Dennis Monasebian

Armonk, NY

The water pipe (i.e. a water supply pipe for drinking water)

From early in its history, NYC's leadership understood that the city needed a large supply of good drinking water to become a great city. Earliest reservoirs were close in to the city, later on large lakes in upstate NY were purchased to enlarge the supply. Water pipes made this possible. The first pipes were hollowed out trees. (Chase bank was originally a water supply company; samples of tree-pipes are [or were] located in the bank lobby downtown.) Now we have massive tunnel sized pipes to do the job.