New York City is defined in many ways by its iconic infrastructure, from our parks to the soaring towers of the Brooklyn and Verrazzano-Narrows Bridges, and even the controversial roadways of Robert Moses, which displaced many communities of color, leaving a legacy we still feel today. But for one of the city’s most awe-inspiring pieces of infrastructure, there is a surprising lack of public knowledge or mythology: our water system. The names of the people involved are not tossed around at dinner parties. The physical structures, which sit largely out of view, are perhaps best known to those living or hiking near the reservoirs far from Manhattan’s grid. And yet, we New Yorkers are the beneficiaries of some of the cleanest and best-tasting tap water in the world, which hydrates not only millions of people living and working in the five boroughs, but also more than a million people living in Westchester, Putnam, Orange, and Ulster counties.
Photographer Stanley Greenberg has spent decades endeavoring to both answer the question of how water arrives in our taps and toilets and build interest in this vast and impressive system. His black and white images often feel epic in scope, even as some depict quiet street scenes and out of the way corners that only hint at all that’s going on below the surface. Now his book Waterworks: The Hidden Water System of New York, originally published in 2003, has been re-issued and expanded.
A native New Yorker, Greenberg grew up in Flatlands, a Brooklyn neighborhood southeast of Flatbush. After attending high school in Manhattan, he went on to pursue degrees in art history and public administration, eventually landing jobs in city government. It was during his time at the Department of Cultural Affairs in the 1980s that he learned the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), the agency that manages the city’s water, had an archive, parts of which were neglected or being thrown away. Along with another artist and a group of Cooper Union students, Greenberg helped to catalog that vital record. The experience of going through those drawings and photos is what inspired him to expand his existing image-making practice to include the city’s vast water system. A photographer from a young age, Greenberg has exhibited extensively, and published a number of books, including another that touches specifically on water sources in New York City: Springs and Wells, Manhattan and the Bronx (2021).
On a cool, gray morning in late May, I biked to meet him on the corner of State Street and Nevins in downtown Brooklyn to see some of what fascinates him. After biking to a few other spots nearby, we decamped to his studio in Gowanus to chat further about the project. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Hyperallergic: It’s a little hard to fathom just how much is going on beneath our feet in New York City: The water system, steam and gas pipes, subway tunnels, electrical and fiber optic cables, sewers and storm drains, tree roots, rat tunnels, cemeteries and graves.
Stanley Greenberg: And springs!
H: How do all these systems interact with each other? For instance, one of the additions to this new version of the book is the digester eggs up in Greenpoint [part of the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant]. How does adding that help inform people’s understanding of our water system?
SG: The first water treatment plants were built in Coney Island because that’s where people swam and the pollution would be out there. The reason the oysters disappeared is because of water pollution, because we just dumped everything. New York City had a bunch of water pollution controls, but the [1972] Clean Water Act required a lot more and a lot better. That’s when North River was built, and Newtown Creek and Owl’s Head were upgraded, and the Red Hook Wastewater Resource Recovery Facility was built, which is in the Navy Yard.
H: That touches on something that feels painfully relevant today. With the federal government and workforce being dismantled, and protective legislation and monitoring programs being undermined, a book like yours is a reminder of why we need a functioning and accountable government. Your access to photograph the water system has been limited since September 11, 2001, with security threats being the reason given. The DEP also limits public access, not readily revealing what many of these sites are. You expressed some concerns about that approach. If you had a chance to sit down with the city’s next DEP commissioner, what would you say?
SG: I’d try to convince them to allow more public access to the system so that people are more connected to the water supply and wastewater treatment systems. I think it’s easier to ask for the public’s help in taking care of the system when they understand better that it’s a public resource that they collectively own.
I’d also ask for access to photograph Tunnel No. 1 when it’s shut down [for the first time ever] for maintenance when Tunnel No. 3 is fully operational [the largest construction project in NYC history, which began in 1970 and is still underway], along with some of the other sites I wasn’t allowed to photograph.
H: You recently started taking a DIY approach to sharing info with the public?
SG: I started to put up the pictures and texts from the Springs and Wells book in the locations where they were originally photographed, and realized that I should do the same thing for the water system. Along with the book and the map included, there’s also a Google map to use as a field guide. One of my goals is to make people more aware of water infrastructure and the urban landscape around them.
H: After reading through the book, I started paying attention to the maintenance, or manhole, covers I was walking over. So I look forward to encountering some of these signs.
SG: Good. If you start to see the city differently then I’ve done my job.
Waterworks: The Hidden Water System of New York by Stanley Greenberg (2025) is published in a limited edition by Kris Graves Projects and is available online.