
Nineteen Reservoirs: On Their Creation and the Promise of Water for New York City by Lucy Sante
Acclaimed author Lucy Sante’s “eye-opening tale of the greed and corruption but also diplomacy and ingenuity” (The Washington Post) involved in the creation of the upstate reservoir system that makes New York City’s existence possible—but irreparably altered rural ecosystems and communities 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