A Watershed Moment: Celebrating the Homecoming of The Relief Map of the New York City Water Supply System

On permanent display

Installation view of the Watershed Relief Map.

In 1937, New York City was in preparation for the 1939’s World’s Fair, the first of two in Flushing Meadows Corona Park. To celebrate the immense and intricate inner-workings of the City, various agencies were invited to produce exhibitions for the New York City Pavilion (now the Queens Museum of Art (QMA)). The Board of Water Supply commissioned the Cartographic Survey Force of the Works Progress Administration to create a magnificent scale model of the New York City watershed, a relief map measuring almost 700 square feet and weighing 10,000 pounds. Tracing the City’s water supply system from the outermost, upstream tributaries of the Delaware River to sea level at the Nassau County line, the watershed model identified the various aqueducts, water shafts and drainage basins that feed the City’s water supply.

The Relief Map of the New York City Water Supply System (detail).

Due to space limitations within the New York City Pavilion, the model was never exhibited in its entirety. After nearly 70 years in storage, the 27 completed panels were in desperate need of conservation. Through a collaboration between The Queens Museum of Art and the Department of Environmental Protection, the plaster and wood relief map was sent to McKay Lodge Fine Arts Conservation Lab in Oberlin, Ohio for treatment. In time for its 70th anniversary, the model has been restored to its original brilliance and returns to its intended home in the New York City Building where it will remain on long-term loan. In celebration, QMA and DEP will commemorate this momentous homecoming with an exhibition featuring the model, historical documentation, and contemporary photographs of the New York City watershed.

Funding Credits
Conservation of the New York City Watershed Model was executed by McKay Lodge Conservation Laboratory, Inc., Oberlin, OH.
Funding for the conservation was provided by the New York City Department of Environmental Protection through the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.