What's UNDER New York City?

Ask, Mar 2008 by Moss, Meg

Over eight million people live in New York City-26,000 of them per square mile. The buildings are tall-many over 70 stories-and the streets are busy 24/7. But did you know that the city bustles below ground, too?

More than 600,000 manholes give workers access to the world beneath the streets.

City water starts out in country streams upstate that flow into 19 reservoirs. Once it reaches the dry, it poun through more than 6,000 miles of water pipes to reach homes and businesses. Some pipes date to the 1800s, and more than 600 burst each year.

32 million miles of color-coded TV, telephone, and computer cable create the city's huge communications network. Some telecom lines have been run through old water pipes.

New York has the largest network of electrical lines in the world-90,000 miles snake under the city to distribute electricity to every lightbulb at three million locations.

7,000 miles of natural as mains deliver gas that comes all the way from Nova Scotia, Canada, for cooking, clothes drying, and heating.

New York heats and cools 100,000 buildings using steam. 100 miles of steam pipes crisscross underground, delivering 30 billion pounds of steam every year. To make steam, water must be superheated to 1,000 degrees.

The subways run from 30 to 100 feet underground. There are 277 underground stations.

Over a billion people ride the subway each year.

26 subway lines run on 450 miles of underground track.

Contrary to rumor, there are NO pant reptiles in the New York City sewers!

New York's sewen carry million gallons of wastewater daily. Combined with storm runoff, it runs through treatment plants where solid matter is filtered out and reduced to sludge, which can be used as landfill cover and fertilizer. Bacteria then clean the water so that it can be released into the rivers.

Workers called sandhogs maintain the sewers. They work mostly at night, before the morning "flush hour," when the least amount of waste is flowing through the pipes. On average, every person in the city creates 162 gallons of wastewater a day.

The weight of huge skyscrapers on the surface rests on huge footings like these that are set on bedrock deep in the earth.

Steel columns, or piles, driven deep underground carry the weight of the tallest skyscrapers.