Nineteen Reservoirs

Thirty years ago, Low Life appeared to universal acclaim and secured Luc Sante's status as the author of that cult classic of alternative New York City history. Now, he returns with another sidelong NYC history-here, the making of the upstate reservoir system that reliably supplies one of the world's greatest metropolises with its fresh water, and without which the city would almost certainly have faded into insignificance. This meticulously detailed book is both an immersive history and a meditation on the significance of these willed-from-nature bodies of water to the city-past, present, and future.

“"The prose is crystalline and the pages are richly illuminated with maps, adverts, and period photography... The visual matter serves to further accentuate the intractable issue at the heart of this book: how to help an urban population without utterly destroying a rural one." -- The Chicago Reader "[A] rewarding study [of] the history of New York City's reservoirs and the displacement that followed the city's increasing demand for water . . . well-crafted prose, rich archival illustrations, and eye-catching photographs of the reservoirs make this memorable. The chronicle is anything but dry." -- Publishers Weekly”

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.--Dwight Garner, The New York Times
I would recommend Nineteen Reservoirs.--Darryl Pinckney, Vanity Fair
Lucy Sante is an essential guide into the underreported history of cities around the world. For her new book, Nineteen Reservoirs, she explores something that you might not have thought about prior to now: at what cost did New York City get its supply of fresh water? It's a fascinating look at the effect this process had on the Hudson River Valley and the communities based there, then and now.-- "InsideHook"

Luc Sante was born in Verviers, Belgium, and is the author of six books, his 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, and, most recently, Maybe the People Would Be the Times. He 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.

Tim Davis studied photography at Bard College, graduating in 1991. His work is in the collections of the Guggenheim, Whitney, Brooklyn, and Metropolitan Museums in New York; the Milwaukee Museum of Art; the High Museum of Art, Atlanta; the Baltimore Museum; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC; and numerous others.

Thirty years ago, Low Life appeared to universal acclaim and secured Luc Sante's status as the author of that cult classic of alternative New York City history. Now, he returns with another sidelong NYC history-here, the making of the upstate reservoir system that reliably supplies one of the world's greatest metropolises with its fresh water, and without which the city would almost certainly have faded into insignificance. This meticulously detailed book is both an immersive history and a meditation on the significance of these willed-from-nature bodies of water to the city-past, present, and future.

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