An Air of Permanent Mourning
The polarization between city and country is an old story, but now it is entrenched in the upstate communities that were sacrificed to provide water to the downstate metropolis.
Luc Sante
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This is the third installment in a four-part series on the reservoirs of upstate New York. Constructed to supply water to New York City, these feats of engineering exemplify the social compact that undergirds ambitious public infrastructures even as they intensify divisions between city and country, wealth and poverty.
Angler at Pepacton Reservoir, 2020. [Tim Davis]
New York City, its population ever expanding through the decades, continually needed more drinking water, having exhausted its local supply by the early 19th century. Between the 1830s and the end of that century, the Board of Water Supply built the Croton System of twelve reservoirs in Westchester County just north of the city, but construction barely kept pace with demand. As the 20th century da