Moving Stuff

New York is a very large city, and being large means having a lot of stuff to move around. Much of this goes on behind the scenes - moving people via subways and tunnels and moving things like water, sewage, garbage, electricity, gas, steam and freight via their own subterranean or superterranean systems. The amount and numbers of things moved in the city is staggering, e.g. 24 million pounds of garbage per day, 2.6 million tons of air freight per year or 1.3 billion gallons of sewage per day. It's rather hard to believe that transports of this magnitude are even possible and that the systems needed for them continue to work day after day with very infrequent major failures or breakdowns. If you like reading about this kind of thing, there is a wonderful book I was given as a gift - The Works: Anatomy of a City by Kate Ashler which goes into all of these systems and features NYC throughout as its example. The waterways of the city are extremely busy and tugboats pushing barges are a common sight (like these in the East River) along with other maritime activities. When you get a chance, head for the water and look around ...

Related Postings: Working Harbor, Big Allis, Jet Ski, Hollyhock, The Water Club, Manhattan Island, Cruising.