Manhole covers: a window into a city’s soul – in pictures

Jeff Kulak was a teenage urban explorer, spending his high school years below ground exploring the storm drains of his hometown of Edmonton, Alberta. “We even went to the city’s drainage office and asked for a map of the system – which they gave us,” he says.

Years later and 300km further south, Kulak has come nearly full circle: he’s a designer of Calgary’s new manhole covers, to be phased in by the city from September. “I definitely felt like there was a funny kind of connection,” says the artist.

The public art project was devised by Calgary to highlight its cherished water treatment system. Kulak designed the wastewater cover, while fellow artists Mary Haasdyk and Andrea Williamson took on drinking water and stormwater respectively.

“I think it shows the importance that we place on the watershed,” says Randy Niessen, the head of the city’s public art programme. A substantial amount of Calgary’s water comes from the Bow river, featured in all three of its new designs. The covers are reminiscent of Japan’s highly detailed, painted manhole covers, which have been well catalogued online.

Most manhole covers feature a geometric pattern and the name of the city and/or the utility that lies beneath – sewer, electric, telephone and so on. Sometimes the name of the foundry or the country of manufacture is shown.

Not many cities see value in beautifying such a utilitarian hunk of metal. Drainspotters – as people united by a niche fascination with manhole cover design are sometimes called – would disagree.

Jon Schladweiler is among them. He was the chief engineer and deputy director of Arizona’s Pima County Wastewater Management for 40 years. Now retired, his business cards read simply “sewer historian”. He manages the SewerHistory.org website as well as a travelling exhibition dedicated to sewerage systems.

Schladweiler dates manhole covers back to the days of Mohenjo-daro, a settlement in southern Pakistan built around 2500 BCE. The people there built a drainage system – first open-top, then covered – to move wastewater away from their homes. “That combination of the structure beneath and the larger removable stones above are the historical basis for manholes,” Schladweiler says.

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The Romans, too, built extensive drainage systems, covering the holes with vented stones. They even had a goddess of the sewers named Cloacina, who was immortalised in a poem by Byron.These systems existed throughout the Roman empire until its fall in the Middle Ages, after which they fell into disrepair. Centuries of plagues, disease and famine followed the empire’s decline. “A lot of it was related to poor sanitation,” says Schladweiler.

It was only during the Industrial Revolution that increasingly crowded and polluted European cities again took up the mantle of creating extensive drainage systems. By 1878, Paris had a sewer network more than 600km long.

The trend promptly moved to the Americas, but the sewer grates weren’t yet quite perfect. Only after a few too many people and horses slipped and fell on the smooth iron plates did cities realise that manhole covers need traction, says Schladweiler. That is why most have words and patterns embossed on them.

Modern manhole covers can last more than 100–150 years, and there are some from the 19th century that are still in use. Today, most are produced in China or India.

Tom Leonard, the president of Quebec’s Bibby-Ste-Croix foundry, is trying to interest more cities in decorative manhole covers for a very strategic reason: offshore foundries struggle to produce and ship them in short order. “The importers eat a little bit of our cheese every year,” he says. “The short delivery is basically why we’re still alive.”

With roots that trace back to 1800, Bibby-Ste-Croix and sister company Fonderie Laperle are two of a small handful that continue to produce manhole covers in Canada. Their factories near Montreal and Quebec City pump out about 30,000 each year, to meet demand in the eastern half of the country.

Though Bibby-Ste-Croix offers decorative covers at no extra cost, Leonard’s efforts to convince cities of their worth remain slowgoing. A manhole cover and frame might go for £175–£235 in Canada; after freight is factored in, Chinese or Indian factories can undercut that price by 20%. Leonard says that’s because they don’t abide by the same environmental, health and safety regulations his foundries do. In Calcutta some workers often don’t even wear shoes, and air quality is poor at best.

Another point of difference: unlike those made in Asia, these manhole covers still display the Bibby-Ste-Croix name and logo, says Leonard. “It’s just a matter of pride to put your name on it.”

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