The Last of the Handmade Dams: The Story of the Ashokan Reservoir

by Bob Steuding

The Last of the Handmade Dams tells the story of building New York City's first great Catskill Mountain Resevoir, largely built by pick-and-shovel work. It was a triumph of engineering but with... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0935796002
• ISBN13: 9780935796001
• Release Date: April 1989
• Publisher: Purple Mountain Press
• Length: 128 Pages
• Weight: 0.25 lbs.

Customer Reviews

New York State History, Done Well

This is a great book that tells the story of how the City of New York literally had an entire valley stripped clean to build a reservoir for drinking water. The Esopus River Valley in the Catskill Mountains, about 100 Miles north of New York City was chosen as the site for the reservoir. A really easy read, this book explains all of the challenges the engineers and workers faced. Displacing entire towns, removing every living thing, and the graveyards too, is an amazing story! Historically accurate and filled with colorful stories, this book is really great for anyone interested in history.

"Open the Dam Road"

The title of my review is a headline recently printed in a local newspaper. Fears of terrorism have caused the powers protecting the reservoir to close one of the roads around it. I enjoyed the book because of the background information, especially the politics of the building of the great reservoir. From one who sees the reservoir fairly often, it's a great story. The author manages to resurrect the drowned villages to the best of his ability. The book is a quick read. More!!!

Good Book

The book was good. It is interesting to learn about the villages that were destroyed