New York, NY - Urban Archive

South of Union Square

Story

147 Varick Street and the Catskill Aqueduct

The 1898 consolidation of all five boroughs as one unified City of New York brought the population from 2 million to 3.4 million people and intensified the need for more water. In 1905, the City established a Board of Water Supply to plan and build a new system of reservoirs and tunnels that would ensure access to clean water for the growing population.

The next year, the Board started planning the Catskill Aqueduct and installed a laboratory at 147 Varick Street to test equipment and building materials, and to analyze water and soil samples. The Board also hired a photographer to document this monumental project, and put the photo lab here to print and store thousands of images.

By

New York City Department of Environmental Protection

1

143-155 Varick Street

143-155 Varick Street

147 is the third of seven matching spaces numbered 143 to 155. In 1906, The Board of Water Supply moved its Inspection Division in with a 3-year lease from owner Henry Erkins and Co., Inc.

2

143-155 Varick Street

143-155 Varick Street

Inside the front door was this office. A wall of windows allowed sunlight to pass into the physical laboratory on the other side.

3

143-155 Varick Street

143-155 Varick Street

There was special equipment for testing cement, concrete, metals, and other materials for aqueduct construction.

4

143-155 Varick Street

143-155 Varick Street

These are beam and universal testing machines in the physical lab, for testing the tensile and compressive strength of materials.

5

143-155 Varick Street

143-155 Varick Street

A chemical lab for analysis of cement and mortar, metals, soil samples, waterproofing, paints, and more was upstairs, as was the photo lab, with its light table on the right for viewing glass plate negatives. Photography was used to make copies of engineering drawings in addition to its primary purpose of documenting Catskill Aqueduct planning and construction.

6

143-155 Varick Street

143-155 Varick Street

The basement was set up for more tests of cement and other building materials. Every material used on the aqueduct, dams, and related structures was rigorously tested over the many years of water supply construction. They even used the building's roof, leaving samples of reinforced concrete roof tiles out to test their resistance to weather.

7

Hudson River and West 79th Street

Hudson River and West 79th Street

For tests that didn't fit inside 147 Varick, the Inspection Division had a yard at the end of West 79th Street near the Hudson River. This photograph from November 1906 shows Mayor George B. McClellan visiting the yard with Board of Water Supply Chief Engineer J. Waldo Smith. They are standing inside an experimental section of cut-and-cover tunnel arch.

8

Manhattan Municipal Building

Manhattan Municipal Building

The Board moved the laboratory to 49 Lafayette Street in 1915, closer to its new headquarters in the Municipal Building (shown here photographed from 49 Lafayette's roof).

9

143-155 Varick Street

143-155 Varick Street

For several decades after that, the building served various industrial uses. Here it is 1939. In the 1980s and 90s, the Spanish-language newspaper El Diario occupied the lot. Its last occupant was City Winery, from 2008-2019, which was a live music venue as well as a wine-making facility with fermentation tanks and barrels. Then, the Walt Disney Company signed a 99-year lease for a new headquarters encompassing the entire block. The 2-story brick building will be replaced by a high-rise media production complex designed by SOM.

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