Deep under New York’s mountains runs a piece of infrastructure most people never think about—and can’t live without.
The Delaware Aqueduct stretches 85 miles (105 with branches), making it the longest tunnel in the U.S. Built between 1937–1953, it delivers roughly half of NYC’s drinking water every single day, entirely by gravity, from the Catskills to the city.
It’s also 2,500 feet underground in places, nearly 20 feet wide, and now leaking 20 million gallons a day—which explains the $1B bypass tunnel completed in 2022. Yes, a tunnel built just to fix another tunnel.
This is infrastructure at its most invisible and most critical:
- Cities don’t function without it
- Maintenance costs rival new construction
- Decisions made 80+ years ago still shape today’s risk and resilience
The most important systems are often the ones no one sees—until they fail.
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/slideshows/longest-tunnel-america-85-mile-120000047.html
