Cool Course: New York Underground

Katie Schneider Paolantonio is a cave biologist by training—someone who’s always been curious about the ecology of dark, hidden places, and the creatures who live there. 

Shortly after she joined the faculty of NYU’s biology department, someone asked whether city life had left her missing field work. Would she ever return to caves? 

“Actually,” Schneider Paolantonio replied, “In New York City, you already have this fantastic underground network of systems—gas mains, subways, sewer lines, and water pipes.”

That realization became the genesis of her undergrad course “New York Underground,” an experiential learning class that focuses on the three types of underground infrastructure that New Yorkers depend on each day: energy, transportation, and water. 

“I think students are often quite surprised to realize that it’s relatively recent that these systems were put into place,” says Schneider Paolantonio, a clinical professor of biology. “New York City got drinking water in 1842, and subways in 1904.”   

Through hands-on data collection, visits to the city’s constructed cave equivalents, and guest lectures from industry leaders, students learn how these systems came to be and what threats they face today, from aging infrastructure and urban population growth to climate change.

When studying energy and conservation, students team up and use a handheld infrared camera to visualize the draftiness of buildings—for instance, how much energy is lost from a building using a regular door versus a revolving door. (They can even earn extra credit by writing a letter to the NYU Office of Sustainability with their findings.)

For real-world lessons on transportation, students descend into New York City subway stations to take readings, and have worked with the MTA to study environmental factors such as noise pollution and air quality. 

The class unit on the city’s water infrastructure includes a visit to the Newtown Creek Wastewater Resource Recovery Facility in Brooklyn, the largest of the city’s 14 treatment plants that are collectively responsible for processing 1.3 billion gallons of wastewater each day. There, students learn how water from shower drains, flushed toilets, and rain storms travel through New York City’s sewers to be filtered and disinfected. A highlight of the trip is seeing the digester eggs, eight massive steel structures that process organic material called “sludge,” breaking it down into reusable materials such as fertilizer and biogas.

For another vantage point on the water system, the class also ventures north to Westchester County to see a historical source of New York City’s drinking water. A tour of the 300-foot-tall New Croton Dam and the underground tunnels of the Old Croton Aqueduct—“straight out of a horror movie,” one student quipped after a bat swooped overhead during this semester’s trip— tell the story of the 1830s engineering project that used gravity to carry drinking water more than 40 miles to New York City. (The city’s thirst grew with its population, and now we get water from the Catskills, too.)

At a stop at the Hilltop Hanover Farm, located in the Croton Watershed, the conversation turns to how farming practices and land stewardship upstate influences New York City’s water quality, and students try their hand at collecting and testing water samples.

“It’s a fun way of connecting what’s happening upstate and upstream, and how it services us downstream and our needs in the city,” says Schneider Paolantonio.

The class also considers what lies beneath on an excursion to Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery that fosters discussions about the quality of urban soil and the interaction between humans (living and dead) and dirt. The final field trip of the semester brings students to an active construction site on the East River, where they learn about storm surges and underground efforts to improve coastal resiliency. 

The course, which often generates a wait list, attracts students from a range of schools and disciplines, including environmental studies and biology majors in the College of Arts and Science, Steinhardt science education majors, and Gallatin students, who bring different perspectives to the classroom but share a passion for environmental justice. Graduates have gone on to careers in clean energy and shaping policy in the New York City Mayor’s office.

“When I think about the courses I took in college, the ones that I remember most were the ones where I was doing something,” reflects Schneider Paolantonio. “I love that connection to the real world.”