Why Roosevelt Island Has a Secret Network of Underground Tubes00:14:09

On a narrow strip of land in New York Citys East River, garbage trucks have never been needed. Beneath the streets of Roosevelt Island, 20-inch steel tubes carry thousands of tons of residential waste each year at up to 60 miles per hour to a central collection facility completely out of sight. It is one of only two systems of its kind in the entire United States. The other is at Walt Disney World.

But how did this island which spent most of its history as New Yorks dumping ground for prisons, asylums, and hospitals end up with the most advanced residential waste system in the country? The answer involves a 1960s garbage crisis, a visionary plan for a car-free community, a Swedish hospital engineer who asked the right question, and 50 years of underground engineering that most New Yorkers have never heard of.

This is the story of Roosevelt Islands Automated Vacuum Collection system and the forgotten history of the island beneath it.



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