New York Reservoir Wipes Out Entire Town

What I am about to tell you is a story that blows my mind. It's about a New York town that was here one day and gone the next. Literally off the map. How does a town simply disappear?

Well, when the city of Manhattan is growing so fast that they need more water, the state invokes their "rights" and literally takes a town away from the 3000 people that lived there. That town was called Bittersweet and today it lies under 175 feet of water known as the Neversink Reservoir.

Neversink Reservoir - youtube.com - Drone Tours

How would you like to come home from work one day and find an eviction noticed nailed to your house? That is what happened to the people of Bittersweet. According to the YouTube video Catskills Oral History, residents had little time to get out yet the state took, in some cases, 2 years to pay them for their property.

This is what the town of Bittersweet, New York looked . Imagine all of that, the building, trees, everything, gone.
photo - public domain

Can you believe that homes, churches and bridges were demolished? Even the cemeteries were dug up with some bodies being relocated to a proper grave while others ended up in a common burial site.

Main Street in Bittersweet, New York.
photo - public domain

The resident's of Bittersweet's neighboring community, Neversink, were lucky because their entire town was relocated. Based on the first-hand accounts of former residents in the YouTube video Neversink Reservoir, some of the homes were literally lifted off of their foundations and relocated a short ride down state route 55.

public domain