The straight poop

Photo: Milstein Division of United States History, Local History & Genealogy, The New York Public Library

Disease

Feeling sniffly? Poor you. In the 1800s, cholera, yellow fever and malaria weren’t uncommon in New York, according to David Rosner, a history professor at Columbia University. Part of the reason: trash, which piled up in NYC streets (apparently, the garbage can had not yet been invented). The close-to-200,000 horses in the city also contributed to the mess—used for transportation, each one created 24 pounds of manure a day, and when the beasts died, they’d be left on the streets to decompose. Pigs also roamed Fifth Avenue. As for all that poop: You’d dig a hole and bury it—along with your own mess. Sewers weren’t created until the 1850s.

Water

In the 1700s, Collect Pond in lower Manhattan was filled with fish and drinking water. By 1811 it was drained and filled over, thanks to contamination from tanneries and gunsmiths. That’s why we soon looked north—to Westchester—and built an aqueduct to carry water from the Croton River, part of a consolidated system that fills your Brita today.

Lead Paint

In NYC, there was a ban on lead paint in residential homes starting in 1960, but if you’re renting a place built after that time, don’t breathe too easily. The Times reported that although the stuff was prohibited in the city, contractors from outside may have slopped some in. In 1966, New York’s highest court declared that childhood lead poisoning was perhaps “the most significant environmental disease in New York.”

Air Quality

Congress passed the Clean Air Act in 1963, and in 1970 it added an extension making the Environmental Protection Agency responsible for airborne contaminates. The laws had to be enacted by 1975, but major cities like New York got more time because of all the transit.

Amendments are constantly written into the Clean Air Act to drop the amount of pollutants we breathe. Some significant changes occurred in 1977, 1990, 1996 and 2005. New research shows considerably lower unhealthy levels of nitrogen, sulfur, lead and carbon monoxide.

Lastly, in 2003, the Clean Indoor Air Act was created in New York City, which meant saying good-bye to smoking in bars, restaurants and workplaces. Sadly, having a ring tone featuring the Mario Bros. theme is still completely legal.