The Works: Anatomy of a CityA fascinating guided tour of the ways things work in a modern city “It's a rare person who won't find something of interest in The Works, whether it's an explanation of how a street-sweeper works or the view of what's down a manhole.” —New York Post Have you ever wondered how the water in your faucet gets there? Where your garbage goes? What the pipes under city streets do? How bananas from Ecuador get to your local market? Why radiators in apartment buildings clang? Using New York City as its point of reference, The Works takes readers down manholes and behind the scenes to explain exactly how an urban infrastructure operates. Deftly weaving text and graphics, author Kate Ascher explores the systems that manage water, traffic, sewage and garbage, subways, electricity, mail, and much more. Full of fascinating facts and anecdotes, The Works gives readers a unique glimpse at what lies behind and beneath urban life in the twenty-first century. |
Contents
Section 1 | 2 |
Section 2 | 17 |
Section 3 | 26 |
Section 4 | 44 |
Section 5 | 51 |
Section 6 | 55 |
Section 7 | 58 |
Section 8 | 64 |
Section 12 | 97 |
Section 13 | 107 |
Section 14 | 109 |
Section 15 | 110 |
Section 16 | 127 |
Section 17 | 131 |
Section 18 | 142 |
Section 19 | 152 |
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air cargo airport Aqueduct areas barge Bayonne Bridge biosolids Bridge broadcast Bronx Brooklyn buildings cable cars Catskill century classification yard clean collection companies Con Edison containerized containers Croton delivery Department distribution dumped E-ZPass electricity Empire State Building facility feet five boroughs gallons garbage George Washington Bridge grid harbor Hillview Reservoir Holland Tunnel Hudson Hunts Point hydrants infrastructure installed intersections Jersey landfill largest lines located Long Island lower Manhattan manhole Market meters miles million move operation Park pedestrians percent phones pipeline pipes pressure produced Queens radio Railroad recycling region relies repair Reservoir roadway roughly route Sanitation satellite sewage sewer ships sidewalk signal sludge Staten Island steam steel street subway switch tanks telephone television Terminal tons track traffic train transmission transportation treatment plants truck underground vehicles waste Water Tunnel yard York City York City's York Container Terminal York's Yorkers