I watch a lot of film noir movies from the 1930’s-40’s. In them cityscapes frequently show buildings with water towers on the roofs.
Now, you scarcely see these water towershave the disappeared because city water systems now have better pressure?
There used to be lots of stories about crooks being chased across the rooftops-and you always saw these structures (water towers) looming out of the darkness.
Another bit of history gone?
They’re all still there. You just can’t easily see them from the ground. Sometimes they’re hidden in a shed on the roof, or in very large buildings, inside a top mechanical floor.
AIUI, water is pumped into holding tanks in skyscrapers, which have them contained within the building. The tanks being internal, you wouldn’t see water towers on modern buildings.
ISTR hearing about a law in New York City requiring that existing water towers be preserved as historical icons for which the city is known. It may have just been a proposal, and not a law. I don’t remember.
Engineers have gone to using multiple smaller tanks. Sometimes on the roof other times on one of the top floors. Multi-tank systems have many advantages over having one huge tank on top. Such as, maintenance. If one tank springs a leak you can shut it off individually rather then shutting water down for the whole building.
IIRC, typical city water pressure is only good for building of about 5 stories. After that you have to have a pumping system or tanks to get adequate pressure throughout the building. As others have said, the architects have addressed the problem. The tanks and pressure systems are there, it’s just that they get disguised.
On Dirty Jobs, the host spent a day replacing one of those tanks on an apartment building and they filmed around the area and it looked like every building higher than a few floors had one. Google image search for ‘New Your rooftop’ shows some in the first few hits:
My wife and I were in NYC for a couple of days last fall, and you could see water tanks from our hotel room (just south of Central Park).
The company featured on that episode of Dirty Jobs - Rosenwach Tank Co. - has the entire show segment featured on their site. The early part of the segment shows a number of aerial views, highlighting lots of these tanks.