New York. America’s largest city. Here is how a mostly unseen network of infrastructure systems works in unison to keep the city breathing.

New York has long been known as one of the rattiest cities in America with some estimating close to 2 million rodents roam its streets. Both city workers and residents have been waging a never-ending battle against these four-legged friends. Here is how New York City rats out its rodents.

Rats

The yellow taxi cab is the quintessential New York City ride. What started as a small fleet of cars nearly 100 years ago, has turned into a bustling system of thousands of yellow taxi cabs. But now the threat of ride-share apps and city scandal has left cab drivers in thousands of dollars of debt.

Taxis

Many things come to mind when thinking about New York City, but how the city deals with its garbage is usually not one of them. New Yorkers produce over 14 million tons of trash each year - and a combination of city agencies and private companies work daily to haul away what New Yorkers don't want.

Trash

Underneath the ground of New York's fabled streets exists a vast network of pipes that make up the city's sewer system. New Yorkers create, on average, 1.3 billion gallons of wastewater per day that makes its way through these 7,500 miles of pipes.

Sewage

Many don't know it, but New York is a city that runs on steam. 27 billion pounds of it per year, in fact. It's one of the few cities that relies on the old, but reliable, technology to heat some of its most famous buildings.

Steam

New York City has some of the most iconic bridges in the world like the Brooklyn Bridge and the George Washington Bridge. These engineering marvels have helped set the tone for how bridges around the world are designed. Here is how New York builds and maintains its aging bridges.

Bridges

New York City might be known as the concrete jungle, but its parks have been an ever-present part of this bustling metropolis from the beginning. The city's 30,000 acres of parks serve as an escape for New Yorkers and serve the city itself in many unseen ways.

Parks

New York has one of the busiest airspaces in the world. Here is how New York's airports have evolved to handle 140 million passengers each year.

Airports

Keeping the lights on in New York City is no easy task and as New York moves towards a greener future how we generate electricity will have to evolve.

Electricity

Getting water from upstate reservoirs to the taps of over 8.5 million people in New York City is no easy feat. From purification, through thousands of miles of underground tunnels, this is how New York City gets its water.