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New York, famed throughout the world
as a beacon of opportunity,

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HQ of capitalism.

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A gleaming, brash, technological
marvel, where anything is possible

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and everything has its price.

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New York City is the ultimate
embodiment of the American dream,

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but for the millions of poor
immigrants that arrived here

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in the 19th century,
it was more of a nightmare.

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150 years ago,
New York covered only the southern
tip of the island of Manhattan.

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In the throes of its
Industrial Revolution,

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the city had become one of the most

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disgusting and filthy
places on earth.

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New York was a corrupt
frontier city, where poor immigrants

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were ruthlessly exploited by
fat-cat bosses and greedy landlords,

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all driven by the pursuit
of filthy money.

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The Big Apple
was rotten to its core,
but it was the fight against filth,

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the struggle against
grime and crime, that would shape
almost every aspect of this city.

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I'm going to explore what
New York was like at its very worst.

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I'll meet the parasites
that preyed on its citizens.

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Ooh, ow, that just bit me.

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And I'll get my hands dirty,
to find out just how close

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this city came to drowning
in a sea of its own detritus.

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What the heck is this?

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You tell me. Is that urine?

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I think that could be urine.

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Yet, out of its nightmare of filth,
New York's iconic
skyline would be forged.

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In just 100 years,
the city's population shot up
by a staggering 1000%.

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And to survive and
continue to prosper,
New York had to clean up its act.

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Pioneering reformers and inventors
would lead the fight,

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with momentous engineering projects
and many revolutionary ideas.

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The electric light bulb.

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From the world's first
commercial power station
to the earliest automobiles.

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Bringing her round.

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IMITATES SQUEAKING BRAKES

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But it's only now
in the 21st century,

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that we're beginning to realise
that New York's battle

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to transform itself into
a modern city would come at a price.

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New York. Today it's home to
more than eight million people,

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the biggest and richest city
in the United States.

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Built within easy reach of
the Atlantic trade routes,

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for nearly 400 years New York
has been the bridge

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between Europe and North America.

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New York's success was always
based on trade.

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It's a wonderful natural harbour,
where ships from around the world
can anchor safely.

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You have the city on Manhattan
Island and the Hudson River,

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which reaches deep into
the heart of the continent.

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This is the gateway
to North America, the link
between the New World and the Old.

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Early in the 19th century,
New York was being transformed
by the Industrial Revolution.

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Its shores were lined
with factories and workshops.

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Up town, the city's elite
lived in some of the grandest
town houses in America.

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New York was a city
where serious money could be made.

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It had quickly become a magnet
for millions of European immigrants,

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all drawn here to make their
fortunes in the land of opportunity.

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It was the start of one of the
biggest mass migrations in history,

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as people fled abject poverty,
religious and ethnic persecution.

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The first to arrive in great numbers
were the Irish,

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as they fled the great potato famine
of the 1840s.

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Over 650,000 Irish
would come to New York.

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Many migrants were destitute
before they left

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and were unable to survive
the terrible conditions on board.

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As many as a third of them died.

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Despite the horrific death toll
on some of the ships,

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at its peak in 1845,
up to 1,000 Irish immigrants
a day were landing in New York.

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But for many of the survivors,
the worst was yet to come.

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And this is where many of
those poor immigrants ended up.

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It's now an area just between
Chinatown and Little Italy
in Lower Manhattan.

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Back then it was known
as the Five Points,

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because it was the intersection
of five big roads.

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Then it was a terrible,
infamous slum.

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25,000 people packed into
buildings with no central heating,
no running water and no sewers.

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The streets of the Five Points
were piled high

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with rubbish and animal waste.

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And in New York's cold winters,
this toxic mix would freeze.

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This is how bad it could get.

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In the winter, layer upon layer
of frozen muck would pile up,

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until in some streets
it was a metre and a half deep.

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New Yorkers fondly called this
"corporation pudding".

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It was a terrible mixture of human
and animal excrement, waste products

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from slaughter houses,
breweries and tanneries,

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and all the muck
and mud from the streets.

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For months at a time
during the winter,

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this would have clogged the streets.

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It wasn't only disgusting streets
newly arrived immigrants
had to contend with.

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The tenements they had to live in
were just as bad.

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Vast swathes of New York slums
were owned by the wealthiest
families in America,

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and they were making a fortune
from the poor immigrants.

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Far from escaping the deprivations
and social injustices of Europe,

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these recently arrived immigrants
found they were in a city that was
dirtier and even more unfair.

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Employed by the landlords,
it was the job of runners to hustle

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freshly arrived immigrants
into the tenements,

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where they would be fleeced
to pay an extortionate rent.

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Now a museum, this is one of
the last tenement blocks in the city

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that has remained pretty much
unchanged since the 19th century.

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These rooms might feel
quite nice and spacious

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and when they were built,
they were.

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With so many immigrants arriving,

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building large, six-storey
tenement buildings seemed like
the perfect solution to the problem

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of how to house
this expanding population.

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But with so many
new immigrants arriving,

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demand rapidly outstripped supply,

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and the slum landlords spotted the
chance to make some filthy money.

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Rents shot up, and some apartments
like this could have had
two families living in them.

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There could easily have been
a dozen people in here.

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These tiny apartments
rapidly degenerated

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as more and more people
were piled in.

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With the landlords charging
such high rents,

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soon these apartments
were more than just homes.

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They'd also have to double up
as a workplace.

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This room would have
been a sweatshop,

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with five or six people in here
making clothes, shoes and hats,

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and at night, it just would
have been a cramped dormitory.

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No running water, no bathrooms,

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and just three stinking privies
shared by hundreds.

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This place was more than unhygienic.

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And as if that wasn't enough, there
were reports of some immigrants

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keeping their animals
in their apartments.

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These corridors
would have been filled with
a dizzying array of smells

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and the discordant hubbub of
languages from all over the world.

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And, of course, this melting pot
was also the perfect
breeding ground for disease.

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Overcrowded and filthy,
early in the 19th century,

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New York slums were ravaged by
a series of devastating epidemics.

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But the city's elite
were often reluctant to act

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until they themselves
were threatened.

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In 1832, an outbreak of cholera,
a deadly waterborne bacterium,

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had spread through the slums
and infected the whole city.

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So many people died
that bodies piled up in the streets,

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and it was said that anyone with a
horse was drafted to help move them.

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Over 3,500 New Yorkers, both rich
and poor, died in the epidemic.

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But it wasn't just disease
that was devastating New York.

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At around the same time,
50 acres of the city
were destroyed in an inferno.

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Fire and deadly disease

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were threatening
its industrial expansion.

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New York needed to invest heavily
to secure a plentiful supply of this.

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Fresh water.

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Back in the 19th century,

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people would have killed
to have this much fresh water

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delivered reliably
into the heart of New York City.

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That's because Manhattan
was very marshy.

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It was very hard to dig wells
that would produce

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anything other than brackish water,

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so lots of people
relied on very few wells.

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It also meant that porous soil,

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and all the human and animal waste
would seep down and pollute
the fresh water,

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and that's how disease spread,
that's how people got cholera,
and epidemics broke out.

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In 1837, the city embarked
on America's biggest ever
engineering project -

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to get millions and millions
of gallons of fresh water
into New York every day.

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And this is where they got it from -
they dammed the Croton River,
north of New York.

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This dam was actually built in 1906.

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The original is now submerged
under the reservoir.

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But that reservoir was still big
enough to hold hundreds of millions
of gallons of fresh water.

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You get a sense of the size
of this operation from over here.

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It's just vast. It shows the amount
of water that a modern city needs

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to survive and prosper.

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To get all this water
to New York City, 41 miles away,

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they built
an equally impressive aqueduct.

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Large parts of the aqueduct
survive right to the present day,

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and there's a big stretch of
it right here underneath my feet.

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And over here is where I get in.

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The Croton Aqueduct served
New York for over a century.

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It was finally
decommissioned in 1955,
which means I can get inside it.

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New York's first aqueduct would
take more than five years to build.

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It cost over 14 million,
which means at the time

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it was the most expensive
construction project in America.

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It took about 4,000 workers,
mostly Irish, to build this tunnel,

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eight feet high
and over seven feet wide.

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It loses exactly
13 and a quarter inches
for every mile that it travels,

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and that means that the gravity
brings the water from the reservoir,
which is up there,

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right the way down there towards
New York City, 41 miles away.

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35 million gallons a day,

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and it took 22 hours
to make that journey.

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When it was completed in 1842,

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you could ride on a boat all the way
to New York in this tunnel.

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So this was the last section
to be built,

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channelling the water
up this seven-foot iron pipe,

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right across the last obstacle
before the city - the Harlem River.

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Right, this should be the place
to get a sense of the scale.

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This is the High Bridge,
a truly epic piece
of 19th-century engineering,

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spanning a quarter of a mile
and rising 100 feet above the river.

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The Croton Aqueduct
marked the city's first
major step towards modernity.

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When the water started flowing,
New Yorkers rejoiced

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with a Festival Of Connection,
which included special drinks,
songs and a huge procession.

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One New York diarist wrote

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that "nothing is talked about
or thought about in New York City,
but Croton water."

