ Although Jervis likely knew this reservoir, as he hailed from upstate New York, it was probably the general idea of Egyptian architecture and what it represented—monumentality, strength, technological progress, and indestructibility—that made this style attractive for the distributing reservoir.

Clean water was transformative for New York City; it curtailed disease and furthered the city’s rapid expansion. Like the fountains that were often located at the end of or along Rome’s aqueducts, the Murray Hill distributing reservoir was not only a symbol of progress but also an amenity. From the Fifth Avenue entrance, one could climb a staircase and promenade along the top to enjoy views of New Jersey and Brooklyn (see Figure 1). The reservoir also monumentalized this section of Fifth Avenue, and parades would process next to the reservoir, especially in the second half of the nineteenth century. The Egyptian-style reservoir was a fitting terminus for a truly impressive piece of infrastructure, which physically embodied what New York and the United States were capable of. By the 1890s, however, the monumentality of imperial Rome had supplanted Egypt’s technological superiority, and the reservoir was now considered an unhealthy eyesore.²⁷ The reservoir was torn down and replaced with the main branch of the New York Public Library, another Neo-Antique building (discussed in Chapter 4), which used Roman and Renaissance architecture to great effect.

FIGURE 2. Arch and colonnade, Manhattan Bridge, Manhattan, 2011.

Source: Beyond My Ken (CC BY-SA 4.0).