<p>We have water towers around here, and they are in use to hold water. We are on well, and no other option for the school campus.</p>
<p>10,000 or more water towers in use in Manhattan alone: [Water</a> towers: NYC’s misunderstood icons - am New York](<a href=“http://www.amny.com/urbanite-1.812039/water-towers-nyc-s-misunderstood-icons-1.1143133]Water”>http://www.amny.com/urbanite-1.812039/water-towers-nyc-s-misunderstood-icons-1.1143133)</p>
<p>Once you start looking for them, you realize water towers and high-level water storage tanks are EVERYWHERE.</p>
<p>Fallgirl…95 south of the beltway, Prince William county (still NOVA) and beyond you will see quite a few water towers.</p>
<p>I can see a water tower from my home. It’s a place where Odessagirl tried to sound out the “F” word that was painted on it.</p>
<p>
They are not there to be cute or scenic. They are very expensive to build (my husband is looking into the costs of a new one for our rural water district) and many water districts that use them are non profit organizations that are more concerned with providing water to their customers than with making the water towers picturesque. The last thing my husband and the other volunteers that run our water district are worried about is whether the water tower is cute. They have a ton of other things to work on. There is one paid employee in our district who does all the repairs and he is kept pretty busy (works for 2-3 different districts). The rest are all volunteers dealing with a huge responsibility and lots of laws.</p>
<p>Our water tower is in a little fenced off field with a building they use for meetings (and elections at that time of year). The building used to be a one room school house many years ago.</p>
<p>I was born and raised in the S.F. bay area of CA but when traveling throughout the central valley of CA they can be seen everywhere!</p>
<p>Is there a difference between the iconic watertowers of rural America (“Gaffney, Peach Capital of the World”) and the structures that were common place in the urban centers?</p>
<p>*Quote:
They are cute to see…kind of like lighthouses on the coast…it’s unfortunate when some aren’t well-maintained and look rusty/unpainted… </p>
<p>==================== </p>
<p>They are not there to be cute or scenic*</p>
<p>Whoa… Lighthouses aren’t there to be cute or scenic either, but they can be… and, many water towers can be, too. It doesn’t diminish their purpose.</p>
<p>Some communities do really interesting “art” on their towers. Either school, town, or sport team related. They can look nicer. </p>
<p>Anyone seen any of the new cell towers that are supposed to look like pine trees? Talk about ugly.</p>
<p>Those pine tree cell towers are really ugly after they’ve faded in the sun to some bluish grey not found in nature color. </p>
<p>However, the palm tree cell towers that are common in LA are kind of cute.</p>
<p>Water towers serve similar purposes, the water towers on city buildings have water pumped up to them and that allows them to create the water pressure in the building, using the energy gravity imparts on the water. Without that, it would be very complicated to use pumps to maintain pressure in the building from the street water supply, especially in taller buildings (least that is my understanding), and they also act as a kind of pressure regulator, street water pressure can fluctuate, the water tank kind of insulates that. </p>
<p>Water towers in more rural areas help create pressure in the town water supply, water is pumped to the top and it then pressurizes the entire system, instead of having a bunch of pumping stations in the system, single point of maintenance (or maybe a couple). </p>
<p>I believe the NYC water supply system itself doesn’t use any water towers, water delivery and pressure is entirely gravity feed, the system starts in the Catskill mountains and comes down through a series of pipelines and intermediate reservoirs, and it is still all gravity feed I believe from there to the city. Pretty amazing, considering the scope of the system.</p>
<p>The pine tree ones I have seen, even not faded, look silly. Taller than the rest, and fashioned after a tree not found in nature. More like a train garden pine tree on steriods. Never seen a palm tree one, but how in the world are they tall enough for the signals?</p>
<p>We have them in NJ; there are 2 in the nearby borough that has “town” water.</p>
<p>Water district eracted a HUGE tower/tank almost next to our house. Its for emergency use, like fighting forest fire.</p>
<p>I think every NYC building over (hmm 10 stories?) has a tank. Some are very nicely disguised. Yes, gravity would supply water at ground level, but the taller builders have towers (maybe the really fancy new ones have their own pumps)</p>
<p>[factoid]</p>
<p>The tallest one (although, really a sphere not a tower) in the US (AFAIK of course) is 5 minutes away from me in Union, NJ.</p>
<p>[/factoid]</p>