h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

http://www.h2g2.com/A483770

Interesting - but it left me wanting to know more. We have water towers in all sorts of odd places in Britain. You can be driving through the countryside and see an enormous concrete tower on concrete stilts - seemingly in the middle of nowhere. When I spotted this article, that was the picture I had in mind, but the towers you describe sound quite different. Are they encased in concrete or do they look like huge wooden barrels? Are they all on the roofs of tall buildings?

I know very little about water towers except that if you spot an extraordinary, incongruous looking tower in some out-of-the-way place, it's probably a water tower.

If you know more, please add it to the article.

Sal

Sal,

Thanks for the input. I suppose I should try to expand this for water towers in general, but I'm more familiar with the ones in my neck of the woods (NYC). I suppose though it's like someone from the Netherlands writing about local windmills without mentioning the sleek electricity-generating windmills outside of Livermore, California.

You are correct. They basically look like barrels, with a vertical pipe out of the bottom and a conical roof. Some buildings hide them within brick rooms, but a lot of them just leave them out and exposed. I have a great postcard image of a bunch of them I would love to post here, but I can't because of copyright concerns. I'll just have to take my own photo.

To get the general shape, you can look at the Rachel Whiteread link. It should have some photos of the installation.

Yours,
Jake

Hello,

Incidentally, if anybody has some photos of watertowers on Manhattan rooftops that are suitably public-domain (ie, you took them yourself and are willing to allow the guide to use them), let me know. We can attach it to the article, and I will credit you as a a researcher.

Yours,
Jake

Big coincidence: Last night there was a documentary on about Dudley Moore (who's suffering from a brain disease, poor thing). A couple were interviewed in their apartment, about their relationship with him. Through their window, on two tower blocks, could be seen the very water towers you described. I expect I only noticed them because of your article. Now I know exactly what you mean!

Sal

I can see two of them out of my office window now. I never really noticed them before. It's funny the things you see when you look up. I guess the interesting thing about this is that Manhattan has a distributed water tower approach. Rather than a big structure serving a large area, it's up to each building to handle their own water towers. I guess this is because a huge water tower would be impractical. And maybe it's all just rugged individualism and capitalism writ large. I don't know.

Ah well, I guess this entry is moribund. Of course, there are all sorts of other engineering entries that could be described as well (bridges, tunnels, arches, etc) in separate entries.

No, I'm sure you're wrong. I don't think it's moribund. It's interesting. Perhaps you could add a little bit more to it to explain that this is just one type of water tower. You say the interesting thing about it is that Manhattan has a distributed water tower approach - so why not put that in the article - you know, explain why this particular type of tower is such a good solution to New York City's water supply problem. You could mention that there are other types that serve the needs of people in different sorts of environment. No need to go into detail about the other types. If you changed the title to something like "New York City Water Towers" or "The Big American City Water Towers", that might be sufficient. Never say die!

Also, someone else might do something on the water towers in their area and h2g2 might like to meld the two or more articles into one. They do that apparently, if they have more than one article on the same subject.

Anyway, I think it's in with a chance but it all depends on a Scout spotting it and liking it. I like it. I think it's well written and if there's a New York Water Tower shaped hole in The Guide, this article would fill it nicely.

Sal

Sal,

Thanks for your support and insights. It is a pleasure corresponding with you. I am thinking of editing it. I do have two options. Either, I can expend it with some more general cases (examples of water towers), with that specific case thrown in there (the distributed Manhattan approach). Or I can just make it a specific article. I'm not sure which to do yet, but I'll think about it. Right now, I'm leaning towards a more specific article, but we'll see.

If you have anything you want to write on this, please feel free. I am planning to credit you as a researcher on this if you want for your excellent feedback.

Yours,
Jake

That's very kind of you Jake and I feel honoured that you would think of crediting me. There's no need though. I'm just doing my job as a peer - finding interesting articles and offering an opinion or advice or encouragement. I don't know very much about water towers so I couldn't be very helpful on the specifics.

In general though, the official advice of h2g2 on writing entries for the guide is to 1) write what you know about and 2) do your research. So if you can find out a bit more stuff about water towers in general (the research), then you could couch your New York City Water Towers (the stuff you know about) in the more general explanation. My own first article has gone into The Guide only recently. I knew about periodical cicadas and I wanted to write about them because I find them fascinating. I thought I should start off with a more general explanation of what cicadas are, to start with and I had to carry out a bit of research for that. I don't think there are any hard and fast rules though. It's not like school where you had to follow the rigid formula.