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The Croton Aqueduct
would bring fresh water...

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and a fresh problem for the city.

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The first to benefit from
the new water system were the rich.

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They now had
even easier ways to keep clean.

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And it was really good news
for plumbers,

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who got to install
6,000 indoor bathrooms
for the people of New York.

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The Croton Aqueduct also proved
to be good news for a whole host
of other industries,

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manufacturing things
like taps, toiletries

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and, of course, toilets.

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It was also very good news for one
New Yorker called Joseph Gayetty,

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who in 1857 invented toilet paper,

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which gave the filthy rich something
else to flush down their new toilets

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with all that Croton water.

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With 6,000 homes now connected
up to the Croton Aqueduct,

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that was a lot of waste water
that was produced, especially
when all those toilets got flushed.

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00:14:12,640 --> 00:14:14,320
Much of it ended up on the streets

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and flooding the basements
of nice houses like this.

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00:14:19,880 --> 00:14:24,120
The solution was to build some of
these - sewers. And they did,

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building some of New York's first.

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00:14:26,400 --> 00:14:29,760
The trouble is
these are very expensive,

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and the landlords in the slum areas
couldn't or wouldn't pay for them,

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and that left the residents of those
areas wallowing in their own filth.

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Although the Croton Aqueduct
did bring fresh water into the slums,

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there the rich landlords refused
to pay for indoor plumbing,

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or even connect to
the sewage system.

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The poor were left
with stinking privies
that would flood into the streets.

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00:14:56,680 --> 00:15:00,080
In fact, with ever more immigrants
arriving all the time,

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the slums became even filthier,

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which for some new arrivals
was heaven.

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The slum landlords
weren't the only ones
feeding off the poor immigrants.

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00:15:18,840 --> 00:15:21,840
In the bowels of New York's
Museum Of Natural History,

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Louis Sorkin has been pursuing
his passion for the insects

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that thrived
in 19th-century New York,

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like these blood-sucking bed bugs.

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There's one. I can see it.

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These are adult bed bugs,

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and that one's moving off.
Ah, it just bit me, straightaway.

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It'll take a few minutes
to fill up on blood.

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Millions of bed bugs would have
hitched a ride across the Atlantic

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with unsuspecting immigrants.

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Although they didn't
transmit disease,

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their painful bites
can easily become infected.

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This one's pretty full already.

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00:15:59,080 --> 00:16:00,760
This one's full already?

227
00:16:00,760 --> 00:16:02,680
See? And that one's full already.

228
00:16:02,680 --> 00:16:05,040
That's... They're full on MY blood.

229
00:16:05,040 --> 00:16:08,360
That little one's swollen to
about three times the size already.

230
00:16:08,360 --> 00:16:11,280
Yeah, that can go to
three to five times its volume,

231
00:16:11,280 --> 00:16:13,080
filling with blood.

232
00:16:13,080 --> 00:16:16,280
Bugs have a bad reputation though.

233
00:16:16,280 --> 00:16:19,200
That's true.
Many people just don't like them.

234
00:16:19,200 --> 00:16:22,240
But once you get to know them,
they grow on you.

235
00:16:22,240 --> 00:16:24,080
Grow on me quite literally in fact.

236
00:16:24,080 --> 00:16:26,560
Look at that guy -
he's gone completely red now.

237
00:16:26,560 --> 00:16:27,800
Uh-huh, that's true.

238
00:16:27,800 --> 00:16:30,120
So I'm not getting disease
from these guys.

239
00:16:30,120 --> 00:16:33,720
Which ones were in 19th-century
New York that do spread disease?

240
00:16:33,720 --> 00:16:35,560
Well, body lice.

241
00:16:35,560 --> 00:16:37,000
Have you got some of those?

242
00:16:37,000 --> 00:16:39,320
Yes, I do, actually.
I thought you might.

243
00:16:39,320 --> 00:16:43,360
Body lice proved to be fatal
in the slums.

244
00:16:43,360 --> 00:16:46,520
They carried typhus,
a particularly nasty disease.

245
00:16:46,520 --> 00:16:48,040
Its symptoms include a rash,

246
00:16:48,040 --> 00:16:50,120
delirium and a fever
so debilitating

247
00:16:50,120 --> 00:16:52,200
that more than half
of those infected

248
00:16:52,200 --> 00:16:54,320
die within two weeks
of being bitten.

249
00:16:55,840 --> 00:16:57,240
These are human body lice.

250
00:16:57,240 --> 00:17:01,520
And what conditions do these need
to sort of breed in and prosper?

251
00:17:01,520 --> 00:17:03,280
Usually it's just overcrowding.

252
00:17:03,280 --> 00:17:07,720
When you get many people
all stuck, you know,
in very crowded conditions,

253
00:17:07,720 --> 00:17:11,320
the lice will crawl from
one person to another, to another.

254
00:17:11,320 --> 00:17:15,040
If they were
infesting your clothing,
which is normally what happens,

255
00:17:15,040 --> 00:17:18,600
then you could have
50,000, 70,000 lice could be there.

256
00:17:20,120 --> 00:17:23,360
The typhus bacteria
live in the guts of the lice.

257
00:17:23,360 --> 00:17:27,760
But surprisingly,
it's not their bites
that actually transmit the disease.

258
00:17:29,280 --> 00:17:33,760
Although it looks pretty dangerous,
it's not biting the human
that spreads disease,

259
00:17:33,760 --> 00:17:37,360
it's actually what's coming out
the other end? Yes, that's correct.

260
00:17:37,360 --> 00:17:43,640
The blood is taken up, but
the disease organisms are developed
inside the gut of the louse

261
00:17:43,640 --> 00:17:48,520
and then defecation occurs, and your
disease organisms are now in that,

262
00:17:48,520 --> 00:17:51,000
and the person
scratches it into the wound.

263
00:17:51,000 --> 00:17:56,360
New York's poor were unaware that
they were giving themselves typhus

264
00:17:56,360 --> 00:18:01,760
as they scratched
the infected excrement of the lice
into their fresh bite wounds.

265
00:18:04,040 --> 00:18:08,640
In the mid 1850s, the city not only
lacked the scientific knowledge,

266
00:18:08,640 --> 00:18:14,720
but it saw little financial
incentive to do anything about
its disease-ridden slums.

267
00:18:14,720 --> 00:18:20,160
For every immigrant that died,
there would be a new arrival,
hungry for work and a place to live.

268
00:18:24,560 --> 00:18:28,920
New Yorkers were being decimated
by wave after wave of disease.

269
00:18:28,920 --> 00:18:31,960
In fact, more New Yorkers were
dying than were being born,

270
00:18:31,960 --> 00:18:35,400
and if it wasn't for
all the immigration,
said one city inspector,

271
00:18:35,400 --> 00:18:38,680
the city would soon
become depopulated.

272
00:18:38,680 --> 00:18:44,560
In fact, in many parts of
New York, the death rate
was twice the American average.

273
00:18:44,560 --> 00:18:50,040
Then in 1852, one young doctor
decided it was time to get to grips

274
00:18:50,040 --> 00:18:54,840
with the city's endemic filth
and epidemic injustice.

275
00:19:00,000 --> 00:19:02,600
Doctor Stephen Smith
was horrified to discover

276
00:19:02,600 --> 00:19:06,920
many of his typhus patients
had something else in common.

277
00:19:06,920 --> 00:19:12,600
They all lived at the same address,
in the same stinking
tenement building.

278
00:19:14,800 --> 00:19:16,560
Inside, Smith was appalled to see

279
00:19:16,560 --> 00:19:22,200
so many diseased immigrants crammed
into one disgusting building.

280
00:19:22,200 --> 00:19:27,960
He wrote, "The whole establishment
was reeking with filth,
and the atmosphere was heavy

281
00:19:27,960 --> 00:19:33,160
"with the sickening odour
of the deadly typhus, which
reigned supreme in every room."

282
00:19:36,200 --> 00:19:42,680
Enraged by what he'd witnessed,
Smith stormed off
to confront the slum landlord.

283
00:19:44,200 --> 00:19:47,640
By consulting the tax records,
Smith tracked the slumlord down.

284
00:19:47,640 --> 00:19:50,920
He turned out to be a man of
considerable wealth and influence.

285
00:19:50,920 --> 00:19:53,560
Despite Smith's angry protests,

286
00:19:53,560 --> 00:19:56,240
the landlord initially
refused point blank

287
00:19:56,240 --> 00:19:59,560
to improve conditions
for the residents.

288
00:19:59,560 --> 00:20:06,200
Smith started campaigning to legally
force New York's wealthy landlords
to clean up their slums,

289
00:20:06,200 --> 00:20:10,560
but he soon discovered
that getting the law changed
was not going to be easy.

290
00:20:12,000 --> 00:20:16,960
New York's entire system of
government was beset by sleaze,

291
00:20:16,960 --> 00:20:21,000
and one place symbolised this
more than any other.

292
00:20:21,000 --> 00:20:24,480
This was the New York
County Courthouse.

293
00:20:24,480 --> 00:20:29,160
It was supposed to be devoted to
the administration of
fair and impartial justice,

294
00:20:29,160 --> 00:20:32,720
but in fact it became
a symbol of filthy corruption.

