Big Apple History . Building the Big Apple . Clean Water Halts Outbreak


	Bringing out bodies of cholera victims

June 26, 1832. The first to fall ill was an Irish immigrant named Fitzgerald. The first to die were two of his children. Before it petered out in September, the worst cholera epidemic in the city's history would take more than 3,500 lives.

New Yorkers had seen it coming for months, across Asia, Europe, and the Atlantic. They tried to quarantine the city declaring that no ships could dock within three hundred yards of the city shores.

There was good reason to fear; cholera was a horrible disease, which spread through contaminated water. Its victims died after hours of cramps, diarrhea, and vomiting. Crowded into unsanitary slums, the poor suffered most. Many of the city's elite fled to the countryside.

Some preachers said it was God's punishment for the sins of the poor. Others, like George Henry Evans, a working-class leader, blamed the rich who "produce poverty among many." Medical authorities blamed unsanitary conditions.

Yet everyone agreed on a solution. The city had needed a reliable source of clean water for a long time, and the cholera epidemic made clear how serious this need was. The city council discussed a plan to tap the Croton River upstate. But the $11 million price tag to build an aqueduct seemed too much.

More cholera outbreaks and the Great Fire of 1835 changed the council's minds. On July 4, 1842, pure water from the Croton River flowed down the brand new Croton Aqueduct into a 180-million-gallon reservoir in the middle of what is now Central Park. Cannon fire, fireworks, and a parade announced the opening of America's first long distance water system.

Illustration: "Cholera in New York," courtesy of Culver Pictures.