The Works: Anatomy of a City

Imagine:

*an illustration of the special machinery used just to clean the ceiling of the Holland Tunnel.

*a sidebar on the "Poo-Poo Choo-Choo" that for years transported waste 2,000 miles (!) from NYC to a dump in Texas.

*a graphic showing payphone distribution density in all 5 boroughs.

*a drawing of the simple but effective interlocking bolts and cross-tie latching that keep the corrugated metal containers on barges connected to each other so upper containers don't slide off lower ones and fall into the water.

*a key to reading construction markings that crews spray paint on the streets.

Such drawings, historical tidbits, and facts are more abundant in this book than leaves in Central Park.

This book is exceptional. As the former Vice-chair of Manhattan Community Board 5 (greater midtown Manhattan), chair of its parks committee, and member of its land use and zoning committee, I can attest to the great value of Kate Ascher's remarkable accomplishment, "The Works." New York City's infrastructure--from garbage collection to traffic control; subway signaling to cable TV distribution among franchise-controlled territories--is one of the world's most multifaceted, and at times a curious mix of the high-tech and the antiquated.

Reviews suggesting that the text is for teenagers may be accidentally misleading. "The Works" by no means is for teenagers either *primarily* or *at the exclusion of* adults. Yes, the book--especially its more heavily-illustrated sections--will no doubt fire the imagination of many teens who have engineering, design, line drawing, architectural, historical analysis, or problem-solving aptitudes. (Have a teenager who loved Legos as a kid but has outgrown them? This book will probably make a good gift.) Just because the book is broad in scope and doesn't examine each urban work it covers with the detail of a textbook for electrical engineering students at M.I.T. doesn't make it merely for adolescents.

If you enjoy TV shows on The Science Channel or Discovery, shows like "Building the Ultimate," if you are a history trivia buff, if you just like looking at diagrams or line drawings of machinery and equipment, of you're fascinated by cities, or if it is simply the cast that you love New York City, this is a great book, and I highly recommend it.

I am a licensed professional civil engineer that worked for the Philadelphia Water Department for 10 years and I found this book to be an excellent piece of work. This book would be a great reference for anyone ranging from a high school student to an engineer/architech/planner. The book focuses on New York City so people from the northeast USA may find some of the topics hit close to home. However, the principles and diagrams in the book apply to most cities. One of the best book I've bought in a while!

I worked in commercial power for several years and until I read this book I still didn't know how electricity got from the power plant to the outlet in my shop to power my drill. Or why water actually comes out of the tap when I turn on the sink faucet. It's these myriads of questions that we take for granted that this book answers. Imagine these questions in reference to a city - New York City - and you've got a fascinating book..

The book covers every phase of public works including transit, power, communications, and clean-up. While the focus is on massive public works it's not just a book about technology but it personalizes the people who do all these jobs such as the engineers who climb the antennas on the Empire State Building for maintenance. The graphics are excellent and are a real aid in understanding how the systems work. The writing is clear and concise and very readable. After reading the book I have a new respect for the people who keep this largely invisible infrastructure running. Good reading.

This book is a rare treat - both enlightening and visually appealing. To borrow a term from Tufte, every page contains a "visual confection." The book explains the workings of all the significant support sytems that keep New York City humming. Even if you have a background in this kind of information, you will still find the book an excellent read and reference. There are plenty of intersting sidebars on how the systems have changed over time (the pneumatic mail system comes to mind.)

This book describes the infrastructure of New York City in a very structured and visually stimulating manner. It is well organized into sections on Transportation, Power, Communication, Sanitation, and Future Developments with more space devoted to illustrations than words. This book can be read cover-to-cover or left on the coffee table and perused leisurely for all of the interesting facts it contains. In either case, it defintely leaves the reader with a deep appreciation for the difficulty in running a large city.

I've just started reading this fascinating book about the infrastructure of New York City. I have always had an interest in civil engineering -- and so far have been impressed by the discussions about water delivery and waste removal.

I would recommend this to anyone who shares this curiosity.

This is a wonderful resource that explains the nuisances of what it takes to keep New York City operating. It was excellently illustrated and diagrammed so may can see how things work. It is also a valuable resource of statistics concerning New York City. For instance, New York has 11,000 miles of local streets, 7,300 miles of secondary roads, and 1,250 miles of highways. The Grid Plan adopted in 1811 set the basis for Manhattan streets. Roads were clogged so more northbound streets were created.

The number of roads increased 45% from 1983 to 2002 while the population increased 10%. Yet, rush hour traffic increased from occurring an average of 3.4 hours to 7 to 8 hours a day.

There are 11,400 traffic lights in intersections. There are 40,000 total intersections. Traffic lights mostly run on 60, 90, or 120 second intervals. For many Manhattan streets, the 60 second intervals make traveling at 30 MPH, which is the speed limit, the best cruising speed. Traffic lights are controlled at fifteen computers, handling 720 intersections a piece, at the Traffic Management Center. Traffic is monitored there with 230 cameras.

There are 1.1 million cars and trucks entering New York City daily.

There are 3,250 pedestrian push buttons. Less than 25% of them work. The city is avoiding the $400 cost per unit it takes to remove the inoperable boxes.