295
00:20:32,720 --> 00:20:36,160
This courthouse,
grand though it is,

296
00:20:36,160 --> 00:20:38,760
at the time
cost New York's tax payers

297
00:20:38,760 --> 00:20:42,640
a staggering 12 million,

298
00:20:42,640 --> 00:20:47,760
almost twice the amount
that the USA paid Russia
for Alaska a few years later.

299
00:20:50,320 --> 00:20:53,480
The man in charge,
William "Boss" Tweed,

300
00:20:53,480 --> 00:20:57,400
headed the infamously corrupt
Tammany Hall Political Machine

301
00:20:57,400 --> 00:21:00,840
and was stealing millions
of dollars from the city.

302
00:21:02,920 --> 00:21:07,160
Corruption was endemic, and it
was thanks to men like Boss Tweed

303
00:21:07,160 --> 00:21:10,120
that these guys were being
left to clean the streets.

304
00:21:12,800 --> 00:21:16,960
Even though New Yorkers
were paying for basic services
like street cleaning,

305
00:21:16,960 --> 00:21:21,000
a large proportion of the cash
was just being pocketed,

306
00:21:21,000 --> 00:21:24,560
which left large parts of the city
looking like a rubbish dump.

307
00:21:27,160 --> 00:21:29,120
So the only people
that could be trusted

308
00:21:29,120 --> 00:21:31,760
were those who would do it for free.

309
00:21:31,760 --> 00:21:37,080
In slum areas like this, pigs were
eating tonnes of rubbish every year.

310
00:21:37,080 --> 00:21:42,280
Boss Tweed and his mates
are estimated to have
embezzled around 200 million.

311
00:21:42,280 --> 00:21:46,200
That's well over 1 billion today,
and that's just greedy.

312
00:21:48,640 --> 00:21:52,280
Faced with corrupt politicians
and filthy rich landlords,

313
00:21:52,280 --> 00:21:59,120
for a decade Dr Stephen Smith's
campaign to improve the lives of
New York's poorest had got nowhere.

314
00:22:00,120 --> 00:22:06,000
Then, in 1865, there were reports
that a fresh outbreak of cholera,

315
00:22:06,000 --> 00:22:09,320
a deadly waterborne disease,
was on its way from Europe.

316
00:22:09,320 --> 00:22:15,720
Smith knew that the epidemic would
take hold in the slums and spread
like wildfire across the city.

317
00:22:22,280 --> 00:22:24,640
Smith had already
spelled out the dangers

318
00:22:24,640 --> 00:22:27,400
in a damning report
published earlier that year.

319
00:22:27,400 --> 00:22:32,200
An original copy of it
is kept here in the library
of the New York Academy of Medicine.

320
00:22:33,560 --> 00:22:40,040
This is it, it's the 1865
Citizens' Association Report On
The Sanitary Condition Of The City.

321
00:22:40,040 --> 00:22:44,400
It lists, ward by ward, everything
that is filthy about New York City,

322
00:22:44,400 --> 00:22:47,800
from rotting horses in the streets
to sewage in the drinking water.

323
00:22:50,400 --> 00:22:54,000
In the front of the book is a letter
signed by prominent reformers,

324
00:22:54,000 --> 00:22:56,040
including - look here -
Stephen Smith.

325
00:22:56,040 --> 00:22:59,160
And they advocate strongly
that the city should introduce

326
00:22:59,160 --> 00:23:01,680
the kind of sanitation system
that London had.

327
00:23:01,680 --> 00:23:04,520
This could not be more pressing,
say these reformers,

328
00:23:04,520 --> 00:23:11,960
because the total number of deaths
in the city of New York during
the year of 1863 was 25,196.

329
00:23:11,960 --> 00:23:19,400
That is equal to one death in every
35 of the inhabitants, and that
was an unacceptably high number.

330
00:23:19,400 --> 00:23:24,680
For the first time, the authorities
were forced to recognise just how
filthy New York had become.

331
00:23:24,680 --> 00:23:28,200
They also produced these maps
that covered the whole city,

332
00:23:28,200 --> 00:23:31,680
going into every single property
in incredible detail.

333
00:23:31,680 --> 00:23:35,480
This is the infamous
Five Points area,

334
00:23:35,480 --> 00:23:37,960
and there's a key
down the left-hand side here

335
00:23:37,960 --> 00:23:40,920
that labels stables,
and privies and private dwellings.

336
00:23:40,920 --> 00:23:44,560
One of the most important symbols
here is the black square.

337
00:23:44,560 --> 00:23:48,120
These are privies "in an extremely
offensive condition."

338
00:23:48,120 --> 00:23:51,640
I've spotted one block next to the
brewery and the Mariner's Church,

339
00:23:51,640 --> 00:23:55,360
where there are several privies
in extremely offensive condition.

340
00:23:55,360 --> 00:23:58,760
That is a block where you would
not have wanted to get caught short.

341
00:24:01,920 --> 00:24:04,360
The report and the imminent arrival
of cholera

342
00:24:04,360 --> 00:24:06,560
finally frightened the city
into action.

343
00:24:06,560 --> 00:24:10,920
It established America's
first independent board of health,

344
00:24:10,920 --> 00:24:15,320
and gave Dr Stephen Smith
a job of vital importance -

345
00:24:15,320 --> 00:24:18,760
stopping cholera
from decimating New York again.

346
00:24:25,280 --> 00:24:27,360
Smith's solution was simple.

347
00:24:27,360 --> 00:24:29,880
He wanted to clear out the slums.

348
00:24:29,880 --> 00:24:32,880
I've come to this 19th-century
tenement building,

349
00:24:32,880 --> 00:24:36,880
because this apartment apparently
hasn't been cleaned for 50 years.

350
00:24:36,880 --> 00:24:41,320
It's going to give me a sense
of just how much filth
Smith had to deal with.

351
00:24:46,320 --> 00:24:48,800
Wow!
HE COUGHS

352
00:24:48,800 --> 00:24:50,640
Oh, the smell's unbelievable!

353
00:24:52,600 --> 00:24:57,520
The elderly lady
who has lived here for 60 years
suffers from depression.

354
00:24:57,520 --> 00:25:00,960
She was found collapsed on the floor
and taken to hospital.

355
00:25:05,000 --> 00:25:09,840
I mean, clearly this is one
old woman's apartment that hasn't
been cleaned since the 1960s.

356
00:25:09,840 --> 00:25:14,640
When you come in here, you
realise humans fight a never-ending
battle against our own waste,

357
00:25:14,640 --> 00:25:17,120
and in modern cities
we're winning that battle.

358
00:25:17,120 --> 00:25:23,400
But this is a reminder that
that filth can overwhelm us,
and ultimately destroy us.

359
00:25:23,400 --> 00:25:29,200
And you get a real sense in here
of the kind of conditions that
Smith would have been dealing with.

360
00:25:29,200 --> 00:25:33,000
New York in the 19th century
was a city labouring under
tonnes of filth,

361
00:25:33,000 --> 00:25:36,680
accumulated mess from years,
like this.

362
00:25:36,680 --> 00:25:40,200
With the imminent arrival
of cholera,

363
00:25:40,200 --> 00:25:43,880
under Smith's control
the Metropolitan Board of Health

364
00:25:43,880 --> 00:25:48,720
set about mobilising an army
of cleaners to get to grips with
the city's grime.

365
00:25:48,720 --> 00:25:50,000
You got your mask on? Yep.

366
00:25:50,000 --> 00:25:54,040
All right, you ready? Let's roll.

367
00:25:55,040 --> 00:26:00,080
Nearly a century and a half later,
this team of specialist cleaners
are about to do the same,

368
00:26:00,080 --> 00:26:02,920
and try to make this apartment
habitable once more.

369
00:26:04,440 --> 00:26:06,640
So we just start right here, OK?

370
00:26:06,640 --> 00:26:08,880
What the heck is this?

371
00:26:08,880 --> 00:26:10,960
You tell me. Is that urine?

372
00:26:10,960 --> 00:26:13,680
I think that could be urine.
You think it's urine?

373
00:26:13,680 --> 00:26:15,080
That is disgusting.

374
00:26:20,120 --> 00:26:25,320
The first six months of 1866 alone,
the health orders went out from
the Metropolitan Board

375
00:26:25,320 --> 00:26:30,840
to remove 160,000 tonnes
of manure from the streets.

376
00:26:30,840 --> 00:26:35,880
Over 38,000 cartloads of night
soil. That's human excrement.

377
00:26:35,880 --> 00:26:42,000
103 dead horses were removed
and over 3,800 dead cats and dogs.

378
00:26:42,000 --> 00:26:45,520
This was a cleanup effort
on a monumental scale.

379
00:26:47,920 --> 00:26:50,320
Crucially,
where cholera was reported,

380
00:26:50,320 --> 00:26:53,400
Smith ensured that residents
were put in quarantine

381
00:26:53,400 --> 00:26:56,200
and the house
thoroughly disinfected.

382
00:26:56,200 --> 00:26:58,080
See all these roaches in here?