You don't need to say a lot about every type of water tower - perhaps you could just say enough about the principles involved, to place the city water tower in context. One difference between the water towers you're familiar with and the ones I described to you, is the weight. The ones in your city must be much lighter to sit on the roofs of buildings whereas, for the concrete ones in the British countryside, weight isn't really a consideration. Anyway, whichever way you decide to approach it, I'm sure it'll be a jolly interesting read.

Sal

Hello,

Okay. I have revised and expanded the entry. It still probably needs some work, but it's a lot more informative than it used to be (doing more research is a good idea). Let me know what you think, and thanks.

Yours,
Jake

Yes, I agree - this should be in the Guide. Very interesting!

Did you know that in England, those concrete and brick ones that look like follies sometime get converted into homes? (Not suggesting that should go in the article, by the way - just an interesting aside.)

Good luck.

It's as I anticipated. I don't think there's much more that you would need to do to this article. I guess you could put a lot more in it if you wanted to, but it's a satisfying read now. If there's a Scout around who's interested in the subject, I hope they notice it soon. I see I'm a referenced researcher - thank you very much. You're too kind!

It's a coincidence Shorn - I was chatting to someone today about water towers (triggered by this article obviously) and he was saying that he'd seen one in some magazine where the lady had kept the ball cock (which was huge apparently) and other paraphernalia from the original tower and built her living room around it. He also thought there was one near to Leicester with a library in it. I guess American water towers aren't suitable for that sort of conversion, are they Jake?

Sal

Sal,

No we instead make homes out of missile silos or old airplanes. I suppose you could convert some water towers into homes, but a lot of them are not designed to be too accessible (unless you want to climb a long ladder), and I'm not sure how easy it is to punch holes in their sides for windows.

I appreciate your modesty, but your suggestions really have been invaluable.

Of course, there are some water towers that are on level ground on high hills. There was one near my high school in Washington DC that looked like a romantic notion of a castle tower. It could potentially be converted into a house. But I think it was by the Secret Service as a radio base as well (near the highest point in Washington, DC). So we couldn't get too close to it.

I especially liked running across the Aesthetic Infrastructures page. It's funny how much of our infrastructure we don't really appreciate in an aesthetic sense (bridges seem to be the only exception).

Yours,
Jake

What a nice entry!

One small point - some municipalities use water towers for storage. There's a community east of Carlisle, Pennsylvania which only has one water line which runs to the north end of the township. If that line would break, those people would be without water for a considerable period of time - so the township government built a huge water storage tank - just to have an emergency supply if it would ever be needed to supply those folks until the main line could be repaired.

Otherwise, this was a rather interesting look at a common, every-day object.

- X

My personal favourite link on your article is the "How Stuff Works" site. You could root around in there for ages. I liked the water tower in the form of a peach. I could make a home in there, no problem! - once I'd emptied out the water obviously.

Hello,

Yes. It's rather fascinating to learn more about the inner workings of all those things I've taken for granted. We'd better memorize them in case civilization collapses.

Yours,
Jake

I like the idea of making a home in a giant peach - isn't there some movie about that? The Canary and the Giant Peach, was it? It looks so cheerful and sunny.

Do the secret service actually occupy that water tower/castle or do they just have one of their radio masts on it? Maybe that information's classified ...

The Aesthetic Infrastructures page was interesting. Some of the towers in France and Germany were similar to ones I've seen in England. There's such a huge variety. Did you know there were so many different types when you started this project?

Sal

Hello,

Funnily enough, the New York Times recently published a piece on Water Towers in the City with some interesting information. For instance, it is estimated there are over 10,000 water towers in the city, with over 100 new ones made every year. Fascinating.

In any case, I've decided to expand some of the New York stuff and split the article into two separate entries. One on Water Towers in general (which could go along with any University project or theme on infrastructure) and one on water towers in New York City specifically. Hence, I'm requesting this gets removed from Peer Review. I'm not sure what magic is required to make that happen...

Yours,
Jake

Here's my favorite water tower website:

[URL removed by moderator]

Oh, and the ones I grew up with were all the metal variety.

There's a radio station in Chicago that used to broadcast (or maybe still does) from Water Tower Place (a downtown mall) -- as a kid, I was convinced that the radio station (and hence, all radio stations) was located at the top of those ball and stick type of water towers.


Mikey