Altogether, there are five pumping stations, ninety-two miles of tunnels, and a hundred and forty-seven miles of open aqueducts, buried conduits, and siphons.
Despite the white blaring sun, people do not really wear sunglasses, and sewage flows in an open aqueduct-looking stream below the level of the street, with little three or four foot wide bridges spanning the gap of maybe six feet for people to cross from the street to the little alleys.
They say the Catskill casino, with slot machines as well as roulette, blackjack and poker tables, would almost certainly wipe out the nearby racino at Monticello Raceway and lure customers from the Yonkers, Saratoga and soon-to-open Aqueduct racinos.
Slots are set to open at Aqueduct in the fourth quarter of 2004, and they will most likely pump millions into purses.
Committee members will hash over a number of issues, the most important of which involves something that has little to do with thoroughbred racing itself: the 4,500 video slot machines that will open at Aqueduct Race Track in January 2007, and that could one day be at Belmont Park and maybe even Saratoga Race Course.
But what is indisputable is that casinos opening at Aqueduct and a growing number of racetracks have recalibrated the age-old economic equations of the horse-racing game.
The Omni facility would resemble the Resorts World facility that opened at Aqueduct racetrack in Queens in October with some 5,000 video "slot machines" and electronic games, including baccarat tables managed by robotic dealers.
Since a casino opened at Aqueduct late last year, offering vastly richer prizes, 30 horses have died racing there, a 100 percent increase in the fatality rate over the same period the previous year.
That closure will remain in place until November so the DWP can fulfill obligations such as dust mitigation on Owens Lake, which dried up after the city water agency opened the aqueduct in 1913.
Aqueduct opens on the thirteenth.
Since a casino opened last fall at Aqueduct, 30 horses have died at that meeting in New York, a 100 percent increase in the fatality rate over the same period the previous year.