383
00:26:58,080 --> 00:26:59,880
They're German. Those are German.

384
00:26:59,880 --> 00:27:02,560
German roaches? German roaches.

385
00:27:06,800 --> 00:27:08,960
Smith's work
was an unqualified success.

386
00:27:08,960 --> 00:27:14,000
Cholera did reach New York, but
only 591 people died in the outbreak.

387
00:27:14,000 --> 00:27:18,120
That's ten times less than the
previous outbreak, 17 years before.

388
00:27:18,120 --> 00:27:22,360
New Yorkers were starting to
realise that connection
between dirt and disease,

389
00:27:22,360 --> 00:27:24,360
and the city could
turn its attention

390
00:27:24,360 --> 00:27:27,840
to an industry with the capacity
to make New Yorker's really sick.

391
00:27:27,840 --> 00:27:30,840
Food.

392
00:27:30,840 --> 00:27:34,960
Some of New York's most famous foods
had their dirty little secrets.

393
00:27:34,960 --> 00:27:36,600
Take hot dogs for example.

394
00:27:36,600 --> 00:27:38,840
Can I have mustard and onions,
please? Sure.

395
00:27:38,840 --> 00:27:43,760
There were some scandalous
things happening
at the city's sausage industry.

396
00:27:49,680 --> 00:27:53,800
With so many people living in New
York, some profit-hungry butchers

397
00:27:53,800 --> 00:27:56,680
had found a way to feed them
rotten pigs' heads,

398
00:27:56,680 --> 00:28:00,160
decaying hearts
and slime-covered steaks.

399
00:28:00,160 --> 00:28:02,800
Oh yeah, there you go, there you go.
It's...

400
00:28:02,800 --> 00:28:04,560
DAN COUGHS

401
00:28:04,560 --> 00:28:06,240
Oh, that is disgusting!

402
00:28:06,240 --> 00:28:11,160
With no refrigerators,
unsold meat in backstreet butchers
would quickly rot,

403
00:28:11,160 --> 00:28:16,040
but some weren't prepared to
throw it away and lose money.

404
00:28:16,040 --> 00:28:18,600
You know, you killed about
a million pigs a year

405
00:28:18,600 --> 00:28:22,240
in New York City, 1880s, and you
made your hams, bacon and all that.

406
00:28:22,240 --> 00:28:23,760
But you got the other stuff.

407
00:28:23,760 --> 00:28:26,560
You got the heads, you got
the hearts, you got the lungs.

408
00:28:26,560 --> 00:28:28,360
What are you going to do with it?

409
00:28:28,360 --> 00:28:31,920
You paid for it, you want to use it,
so you turn it into sausage.

410
00:28:35,360 --> 00:28:38,360
In 1874, one sausage-making butcher

411
00:28:38,360 --> 00:28:42,120
was caught with 220 rotting heads
in his cellar.

412
00:28:43,640 --> 00:28:47,480
Oh, man. That is just disgusting.

413
00:28:49,000 --> 00:28:52,280
The slime and foul smell of
this three-week-old meat

414
00:28:52,280 --> 00:28:55,080
comes from the bacteria
that form on its surface

415
00:28:55,080 --> 00:28:58,320
and start to break down the flesh.

416
00:28:58,320 --> 00:29:01,280
It's funny, it feels like
it's kind of rotting away,

417
00:29:01,280 --> 00:29:04,320
that the layer of scum's
coming up through your fingers.

418
00:29:04,320 --> 00:29:06,560
That's right.
That's just rotting away.

419
00:29:06,560 --> 00:29:12,480
For centuries, butchers could
do little about the stink that made
their rotten meat unsellable,

420
00:29:12,480 --> 00:29:16,800
until in the 1880s, a new wonder
product appeared on the market.

421
00:29:18,320 --> 00:29:20,160
Borax.

422
00:29:20,160 --> 00:29:23,160
Borax, you use it to
clean your floors these days,

423
00:29:23,160 --> 00:29:26,560
but back in the 1880s the meat
companies started to add it.

424
00:29:26,560 --> 00:29:29,840
We've got some right here,
put a little bit of magic...

425
00:29:29,840 --> 00:29:32,040
We're adding a cleaning product!
There it is.

426
00:29:32,040 --> 00:29:35,400
I suppose the key is just using it
as a kind of masking agent, right?

427
00:29:35,400 --> 00:29:39,400
That's right, you want to use it to
kill that bacteria that's there.

428
00:29:39,400 --> 00:29:42,960
When you kill the bacteria, you kill
the smells the bacteria generates.

429
00:29:42,960 --> 00:29:46,400
So you got to trick
those age-old senses

430
00:29:46,400 --> 00:29:50,280
using modern industrial methods,
and it's not going to stink.

431
00:29:52,040 --> 00:29:57,480
'Boracic acid works by killing
the bacteria that make
rotten meat stink,

432
00:29:57,480 --> 00:30:00,400
'and it's also pretty good
at disinfecting wounds,

433
00:30:00,400 --> 00:30:03,920
'killing cockroaches
and, of course, cleaning floors.'

434
00:30:03,920 --> 00:30:05,920
There it goes.

435
00:30:05,920 --> 00:30:10,600
So would this smell nicer now, then?
Well, it wouldn't smell as bad,
shouldn't smell as bad.

436
00:30:10,600 --> 00:30:12,960
What do you think?
Actually that's...much better.

437
00:30:12,960 --> 00:30:18,200
But the meat is still bad, that meat
is still going to get you sick
if you eat that meat.

438
00:30:18,200 --> 00:30:21,120
What you want to do is turn
the meat from looking like that,

439
00:30:21,120 --> 00:30:24,760
kind of old and gnarly,
to looking like this.

440
00:30:24,760 --> 00:30:28,880
'Back then, one way to give grey,
rotten meat a healthy red colour

441
00:30:28,880 --> 00:30:32,160
'was to add clothing dye
made from coal tar.'

442
00:30:32,160 --> 00:30:34,560
And this is clothes dye here?
Clothes dye, yep.

443
00:30:34,560 --> 00:30:38,440
'Which also sometimes
had a touch of arsenic in it.'

444
00:30:38,440 --> 00:30:40,360
And mix it up. Mix it up? Mix it up.

445
00:30:40,360 --> 00:30:44,160
This must just rot
in someone's gut straight out.

446
00:30:44,160 --> 00:30:49,880
'The next stage is to add
some stale bread or biscuits
to bind it all together,

447
00:30:49,880 --> 00:30:52,680
'before
pumping this chemically enhanced,

448
00:30:52,680 --> 00:30:57,560
'pulverised pork mixture
into pre-prepared pig's intestine.'

449
00:30:57,560 --> 00:31:00,480
God. Let's make some sausage.

450
00:31:00,480 --> 00:31:03,600
Just push.
A little bit of air in there,

451
00:31:03,600 --> 00:31:05,840
there is comes, there it comes.

452
00:31:05,840 --> 00:31:09,560
Oh, my goodness, that looks like a
real sausage, doesn't it? It does.

453
00:31:11,600 --> 00:31:15,840
This is the size of your Italian
sausage, and then what you'd do,

454
00:31:15,840 --> 00:31:19,360
you'd tie off the end and
you'd kind of roll it up.

455
00:31:19,360 --> 00:31:22,760
There's your sausage
in New York City, 1900.

456
00:31:22,760 --> 00:31:27,320
I know I shouldn't, but I'm actually
feeling very proud of my sausage.

457
00:31:27,320 --> 00:31:32,200
The fact that it would make
someone very sick or kill them,
well, worry about that later.

458
00:31:33,160 --> 00:31:37,400
In 1898 there were more than 25,000
food establishments in New York,

459
00:31:37,400 --> 00:31:40,720
and with just ten food
inspectors for the whole city...

460
00:31:42,720 --> 00:31:47,480
..for years,
backstreet butchers could do
pretty much as they pleased.

461
00:31:48,480 --> 00:31:52,320
It wasn't until 1906, when
journalist Upton Sinclair exposed

462
00:31:52,320 --> 00:31:56,320
the horrors of the American food
industry in his book The Jungle,

463
00:31:56,320 --> 00:32:00,480
that serious food regulations
were finally introduced.

464
00:32:02,360 --> 00:32:06,320
After that, New York became
deadly serious about food hygiene.

465
00:32:06,320 --> 00:32:11,200
They even locked up
one cook for life
for not washing her hands properly.

466
00:32:14,280 --> 00:32:16,760
TOILET FLUSHES

467
00:32:17,760 --> 00:32:24,240
For Irish immigrant Mary Mallon,
hygiene wasn't too high on
her list of priorities.

468
00:32:25,360 --> 00:32:28,480
Which was unfortunate,
because Mary was a cook.

469
00:32:31,240 --> 00:32:35,880
By not washing her hands, Mary
was unknowingly spreading typhoid.

470
00:32:35,880 --> 00:32:40,080
Its symptoms included diarrhoea
and a terrible fever.

471
00:32:41,080 --> 00:32:46,120
Mary couldn't understand why,
everywhere she worked,
people kept getting sick.

