My Life and Times

November 19, 2004THE CITY LIFE
The Sinister Sound of Water in the NightBy BRENT STAPLES
he Brooklyn neighborhoods that lie just across the harbor from Lower Manhattan were laid out well before the Civil War. The 19th-century row houses so often featured in guidebooks have been kept new through constant renovation. But the ancient pipes, sewers and water mains that run beneath the surrounding streets are another matter. Cranky and ancient, they often wreak havoc when the city digs down to repair them.
My block has experienced many soggy nights since the city graced us with a new sewer line two years ago. As the earth moved and the pavement sank, ruinous pressure was put on the pipes that connected individual homes to the city's water main. The breaks - most of them repaired at the homeowners' expense - began while the contractors were still at work and accelerated after the trench was closed and the crew disappeared. Recently, my water pipe became the eighth to pop like a balloon.
I was still in my bathrobe on a Saturday morning when an impatient New York City inspector arrived at the front door. Water was pouring into a neighbor's basement, he said, and it seemed to be coming from the line that connected my house to the city's water main. We rushed to the basement, and he placed his ear to the water line.
"Man, this line is screamin','' he said. "I hate to tell you this, but your water line is broken."
The inspector explained that leaks skipped around in maddening ways underground. The water pressure pushed my leak uphill to the west, invading the basement next door. Downhill, on the east side, the rushing water skipped seven houses but crept into the eighth through the underground conduits that carry power lines.
My water line cost $3,000 to replace. I had three business days to do it, the inspector said, or the city could shut off the water. The Yellow Pages offered false hope. I stopped dialing after the companies that promise "emergency service, seven days a week, 24 hours a day" told me unapologetically that they didn't work weekends.
When a crew finally arrived on Monday, the water was percolating up through the pavement and rushing in torrents down the street. The workers used jackhammers to break through the pavement, dug down five feet and yanked out a lead pipe, much like the ones in the ruins of Pompeii.
Watching the crew work, it occurred to me that plumbing had changed little since the Romans - that water is impervious to the technologies that permit us to manipulate information and electricity. If you're looking for leaks, you do what that city inspector did: put your ear to the pipes and try to guess from the noise where the trouble lies.
The theory that the broken pipe makes the loudest noise worked fine at my house. But the leaks have sometimes mocked the inspectors, causing the crews to dig trench after trench for days before finding the problem.
Mercifully, the pipe at my house took only a day to fix. But my heart sank when a water worker told me that situations like the one on my block sometimes ended with every single water line needing to be dug up and replaced. With eight lines down and dozens to go, we will keep pumps, mops and buckets at the ready - and our ears peeled for that sinister burble of water in the night.
BRENT STAPLES
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