Introduction

Welcome to Friends of the Old Croton Aqueduct site. Within you'll find a brief history of the Aqueduct, information about our organisation, how to obtain a map, and more. We welcome your questions and comments. Please browse the site and contact us by phone, mail or e-mail.

Brief History of the Aqueduct

The Croton Aqueduct is a masonry tunnel that brought New York City its first supply of clean, plentiful water, and thus contributed to its development as a great metropolis. The Aqueduct was built in response to the fires and epidemics that repeatedly devastated New York City in the late 1700s and early 1800s, owing in part to its inadequate water supply and contaminated wells.

Construction began in 1837 and the first Croton water entered the Aqueduct on June 22, 1842. The first chief engineer of the Aqueduct was succeeded by John  B. Jervis of Rome, New York. The Aqueduct carried water 41 miles from the Old Croton Dam in Westchester County, north of New York City, to two reservoirs in Manhattan - on the present sites of the Great Lawn in Central Park and the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue from where it was distributed.

Its capacity was soon exceeded by the demands of a spiraling population growth to which it actually contributed. Although the Croton Aqueduct was in use until 1955, it was superseded by the New Croton Aqueduct, triple the size, laid further inland, and tunneled deep underground. The New Croton Aqueduct was started in 1885 and went into service in 1890. It currently supplies about ten percent of New York City's water.

  Now a National Historic Landmark , the Aqueduct is considered one of the great engineering achievements of the 19th century. The tunnel is an elliptical tube 8.5 feet high by 7.5 feet wide. It is brick-lined and represents an early use of hydraulic cement for most of its length. The outer walls are of hammered stone.

 Designed on principles dating from Roman times, the tunnel is gravity fed for its entire length, dropping gently 13 inches per mile. To maintain this steady gradient through a varied terrain, its builders had to cut the conduit into hillsides, set it level on the ground, tunnel through rock, and carry it over valleys and streams on massive stone and earth embankments and across arched bridges. Typically, it is partly buried, with a telltale mound encasing it.

Old Croton Trailway State Historic Park and Trail