472
00:32:46,120 --> 00:32:48,720
WOMAN VOMITS

473
00:32:48,720 --> 00:32:50,760
Some even died.

474
00:32:52,560 --> 00:32:59,000
Mary had no idea that these
were on her hands. Bacteria.

475
00:32:59,000 --> 00:33:02,040
In 1882, German Robert Koch had
published his paper

476
00:33:02,040 --> 00:33:06,840
proving that these tiny
micro-organisms caused disease.

477
00:33:07,840 --> 00:33:10,640
It transformed medical science.

478
00:33:11,760 --> 00:33:14,480
This was a groundbreaking moment.

479
00:33:14,480 --> 00:33:17,560
For the first time, scientists
could actually see the enemy,

480
00:33:17,560 --> 00:33:20,360
and it also gave birth to a new
science of microbiology,

481
00:33:20,360 --> 00:33:24,600
where they
discovered how different bacteria
caused a host of different diseases.

482
00:33:29,480 --> 00:33:36,600
In 1907, New York sanitary expert
George Soper had tracked
the typhoid outbreak down to Mary.

483
00:33:36,600 --> 00:33:41,320
Suspecting she was immune
to the disease, but still carried
the bacteria,

484
00:33:41,320 --> 00:33:47,840
Soper pleaded with her to
be tested, but Mary angrily refused
and chased him off with a fork.

485
00:33:47,840 --> 00:33:49,920
STABBING VIOLIN NOTES

486
00:33:53,120 --> 00:33:57,000
Soon after a visit from the
Health Board, Mary found herself

487
00:33:57,000 --> 00:34:03,800
locked up in quarantine, where she
remained for three years, until she
promised never to be a cook again.

488
00:34:05,360 --> 00:34:08,280
Five years later there was another
typhoid outbreak.

489
00:34:08,280 --> 00:34:12,840
25 people
were infected and two died.

490
00:34:12,840 --> 00:34:16,120
Again,
it was traced back to a single cook,

491
00:34:16,120 --> 00:34:19,400
although this time
it was to a Mrs Brown.

492
00:34:20,440 --> 00:34:22,800
Mrs Mary Brown.

493
00:34:25,160 --> 00:34:27,760
Mary had reneged on her promise.

494
00:34:28,760 --> 00:34:33,440
Typhoid Mary, as she became known,
was carted off to quarantine again.

495
00:34:33,440 --> 00:34:38,120
This time they never let her out
and she died a prisoner.

496
00:34:43,360 --> 00:34:46,960
Even though science helped New York
get a handle on disease control,

497
00:34:46,960 --> 00:34:49,280
any efforts to clean up the slums

498
00:34:49,280 --> 00:34:52,560
had been quickly overwhelmed
by mammoth immigration.

499
00:34:54,080 --> 00:34:58,240
The city's population
had shot up 600% in just 50 years.

500
00:34:58,240 --> 00:35:03,120
By the 1880s, the population
of New York was 1.2 million.

501
00:35:03,120 --> 00:35:05,760
Half of them
were crammed into the slums.

502
00:35:07,760 --> 00:35:11,400
Whilst the city's rich and powerful
turned a blind eye,

503
00:35:11,400 --> 00:35:13,440
corruption and exploitation

504
00:35:13,440 --> 00:35:17,440
had become as ingrained
as the dirt itself.

505
00:35:17,440 --> 00:35:23,560
Horrified by this injustice
and poverty, one New Yorker
decided to make a stand,

506
00:35:23,560 --> 00:35:28,200
using a new tactic
to shock the entire nation,

507
00:35:28,200 --> 00:35:31,640
and force the city
to tackle its filth.

508
00:35:33,800 --> 00:35:40,600
His name was Jacob Riis, and in 1888
he became the first American
to use this, flash photography,

509
00:35:40,600 --> 00:35:44,560
to expose the true horror
of the slums as never before.

510
00:35:46,080 --> 00:35:49,560
Using a flash, Riis was the first
photographer to be able to capture

511
00:35:49,560 --> 00:35:53,440
the grim reality of life
inside the dark tenements.

512
00:35:58,000 --> 00:36:01,960
His pictures would reveal to
the nation the terrible deprivation

513
00:36:01,960 --> 00:36:05,200
suffered by many of New York's
poorest immigrants.

514
00:36:07,680 --> 00:36:12,920
As a young man,
Riis had himself lived
in many of the city's worst slums.

515
00:36:15,760 --> 00:36:19,480
Including the infamous Five Points
that he now photographed.

516
00:36:20,520 --> 00:36:24,160
And where he made his living
as a crime reporter.

517
00:36:24,160 --> 00:36:28,520
He embarked on a personal crusade
to get things changed.

518
00:36:28,520 --> 00:36:33,960
He gave a series of lectures around
New York City, shocking audiences
with his graphic slides.

519
00:36:35,560 --> 00:36:37,640
Riis saw photography as a weapon

520
00:36:37,640 --> 00:36:41,360
to fight the injustices
he saw daily in the slums.

521
00:36:44,120 --> 00:36:48,800
As his slide shows
drew more attention,
he was offered a book deal.

522
00:36:48,800 --> 00:36:52,840
In 1890, Riis published a book
called How The Other Half Lived.

523
00:36:52,840 --> 00:36:57,520
For the first time,
people could see actual images
of New York City's poor.

524
00:36:57,520 --> 00:37:00,240
Poverty now had a human face.

525
00:37:00,240 --> 00:37:03,200
This had a seismic impact
right across America

526
00:37:03,200 --> 00:37:06,960
and it brought the issue to the
attention of the rich and powerful.

527
00:37:06,960 --> 00:37:08,640
Becoming a bestseller,

528
00:37:08,640 --> 00:37:12,320
Riis's sensational book
caused a national outcry.

529
00:37:12,320 --> 00:37:15,960
A senate committee was convened
to tackle corruption

530
00:37:15,960 --> 00:37:20,640
and New York would be forced
to clean up its streets
and its politics.

531
00:37:22,640 --> 00:37:25,160
Riis' pictures had a real and
lasting impact.

532
00:37:25,160 --> 00:37:28,920
They created a groundswell of
support that enabled him eventually

533
00:37:28,920 --> 00:37:32,600
to successfully campaign for
the destruction of the Five Points.

534
00:37:32,600 --> 00:37:36,640
It galvanised city politics. People
turned against corrupt politicians,

535
00:37:36,640 --> 00:37:42,560
and in the elections of 1895
Tammany Hall finally lost
their grip on power.

536
00:37:45,800 --> 00:37:52,360
A huge clean-up followed,
as the new administration set about
ruthlessly rooting out corruption.

537
00:37:53,360 --> 00:37:56,800
Another revolution was taking place
that would eventually see

538
00:37:56,800 --> 00:38:00,800
New York's rubbish brought to
extraordinary places like this.

539
00:38:00,800 --> 00:38:05,440
Fresh from defeating yellow fever
and typhoid in the South,

540
00:38:05,440 --> 00:38:10,040
George E Waring took control
of New York sanitation departments.

541
00:38:12,160 --> 00:38:17,560
Colonel Waring, a Civil War hero,
had orders to stop New York
looking like a dump.

542
00:38:20,840 --> 00:38:24,200
For decades,
politicians and corrupt contractors

543
00:38:24,200 --> 00:38:28,160
had been taking the cash and leaving
the trash all over the streets.

544
00:38:28,160 --> 00:38:33,360
Now Waring's big clean-up began,
starting with the street cleaners
themselves.

545
00:38:35,360 --> 00:38:38,440
Dressed in their sparkling white
uniforms, Waring's men weren't

546
00:38:38,440 --> 00:38:41,680
just there to pick up rubbish,
they were there to set an example.

547
00:38:41,680 --> 00:38:44,720
They were banned from going
into bars, from swearing,

548
00:38:44,720 --> 00:38:46,800
and from being mean to their horses.

549
00:38:46,800 --> 00:38:49,240
New York had never seen
anything like it.

550
00:38:49,240 --> 00:38:51,520
Soon those nicely treated horses

551
00:38:51,520 --> 00:38:54,480
were taking tonnes of refuse
to the dump,

552
00:38:54,480 --> 00:38:57,480
as Waring's White Angels,
as they became known,

553
00:38:57,480 --> 00:38:59,920
actually
did what they were paid to do,

554
00:38:59,920 --> 00:39:03,440
and the city was
transformed from this...

555
00:39:03,440 --> 00:39:05,600
to this.

556
00:39:05,600 --> 00:39:07,360
And from this...

557
00:39:07,360 --> 00:39:08,880
to this.

558
00:39:10,600 --> 00:39:14,000
Waring was so successful
cleaning up New York City

559
00:39:14,000 --> 00:39:17,680
that the President sent him to Cuba
to sort out their sanitation.

560
00:39:17,680 --> 00:39:23,000
Sadly, just after arriving,
he contracted yellow fever
and died, but he left this world,

561
00:39:23,000 --> 00:39:25,600
and New York City in particular,

562
00:39:25,600 --> 00:39:27,240
a cleaner place.

563
00:39:31,280 --> 00:39:36,440
As the 20th century approached,
it wasn't only New York's streets
that would be transformed.

