Remembering the Croton Reservoir

As I get older I find myself fascinated by things that would have bored me stiff as a kid and, if I was a normal adult, would bore me now.

One of those odd things is water -- I'm obsessed with the connection between water and power, how water shapes the destinies of cities and their people, and about the simple fact that irrigation, aqueducts, reservoirs and the delivery of clean water to the masses is one of mankind's greatest achievements. 

I've blogged about this several times. 

For NYC, a city of nearly 9 million people, the city delivers gargantuan amounts of water to the populi every day. It comes from reservoirs from upstate, down through water tunnels, into reservoirs, and, finally, into our taps. One of those reservoirs is smack dab in the middle of Central Park -- it's so famous that it's even become a movie star.

The original NYC reservoir was the Collect Pond in lower Manhattan but, by 1838, as the city's population grew, it became polluted. A jail called "The Tombs" was eventually built on top of it. That triggered the building of a new, much better constructed reservoir in the heart of Manhattan -- 42nd street and 5th avenue, right where the flagship branch of the New York Public Library exists today.

Called the Croton Reservoir (because, I believe, the water came from Croton upstate,) it was a massive, almost fortress like thing covering 4-acres and containing 180 millions gallons of water. This reservoir was a fascinating thing to see and it kept the city hydrated until the late 1890s when it was dismantled. By 1902, it was a gone -- and a new public library in the new 5-borough NYC was built in its place.

All in all, the Croton Reservoir's lifespan was short and obviously no one alive today remembers it. But for a time, at a key moment of the city's history, it stood proudly and magnificently at one of the city's most important intersections -- and it literally kept NYC alive.