Description

Without the nineteen upstate reservoirs that supply its water New York City as we know it would not exist today

From 1907 to 1967 a network of reservoirs and aqueducts was built across more than one million acres in upstate New York including Greene Delaware Sullivan and Ulster Counties This feat of engineering served to meet New York Citys everincreasing need for water sustaining its inhabitants and cementing it as a center of industry West of the Hudson it meant that twentysix villages with their farms forest lands orchards and quarries were bought for a fraction of their value demolished and submerged profoundly altering ecosystems in ways we will never fully appreciate

This paradox of victory and loss is at the heart of Nineteen Reservoirs Lucy Santes meticulous account of how New York City secured its seemingly limitless fresh water supply and why it cannot be taken for granted In inimitable form Sante plumbs the historical record to surface forgotten archives and images bringing lost places back to life on the page Her immaculately calibrated sensitivity honors both perspectives on New York Citys reservoir system and helps us understand the full import of its creation