564
00:39:38,480 --> 00:39:41,560
The Industrial Revolution was
gathering pace, and famous landmarks

565
00:39:41,560 --> 00:39:45,200
like the Statue of Liberty
and the Brooklyn Bridge

566
00:39:45,200 --> 00:39:47,920
were appearing on
the city's skyline.

567
00:39:51,880 --> 00:39:55,160
Meanwhile, new railroads
and telegraph lines had

568
00:39:55,160 --> 00:39:58,520
firmly set the city at the very
heart of international trade.

569
00:40:00,880 --> 00:40:04,480
In the coming years, New York
would soon overtake London to become

570
00:40:04,480 --> 00:40:08,600
the world's wealthiest city, and
one of the most densely populated.

571
00:40:11,080 --> 00:40:17,600
So many people and so much wealth
would generate a mountain of filth.

572
00:40:17,600 --> 00:40:21,560
To survive and prosper, New York
would need to invest heavily

573
00:40:21,560 --> 00:40:23,040
in new technologies.

574
00:40:23,040 --> 00:40:25,160
And, with money to be made,

575
00:40:25,160 --> 00:40:29,000
a new breed of entrepreneur
would flock to the city.

576
00:40:29,000 --> 00:40:32,840
The New York Stock Exchange was
booming, money and trade was flowing

577
00:40:32,840 --> 00:40:36,960
into the city, the future was
looking bright for everybody.

578
00:40:36,960 --> 00:40:42,120
Well, everybody that is apart from
the guys at companies like the
Knickerbocker Gas and Light Company.

579
00:40:42,120 --> 00:40:45,680
Shares in that sector
were collapsing.

580
00:40:45,680 --> 00:40:47,440
Since the 1830s,

581
00:40:47,440 --> 00:40:51,040
New York had been lit
by a poisonous gas made from coal,

582
00:40:51,040 --> 00:40:52,960
but not for much longer.

583
00:40:53,920 --> 00:40:57,920
Thomas Edison had perfected a bright
money-making idea

584
00:40:57,920 --> 00:41:01,640
that would do away with
New York's gas lamps for good.

585
00:41:01,640 --> 00:41:03,960
The electric light bulb.

586
00:41:03,960 --> 00:41:06,240
CHEERING

587
00:41:11,880 --> 00:41:15,440
Edison argued that
gas lamps were a pain to light...

588
00:41:15,440 --> 00:41:17,440
LAUGHTER

589
00:41:18,440 --> 00:41:20,920
..the gas was poisonous...

590
00:41:20,920 --> 00:41:24,000
the fumes were noxious...

591
00:41:24,000 --> 00:41:27,200
they left this horrible
black staining...

592
00:41:27,200 --> 00:41:28,760
LAUGHTER

593
00:41:30,320 --> 00:41:32,080
..and sometimes...

594
00:41:32,080 --> 00:41:33,480
they blew up.

595
00:41:33,480 --> 00:41:35,120
All of which was true.

596
00:41:35,120 --> 00:41:40,800
And, because Edison's light bulbs
had no such problems, they were
a much better way to light New York.

597
00:41:41,920 --> 00:41:46,400
And, to power them,
in 1882 Edison built this.

598
00:41:46,400 --> 00:41:49,360
The world's first commercial
power station,

599
00:41:49,360 --> 00:41:51,520
sited just here off Wall Street,

600
00:41:51,520 --> 00:41:53,800
burning tonnes and tonnes of coal,

601
00:41:53,800 --> 00:41:57,440
not to produce gas, but
electricity to light up New York.

602
00:41:57,440 --> 00:41:59,520
Edison knew his power station,

603
00:41:59,520 --> 00:42:02,680
belching out black smoke
in the heart of the city,

604
00:42:02,680 --> 00:42:05,920
could only send electricity
a few short blocks.

605
00:42:05,920 --> 00:42:09,640
To illuminate the whole of New York,
he would need a lot of

606
00:42:09,640 --> 00:42:13,240
power stations and a lot of
investment from Wall Street.

607
00:42:14,760 --> 00:42:19,520
Edison threw the switch
at 3pm on 4th September 1882...

608
00:42:22,960 --> 00:42:25,960
..and illuminated a square mile
of New York,

609
00:42:25,960 --> 00:42:29,960
thus beginning the city's
love affair with bright lights.

610
00:42:31,560 --> 00:42:34,280
Edison lit up
Broadway and Wall Street.

611
00:42:34,280 --> 00:42:39,240
His plans for world domination
looked to be continuing apace,
but at his moment of triumph

612
00:42:39,240 --> 00:42:45,600
a rival turned up, a man called
Nikola Tesla, who had an alternative
system for distributing electricity,

613
00:42:45,600 --> 00:42:47,600
and he was looking for investors.

614
00:42:47,600 --> 00:42:49,840
Edison squared up for a fight.

615
00:42:53,440 --> 00:42:55,400
Edison was on the back foot.

616
00:42:55,400 --> 00:42:57,920
His direct current system, DC power,

617
00:42:57,920 --> 00:43:02,240
had a very short range, and to make
it work he would need Wall Street

618
00:43:02,240 --> 00:43:08,480
to agree to fund the building of
hundreds of filthy, coal-burning
power stations, all over New York.

619
00:43:08,480 --> 00:43:12,440
Tesla, who had made his name
with this, the Tesla Coil,

620
00:43:12,440 --> 00:43:17,600
knew he was on to a winner promoting
the alternating current system,
AC power.

621
00:43:17,600 --> 00:43:23,000
The advantage of Tesla's system
was that it could send
electricity hundreds of miles,

622
00:43:23,000 --> 00:43:26,720
which meant all those dirty
coal-fired power stations could be

623
00:43:26,720 --> 00:43:28,400
in someone else's back yard.

624
00:43:28,400 --> 00:43:30,240
CHEERING

625
00:43:34,080 --> 00:43:40,680
New York was far too big a prize
to lose, and Edison
set out to smear AC power.

626
00:43:42,760 --> 00:43:47,480
To demonstrate how dangerous it was,
Edison's company began
manufacturing...

627
00:43:47,480 --> 00:43:50,920
MAN SCREAMS
..AC-powered electric chairs.

628
00:43:53,760 --> 00:44:01,240
Then, in 1903, Edison's company
infamously used AC power to execute
Topsy the elephant on Coney Island.

629
00:44:03,280 --> 00:44:10,680
To this day, no-one's certain why,
because the battle had been lost
and Tesla had already won.

630
00:44:10,680 --> 00:44:15,240
New York's battle of the currents
would have far-reaching
consequences.

631
00:44:15,240 --> 00:44:17,000
Soon, not just New York

632
00:44:17,000 --> 00:44:21,360
but virtually every city
in the world adopted AC power,

633
00:44:21,360 --> 00:44:26,640
precisely because it could be
generated in dirty power stations
that were built far, far away.

634
00:44:34,440 --> 00:44:38,960
Electricity would have a massive
impact on the lives of New Yorkers,

635
00:44:38,960 --> 00:44:44,560
and at the start of the 20th
century the city was poised to
embrace a new technological age.

636
00:44:45,560 --> 00:44:50,480
But it hadn't quite turned the tide
against its 19th-century filth.

637
00:44:53,800 --> 00:44:58,600
And here, on Coney Island,
where New Yorkers came to play
in the hot summer months,

638
00:44:58,600 --> 00:45:04,280
a stark reminder
of the city's dirty past
began washing up on the beaches.

639
00:45:04,280 --> 00:45:09,920
Nothing, apart from Jaws,
gets Americans out of the water
faster than raw excrement.

640
00:45:09,920 --> 00:45:12,680
Ever since the beginnings of
New York, New Yorkers had been

641
00:45:12,680 --> 00:45:17,400
pouring their waste into the Hudson
and the East River and had been
polluting New York Harbour here.

642
00:45:17,400 --> 00:45:23,440
That meant, by the end of
the 19th century, Manhattan was
an island floating in its own filth.

643
00:45:23,440 --> 00:45:28,960
The city had built
a few sewage treatment plants,
but they were regularly overwhelmed

644
00:45:28,960 --> 00:45:31,560
by the waste from so many people

645
00:45:31,560 --> 00:45:36,240
and often the sewers would empty
straight into New York's rivers.

646
00:45:36,240 --> 00:45:42,040
New York realised it had to build
a lot more of these - sewage works.

647
00:45:43,080 --> 00:45:46,840
This is the Newtown Creek
Wastewater Treatment Plant,

648
00:45:46,840 --> 00:45:48,960
worth 5 billion.

649
00:45:49,920 --> 00:45:54,920
Its sole job is to remove everything
1.1 million New Yorkers

650
00:45:54,920 --> 00:45:57,000
put down their toilets and drains,

651
00:45:57,000 --> 00:46:02,480
and return clean, treated water
back into the East River.

652
00:46:02,480 --> 00:46:05,960
And this is where the filthy
raw sewage first comes in.

653
00:46:05,960 --> 00:46:07,840
Whoa, that's raw sewage?

654
00:46:07,840 --> 00:46:08,960
That's raw sewage.

655
00:46:08,960 --> 00:46:12,680
It's actually coming in
at a very, very high speed.

