Nineteen Reservoirs: On Their Creation and the Promise of Water for New York City

Now in paperback: 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...