Archive for August, 2008

Holy Water

In my search for the importance of water for New York City I ran into the amazingly friendly folks from The Ark of Salvation for the New Millennium church in west Harlem. They just happen to be doing a baptism in the Delaware river on the day I was traveling back to Ohio. The ceremony was surprisingly moving. At one point when everyone was singing and some folks were crying I felt tears start to form in my eyes. It was one of those moments when you get caught up in everything around you and the emotions of others seem to take over your own.

Key to Civilization


They say a number of civilizations that have faded into the history books have done so because of one thing, water.
After attempting to follow the source of the New York City water supply, I’m convinced that our country will do anything to keep its water flowing. New York City has bought up thousands of acres of land in the Catskills to protect the source of the city’s drinking water. Getting photographs of these giant reservoirs and all that goes into them has proven tricky because security it tight. I tried hard to get into a sewage treatment plant today but was lectured about the security precautions after September 11th. I understand the concern to protect water, but poop?
So with no good way of photographing the reservoirs, I climbed Wittenburg Mountain and made this image of Ashokan Reservoir. At full capacity the reservoir can hold approximately 122.9 billion gallons of water. According to a sign I read at another reservoir, NYC uses more than 1 billion gallons of water a day.

Coming to the Country

This beautiful young girl had come from New York City to visit the Atlantic Challenge boat builders in Rockland, Maine. Her group went out to lunch at Burger King and she came back wearing this hat. I couldn’t resist.