Closing of Esopus Creek


This slide shows the Ashokan dam before the Esopus was closed out in 1913. My mother was 4 months old and lived a mile away from the dam when they began to fill the west basin. While filling the east basin, the west basin was used to test the aqueduct to New York. The water was driven down 126 miles through the Kensico holding reservoir entirely by gravity.

NYC Watershed Retrospective