Nineteen Reservoirs: On Their Creation and the Promise of Water for New York City
Aug 2022 · The Experiment, LLC
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About this ebook
Without the nineteen upstate reservoirs that supply its water, New York City as we know it would not exist today.
“[Sante] is an endlessly curious writer with a sharp wit and an elegant prose style . . . As a physical object, the book is a stunner, loaded with maps, archival stills of the construction process, vintage postcards, and ads warning New Yorkers to check their plumbing and ‘stop that leak!’”—The Wall Street Journal 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 City’s ever-increasing need for water, sustaining its inhabitants and cementing it as a center of industry. West of the Hudson, it meant that twenty-six 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 Sante’s 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 City’s reservoir system and helps us understand the full import of its creation.
An essential history of the New York City region that will reverberate far beyond it, Nineteen Reservoirs examines universal divisions in our resources and priorities—between urban and rural, rich and poor, human needs and animal habitats. This is an unmissable account of triumph, tragedy, and unintended consequences.
With 29 present-day photographs by Tim Davis
“[Sante] is an endlessly curious writer with a sharp wit and an elegant prose style . . . As a physical object, the book is a stunner, loaded with maps, archival stills of the construction process, vintage postcards, and ads warning New Yorkers to check their plumbing and ‘stop that leak!’”—The Wall Street Journal 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 City’s ever-increasing need for water, sustaining its inhabitants and cementing it as a center of industry. West of the Hudson, it meant that twenty-six 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 Sante’s 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 City’s reservoir system and helps us understand the full import of its creation.
An essential history of the New York City region that will reverberate far beyond it, Nineteen Reservoirs examines universal divisions in our resources and priorities—between urban and rural, rich and poor, human needs and animal habitats. This is an unmissable account of triumph, tragedy, and unintended consequences.
With 29 present-day photographs by Tim Davis
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5.0
1 review
Joseph Nocella
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September 16, 2024
I enjoyed the book, and love the authors other works. I was hoping for more technical details. There is a lot of material on the process for reimbursing landowners, and a lot of information about water meters. I read it during a bike tour of the Catskills, so it was amazing to be rightvat the locations depicted in the book.
About the author
Lucy Sante was born in Verviers, Belgium, and is the author of ten books, her first being Low Life (FSG, 1991). Sante’s other books include Evidence, The Factory of Facts, Kill All Your Darlings, The Other Paris, Folk Photography, Maybe the People Would Be the Times, and I Heard Her Call My Name. She is the recipient of a Whiting Award, Guggenheim and Cullman fellowships, an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Grammy (for album notes), and an Infinity Award for Writing from the International Center of Photography. Sante has contributed to the New York Review of Books since 1981 and to many other publications. She recently retired after twenty-four years teaching at Bard College.
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