Between 1906 and 1913, New York City built the Ashokan Reservoir, one of the era’s the largest handmade public works. Using eminent domain, pack mules and dynamite, the city totally altered the region’s profile, buying up and razing eleven Catskill hamlets, relocating thousands, and eventually exhuming 2,700 graves. “It was one of the most gruesomest interesting jobs I’ve ever worked on,” one teamster recalled. Today the reservoir provides around 40% of New York City’s drinking water, and raises questions still about the relationship between NYC and the Hudson Valley, what it means to share natural resources, and the cost of progress.

On February 13 at 8 p.m. and The Avalon Lounge, The Moral Panic Variety Hour plumbs the various depths of the reservoir: Though silent films; an interview with local author and historian Frank Almquist; music from Will Lawrence; a live reenactment of the severe thunderstorm that first flooded the reservoir in November 1914, with soundscapes by musician / writer Ben Seretan; and a rare performance from The Dead Cowboys, a group of restless musical spirits who reside at the bottom of the watery pit itself.