There are 50 red light cameras photographing license plates of traffic offenders. 1.4 million summonses have results since this program began in 1993. There has been a 40% decrease in violations where cameras exist. There are 200 locations with inoperable dummy cameras.

The average auto speed in Midtown Manhattan is 4.8 MPH eastbound and 4.2 MPH westbound.

There are 130,000 priority regulation signs, such as "stop" and "do not enter" signs. There are 333,670 street lights, costing$50 million annually in electric costs.

There are 66,000 parking meters. Most parking meters run 1 to 9 minutes per hour longer in time. This is done to minimize charges against their accuracy. A parking meters holds from $30 to $60 in coins.

The subway has 4.5 million riders daily. It is the fifth busiest subway, behind Tokyo, Moscow, Seoul, and Mexico City. The system has about 6,200 cars, which is the most in the world. There are 842 track miles, with 660 miles for passenger service and the rest for shops and storage. Two third of the tracks are underground. During rush hour, trains run from a minimum of every three minutes on four lines to a maximum of every nine minutes on four other lines. There are nine abandoned stations.

Trains approach stations at 25 MPH.. The doors are open for at least ten seconds.

The subway uses 1.8 billion kilowatt hours of electricity annually, making them the city's largest user of electricity.

748 pumps from 309 pump plants pump 13 million gallons or less of water in one day from the subways.

There are 30,000 pay phones from 63 phone companies in New York City. 20% of city residents do not have their own phone service.

New York has 6,600 miles of sewer pipes and mains and 14 wastewater treatment plants, handling 1.3 billion gallons of sewage daily. There are 145,000 storm water catch basins and 5,000 seepage basins that place water into the ground. Sewage was dumped at one ocean site 12 miles away from the coast and second 106 miles away from the coast until 1992. Sludge was then taken by train to Sierra Blanca, Texas until 2001.

New York combines storm water with waste water which is then sent to treatment plants. Rain causes overflow about half the time, meaning untreated water, about one fifth of which is raw sewage, goes into waterways. New York has 450 outflows into the harbor. 23 locations have booms or floating barriers capturing floatable, which are paper, plastics, and Styrofoam, and preventing them from going into the waer. A city owned vessel, the Cormorant, captures more floatables with nets and is able to handle 24 tons of floatables.

There are 14 sewage treatment plants and about 100 pumping stations handling wastewater. Digesters heat sludge encouraging anaerobic bacteria to grow and then remove the sludge's organic material over 15 to 20 days. Half the bio-solids are formed into pellets at Hunt Point Plant in the Bronx. Most of these pellets are used for Florida citrus fertilizer. Others go to Virginia cornfields and grazing land as well as to Colorado and wheat fields. Some is pelletized in Arkansas for use as fertilizer, composted in Pennsylvania for topsoil blending, and lime treating in New Jersey for corn and hay fertilizer.

The Sanitation Department employs 10,000 handling 12,000 tons of resident and municipal waste daily. It is collected two to four days a week. Recyclables are collected once a week. Commercial waste is handled by private companies.

235 street sweepers operate daily. Each covers from 6 to 20 miles in one day. Their maximum speed is 37 MPH. They control 240 gallons of water. They refill at hydrants.

410 of salt spreading trucks are used at one inch of snow. At 2 to 4 inches of snow, all spreaders are used and 380 plows are used. At 4 to 6 inches, over 700 trucks are used. At over 6 inches of snow, all 1,335 plowing trucks are used.

This book looks, feels, and smells good (smell might not be a factor to most readers, but we hopeless book lovers do also judge a book by its smell). Great attention and care has been paid to presentation. Even the manhole cover on the dust jacket is beautiful. The illustrations and graphics inside are colourful, detailed and helpful. This book, without going into great detail, provides a wonderful introduction to the infrastructure of New York City. It includes many interesting and obscure facts about New York and its history. (e.g. Two Irish families have dominated the tugboat business in New York harbour since the late 1800's. Also, in the early 19th century, rival firefighting companies used to disguise the location of fire hydrants to keep their competition from getting to them first in the event of a fire, and sometimes would hire gangs of toughs, called plug uglies, to keep their rivals away.) So much of New York's infrastructure is underground, some of it for over a century -the subway, the steam system, underground rail and road tunnels, electrical wiring, water aqueducts and pipes, natural gas lines, and, of course, the sewer system. There was even a pneumatic tube mail system that had miles and miles of tubing that operated until 1953. I found this all fascinating.
I would have liked to have seen something about vermin control (Robert Sullivan's book, Rats, is good for this) and at least a nod to the capacities and workings of the police and fire departments. There is a good index in this book, but it is missing a bibliography and, more importantly, a list of further reading suggestions for people who might want to go into further depth in the areas they are most interested in. [...].

2nd copy since I seem to have permanently loaned out the first copy. Read if from cover to cover. Lots of pictures and diagrams for kids (and guys hahahaha). For what it is, it's amazing!

Some of this is out of date (it's amazing how much can change in this city in a decade), but it's a great illustration (literally) of how many, many things that we take for granted work here.