New York City drinking water is world-renowned for its quality. For the 1939 World’s Fair, the Department of Water Supply, Gas and Electricity built a colossal relief map to educate New Yorkers about their water supply. Too big for the allotted space, the relief map was excluded from the fair. After being shut away in storage for decades, the relief map was rediscovered, restored to its original brilliance, and brought home to the Queens Museum in 2009. Together with the Panorama of the City of New York, also on view at the museum, the watershed map helps people imagine both the scale of the watershed and the complexity of the underlying structures required to bring drinking water to New York City. Join Samar Qandil, the Department of Environmental Protection’s Director of Records and Archives, to explore the relief map in detail, and learn its story along with the history of New York City’s vast and multifaceted water supply system from its start in 1842 to the present day.
New York City drinking water is world-renowned for its quality. For the 1939 World’s Fair, the Department of Water Supply, Gas and Electricity built a colossal relief map to educate New Yorkers about their water supply. Too big for the allotted space, the relief map was excluded from the fair. After being shut away in storage for decades, the relief map was rediscovered, restored to its original brilliance, and brought home to the Queens Museum in 2009. Together with the Panorama of the City of New York, also on view at the museum, the watershed map helps people imagine both the scale of the watershed and the complexity of the underlying structures required to bring drinking water to New York City.
Join Samar Qandil, the Department of Environmental Protection’s Director of Records and Archives, to explore the relief map in detail, and learn its story along with the history of New York City’s vast and multifaceted water supply system from its start in 1842 to the present day.
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New York City Building, Flushing Meadows Corona Park
There are two entrances to the Museum, one facing the park and the other facing Grand Central Parkway., Flushing Meadows Corona Park, NY 11368
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