656
00:46:12,680 --> 00:46:14,080
I'm nervous to breathe in,

657
00:46:14,080 --> 00:46:17,120
I don't want to get any of those
particles in my nose. Wow.

658
00:46:17,120 --> 00:46:19,600
And how much is floating
through there now?

659
00:46:19,600 --> 00:46:23,880
Approximately, each one
of these channels can manage
110 million gallons a day.

660
00:46:23,880 --> 00:46:27,840
The first step
is to filter out the big stuff.

661
00:46:27,840 --> 00:46:30,680
Every day, these rakes
pull out over six tonnes

662
00:46:30,680 --> 00:46:32,880
of things the plant can't process -

663
00:46:32,880 --> 00:46:37,000
everything from
loo paper and condoms,
to mobile phones and cameras.

664
00:46:37,000 --> 00:46:40,800
The material from downstairs
is now being raised up.

665
00:46:40,800 --> 00:46:43,360
Oh, man, that's disgusting.

666
00:46:43,360 --> 00:46:45,960
Yeah, that's it.
There was a bit of a splash there.

667
00:46:45,960 --> 00:46:47,480
That's New York's best(!)

668
00:46:49,040 --> 00:46:53,240
Raking out the rubbish
is the easy part.

669
00:46:53,240 --> 00:46:57,680
Most of this massive 52-acre site
is devoted to the next stage -

670
00:46:57,680 --> 00:46:59,960
removing all
the really revolting stuff

671
00:46:59,960 --> 00:47:03,920
like urine, blood and excrement
from the waste water.

672
00:47:03,920 --> 00:47:07,440
And it's all done using
microbiology, air and gravity.

673
00:47:07,440 --> 00:47:09,320
What is in here?

674
00:47:09,320 --> 00:47:13,240
This is where the magic takes place,
this is the biological reactor.

675
00:47:13,240 --> 00:47:16,600
This is where the waste water,
the microorganisms and the air

676
00:47:16,600 --> 00:47:18,680
come together
for a three-hour period.

677
00:47:18,680 --> 00:47:21,960
This amazing process
was brought to New York

678
00:47:21,960 --> 00:47:27,000
by sanitary engineer
Richard H Gould.

679
00:47:27,000 --> 00:47:30,720
Gould could see the problem
facing New York's sewage plants,

680
00:47:30,720 --> 00:47:34,440
centred around the fact that
human waste mixed easily with water.

681
00:47:36,040 --> 00:47:38,760
In the late 1920s,
he presented his colleagues

682
00:47:38,760 --> 00:47:44,160
with a revolutionary solution
from Britain - activated sludge.

683
00:47:44,160 --> 00:47:47,760
Full of the bacteria
found in the human gut,

684
00:47:47,760 --> 00:47:53,920
when activated sludge is added to
sewage, it begins to eat the waste.

685
00:47:53,920 --> 00:47:57,600
The bacteria take around
three weeks to finish the job,

686
00:47:57,600 --> 00:48:00,600
but Gould explained that
by adding air,

687
00:48:00,600 --> 00:48:04,200
the process could be shortened
to just six hours.

688
00:48:04,200 --> 00:48:08,920
The real magic of the process
relied on gravity.

689
00:48:08,920 --> 00:48:11,160
Once the bacteria
devoured all the waste,

690
00:48:11,160 --> 00:48:13,440
they became heavier,
sinking to the bottom

691
00:48:13,440 --> 00:48:18,080
and allowing the clean water
to be easily separated.

692
00:48:20,000 --> 00:48:23,480
Gould revolutionised
New York's sewage treatment system.

693
00:48:23,480 --> 00:48:26,040
Today this plant
is just one of 14

694
00:48:26,040 --> 00:48:30,400
needed to process
the 475 billion gallons of sewage

695
00:48:30,400 --> 00:48:33,400
New York produces every year.

696
00:48:33,400 --> 00:48:37,000
What a fantastic view of Manhattan,
but it feels appropriate, right,

697
00:48:37,000 --> 00:48:40,000
because without this place,
that place would not exist.

698
00:48:40,000 --> 00:48:42,520
Yeah, that's the iconic styling
of Manhattan.

699
00:48:42,520 --> 00:48:44,440
That's where our customers are.

700
00:48:44,440 --> 00:48:49,040
It probably wouldn't be
the island it is if it wasn't for
the waste water treatment plants.

701
00:48:52,840 --> 00:48:57,040
While the city became ever more
reliant on science and technology

702
00:48:57,040 --> 00:48:59,600
to clean up
after its human population,

703
00:48:59,600 --> 00:49:04,240
on the streets there remained
another major source of excrement...

704
00:49:05,280 --> 00:49:06,800
Horses.

705
00:49:08,840 --> 00:49:12,520
Throughout most of the 19th century,
New York's industrial expansion

706
00:49:12,520 --> 00:49:18,160
had relied on horses to move pretty
much everything around the city.

707
00:49:18,160 --> 00:49:21,600
Trouble was, they left behind
a mountain of manure.

708
00:49:22,560 --> 00:49:25,600
In the late 19th century,
there were 200,000 horses

709
00:49:25,600 --> 00:49:27,440
on the streets of New York City.

710
00:49:27,440 --> 00:49:31,960
And every year, they produced
over 400,000 tonnes of manure.

711
00:49:31,960 --> 00:49:35,600
Getting rid of all that waste was
the holy grail, and as a result,

712
00:49:35,600 --> 00:49:38,600
two fundamentally different types
of automobile

713
00:49:38,600 --> 00:49:43,040
were vying with each other
to supersede those filthy horses.

714
00:49:47,280 --> 00:49:50,080
Watch out, everyone, coming through.

715
00:49:50,080 --> 00:49:52,080
On one side was the electric car.

716
00:49:52,080 --> 00:49:55,600
The amazing thing is this an
electric car, which is the future,

717
00:49:55,600 --> 00:49:59,720
and yet it's 100 years old. This is
really going back to the future.

718
00:50:00,720 --> 00:50:05,760
The Detroit Electric, built in 1918,
and now worth more than 100,000,

719
00:50:05,760 --> 00:50:10,120
is one of the oldest electric cars
still on the road in America.

720
00:50:10,120 --> 00:50:11,320
This is fantastic.

721
00:50:11,320 --> 00:50:15,480
Watch out, dude, I don't want to run
you over in my vintage vehicle.

722
00:50:15,480 --> 00:50:17,240
At the end of the 19th century,

723
00:50:17,240 --> 00:50:19,440
there were hundreds
of electric cars,

724
00:50:19,440 --> 00:50:22,480
fighting it out with
their petrol-engined rivals

725
00:50:22,480 --> 00:50:25,560
to win market dominance
on the streets of New York.

726
00:50:25,560 --> 00:50:27,160
Bringing her round.

727
00:50:28,480 --> 00:50:30,480
HORN HONKS

728
00:50:30,480 --> 00:50:34,080
Ooh, urgh, come on.

729
00:50:36,080 --> 00:50:40,000
This is the coolest vehicle
I have ever driven in my life.

730
00:50:40,000 --> 00:50:42,200
Electric cars were not only cool,

731
00:50:42,200 --> 00:50:45,280
they produced little noise
and no emissions.

732
00:50:45,280 --> 00:50:47,880
But compared to
their main competitor,

733
00:50:47,880 --> 00:50:50,600
electric cars
had one major drawback.

734
00:50:51,560 --> 00:50:55,840
It was a pretty good car, the
trouble was it didn't go that far.

735
00:50:55,840 --> 00:50:59,120
The fate of the electric car
was sealed in 1908

736
00:50:59,120 --> 00:51:03,680
when Mr Henry Ford launched this,
the famous Model T.

737
00:51:03,680 --> 00:51:07,320
Now, this would have a profound
effect on the lives of New Yorkers,

738
00:51:07,320 --> 00:51:09,000
if they could get it started.

739
00:51:10,920 --> 00:51:14,960
It may have taken some effort to
get its petrol engine started...

740
00:51:14,960 --> 00:51:17,400
Watch out. Very good, excellent.

741
00:51:17,400 --> 00:51:18,960
ENGINE CHUGS

742
00:51:18,960 --> 00:51:22,080
..but the mass-produced
Model T Ford

743
00:51:22,080 --> 00:51:26,160
undercut its cheapest competitor
by a third.

744
00:51:26,160 --> 00:51:28,040
Take your foot off the brake.

745
00:51:28,040 --> 00:51:33,280
And one could have been yours
to drive away for just 825.

746
00:51:33,280 --> 00:51:36,000
There you go, we're doing good.

747
00:51:36,000 --> 00:51:39,800
It doesn't have power steering,
does it? No, no power steering, no.

748
00:51:39,800 --> 00:51:42,840
Woo-hoo!
There we go, we're rolling now.

749
00:51:43,600 --> 00:51:46,840
So what effect did this have
on cities like New York?

750
00:51:46,840 --> 00:51:48,840
It must have been a revolution.

751
00:51:48,840 --> 00:51:52,200
Yeah, tremendous,
tremendous change took place.

