Editing Jacob Riis (section)

===Public works===
A particularly important effort by Riis was his exposure of the condition of New York's water supply. His five-column story "Some Things We Drink", in the August 21, 1891, edition of the New York ''Evening Sun'', included six photographs (later lost). Riis wrote:

{{blockquote|I took my camera and went up in the watershed photographing my evidence wherever I found it. Populous towns sewered directly into our drinking water. I went to the doctors and asked how many days a vigorous cholera bacillus may live and multiply in running water. About seven, said they. My case was made.}}<!-- http://www.msaiki.com/free.Press.3dp.doc -->

The story resulted in the purchase by New York City of areas around the [[New Croton Reservoir]], and may well have saved New Yorkers from an epidemic of [[cholera]].<ref>Alland, p. 34, in which the passage by Riis (its own source unidentified) appears; Ware pp.&nbsp;82–84.</ref>

Riis tried hard to have the slums around [[Five Points, Manhattan|Five Points]] demolished and replaced with a park. His writings resulted in the Drexel Committee investigation of unsafe tenements; this resulted in the Small Park Act of 1887. Riis was not invited to the eventual opening of the park on June 15, 1897, but went all the same, together with [[Lincoln Steffens]]. In the last speech, the street cleaning commissioner credited Riis for the park and led the public in giving him three cheers of "Hooray, Jacob Riis!" Other parks also were created, and Riis was popularly credited with them as well.<ref>Alland, p. 35</ref>