Ridgewood Reservoir

Ridgewood Reservoir is a decommissioned 19th century reservoir that sits on the Brooklyn–Queens border within New York City and is part of Highland Park. The reservoir itself is actually on the Queens side of the border in the neighborhood of Glendale. The reservoir and park are bounded on the north by the Jackie Robinson Parkway, on the south by Highland Boulevard, on the west by the backyards of homes on Bulwer Place and on the east by Cypress Hills National Cemetery.

Ridgewood Reservoir was built by the City of Brooklyn, New York, which was rapidly outgrowing its local water supplies. The original design of the Ridgewood Reservoir as well as the final specifications for the Brooklyn Water Works system was designed by Brooklyn civil engineer, Samuel McElroy. This original design called for three basins, however, later engineer J.P. Kirkwood altered the designs and instead built a double basin. The new double reservoir was built in Snediker's Cornfield on a hilltop near Evergreen Cemetery in what was once part of Ridgewood, Queens (this section of Queens is now part of Glendale) and was sealed by puddling with clay and paving with stones. Ground was broken for the reservoir on July 11, 1856 and water was first raised on November 18, 1858.

In 1862, the water supply for the reservoir consisted of six dammed streams in what is now Queens and Nassau Counties: Jamaica Stream (Baisley Pond), Simonson’s Stream, Clear Stream, Valley Stream, Pine’s Stream, and Hempstead Stream (Hempstead Lake). This water was carried in a 12-mile-long masonry conduit, called the Ridgewood Aqueduct, to a pumping station at Atlantic Avenue and Chestnut Street near the City Line. There, steam-powered pumps, each with a capacity of 14 million gallons per day, forced the water up through a reinforced tube into the high reservoir whence it was distributed. By 1868 the Ridgewood Reservoir held an average of 154.4 million gallons daily, enough to supply the City of Brooklyn for ten days at that time.

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