Nineteen Reservoirs

(Paperback)

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Description

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, 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.

Reviews

A Washington Post Best Nonfiction Book of 2022

An Indie Bestseller

"Sante's writing has an unmistakable and addictive tone. . . . Nineteen Reservoirs is a beautiful object--the period photographs and postcards are expertly reproduced and glow with feeling, and the book concludes with an apposite photo essay by Tim Davis.

Author Bio

Lucy Sante was born in Verviers, Belgium, and is the author of ten books, her first being Low Life. 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.