752
00:51:52,200 --> 00:51:56,120
Before, these streets that we're
driving down right now were filthy,

753
00:51:56,120 --> 00:51:59,520
you know, they had thousands,
tens of thousands of horses

754
00:51:59,520 --> 00:52:03,800
and of course, they went to
the bathroom all over the streets,

755
00:52:03,800 --> 00:52:04,920
so it was a mess.

756
00:52:04,920 --> 00:52:07,000
I'd say 90% of the horses

757
00:52:07,000 --> 00:52:12,400
were eliminated within about
five years of the automobile.

758
00:52:12,400 --> 00:52:16,360
Wow. That's a revolution, isn't it?
It is a real revolution.

759
00:52:16,360 --> 00:52:19,400
As mass-produced cars
were revolutionising the way

760
00:52:19,400 --> 00:52:22,040
that New Yorkers
got around the city,

761
00:52:22,040 --> 00:52:24,720
another revolution
of mass production

762
00:52:24,720 --> 00:52:27,200
was taking place in their homes.

763
00:52:29,520 --> 00:52:32,600
And housework
would never be the same again.

764
00:52:41,680 --> 00:52:47,520
In the 1920s, door-to-door salesmen
started selling this, the Hoover.

765
00:52:47,520 --> 00:52:50,880
The tagline was, "It beats
as it sweeps as it cleans."

766
00:52:56,640 --> 00:53:00,800
Round about the same time,
Edison's General Electric Company
launched this,

767
00:53:00,800 --> 00:53:05,560
the world's first mass-produced
consumer refrigerator,

768
00:53:05,560 --> 00:53:09,240
with the tagline,
"Makes it safe to be hungry."

769
00:53:09,240 --> 00:53:14,400
Like every great marketing campaign,
this one had a memorable jingle.

770
00:53:14,400 --> 00:53:16,560
JAUNTY PIANO

771
00:53:16,560 --> 00:53:21,720

it's everywhere...

772
00:53:21,720 --> 00:53:26,000
In the 1920s, fridges and cars
became potent symbols

773
00:53:26,000 --> 00:53:29,760
of a new, clean,
technologically-driven
American dream.

774
00:53:29,760 --> 00:53:34,040
New York was swept
by a tidal wave of consumerism,

775
00:53:34,040 --> 00:53:39,240
as mass production made them
ever more affordable for everybody.

776
00:53:39,240 --> 00:53:44,760
But it soon became apparent
this progress came at a price.

777
00:53:44,760 --> 00:53:47,560
Not only were the streets
soon jammed with cars,

778
00:53:47,560 --> 00:53:52,400
there was another drawback
to driving a Model T
in New York traffic.

779
00:53:54,720 --> 00:53:57,000
A big problem with these early
motor cars

780
00:53:57,000 --> 00:54:00,800
is the engines kept stuttering -
or pinking, as they called it.

781
00:54:01,640 --> 00:54:05,840
It was because the petrol
was actually burning too well
in the engine.

782
00:54:05,840 --> 00:54:09,720
So in 1920, the chemical engineer
Thomas Midgley Jnr

783
00:54:09,720 --> 00:54:12,560
set out to try
and find an alternative.

784
00:54:17,480 --> 00:54:22,800
Midgley needed to find a way
to make petrol less flammable.

785
00:54:22,800 --> 00:54:26,200
So he began working his way
through the elements

786
00:54:26,200 --> 00:54:28,800
to see which one
would do the job.

787
00:54:28,800 --> 00:54:31,600
Eventually,
he hit upon the solution.

788
00:54:33,280 --> 00:54:35,360
And here it is...

789
00:54:35,360 --> 00:54:36,880
lead.

790
00:54:36,880 --> 00:54:39,800
He'd only gone and just invented
leaded petrol.

791
00:54:42,080 --> 00:54:45,480
Realising deadly lead
might be a bit of a hard sell,

792
00:54:45,480 --> 00:54:49,360
Midgley launched his new additive
under the name of ethyl

793
00:54:49,360 --> 00:54:53,160
and took big whiffs of it
to prove it was safe.

794
00:54:55,600 --> 00:54:57,400
MAN VOMITS

795
00:54:58,640 --> 00:55:02,400
Not long after, Midgley ended up
with lead poisoning,

796
00:55:02,400 --> 00:55:05,600
and had to spend a year
in Florida recovering.

797
00:55:08,040 --> 00:55:13,040
It turned out that lead doesn't
actually burn in a car's engine,

798
00:55:13,040 --> 00:55:17,440
it comes straight out of the
exhaust, polluting the atmosphere.

799
00:55:17,440 --> 00:55:21,440
Yet amazingly, even though there
were soon unleaded alternatives...

800
00:55:22,880 --> 00:55:25,400
..because the oil companies
owned the patent,

801
00:55:25,400 --> 00:55:29,200
leaded became the standard
for most of the 20th century,

802
00:55:29,200 --> 00:55:33,520
and it wasn't banned in New York
until 1996.

803
00:55:36,200 --> 00:55:38,200
Midgley had done his bit to ensure

804
00:55:38,200 --> 00:55:41,120
that the smog that would come
to plague the 20th century

805
00:55:41,120 --> 00:55:44,840
would be that little bit more
noxious. But he wasn't finished yet.

806
00:55:44,840 --> 00:55:49,280
Next, this genius
turned his attention to fridges.

807
00:55:52,960 --> 00:55:56,480
Midgley knew there was a very
obvious problem with early fridges.

808
00:55:59,200 --> 00:56:02,440
The gas used to make them cool
would sometimes catch fire

809
00:56:02,440 --> 00:56:04,200
and occasionally...

810
00:56:06,000 --> 00:56:07,600
..explode.

811
00:56:07,600 --> 00:56:09,200
A bit of a problem.

812
00:56:09,200 --> 00:56:12,680
So Midgley set about
searching for a gas that didn't.

813
00:56:14,200 --> 00:56:18,600
He came up with another
brilliant idea, Freon,

814
00:56:18,600 --> 00:56:24,000
the world's first chlorofluorocarbon
- otherwise known as a CFC.

815
00:56:24,000 --> 00:56:25,560
Midgley didn't realise it,

816
00:56:25,560 --> 00:56:29,440
but he'd invented a gas that would
decimate the world's ozone layer.

817
00:56:33,800 --> 00:56:38,000
In the space of ten years,
Thomas Midgley had managed to create

818
00:56:38,000 --> 00:56:42,040
two of the most environmentally
deadly pollutants in history,

819
00:56:42,040 --> 00:56:44,760
leaded petrol and CFCs.

820
00:56:45,720 --> 00:56:48,800
And with New York's growing appetite
for fridges and cars,

821
00:56:48,800 --> 00:56:53,440
the world's largest city
was set to become one
of its biggest pollutants.

822
00:56:56,120 --> 00:56:58,920
New York's population,
wealth, traffic,

823
00:56:58,920 --> 00:57:01,400
power consumption and its pollution

824
00:57:01,400 --> 00:57:05,440
would all continue to rise
throughout the 20th century.

825
00:57:07,800 --> 00:57:13,040
Only now are we coming to terms with
the vast amounts of unseen filth

826
00:57:13,040 --> 00:57:15,200
our modern cities create.

827
00:57:20,400 --> 00:57:22,360
Many of the technological solutions

828
00:57:22,360 --> 00:57:25,080
that transformed New York City
in the 19th century

829
00:57:25,080 --> 00:57:28,040
produced waste
that has blighted the 21st.

830
00:57:28,040 --> 00:57:32,560
Every 15 minutes, New York produces
enough greenhouse gases

831
00:57:32,560 --> 00:57:35,720
to fill
the entire Empire State Building.

832
00:57:35,720 --> 00:57:40,600
That's 58 million tonnes a year,
or seven tonnes per person per year.

833
00:57:40,600 --> 00:57:43,280
And of course,
those gases cannot be confined

834
00:57:43,280 --> 00:57:47,280
to the city that created them.
Now it's a truly global problem.

835
00:57:50,160 --> 00:57:56,000
Our cities
have always teetered on the edge of
being destroyed by their own filth.

836
00:57:56,000 --> 00:57:57,400
Through the centuries,

837
00:57:57,400 --> 00:58:00,800
we've developed more sophisticated
ways of dealing with waste.

838
00:58:00,800 --> 00:58:05,000
Our battle against our
filth has given us laws,
governments and inventions

839
00:58:05,000 --> 00:58:09,520
that have allowed millions of us
to live together in vast cities,

840
00:58:09,520 --> 00:58:12,560
of which New York
is the ultimate example.

841
00:58:15,080 --> 00:58:17,080
But that struggle is far from over.

842
00:58:17,080 --> 00:58:19,640
This glamorous city
with its glittering skyline

843
00:58:19,640 --> 00:58:23,360
would drown in its own sewage
and rubbish in a matter of days

844
00:58:23,360 --> 00:58:26,960
if its complex waste-disposal
mechanisms broke down.

845
00:58:26,960 --> 00:58:31,240
Our battle against our filth
will never be over.

846
00:58:42,880 --> 00:58:45,760
Subtitles by Red Bee Media

847
00:58:45,760 --> 00:58:48,920
E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk