24 JULY 19, 2018 RIDGEWOOD TIMES WWW.QNS.COM
OUR NEIGHBORHOOD: THE WAY IT WAS
The life and rebirth of the
Ridgewood Reservoir
BY THE OLD TIMER
EDITORIAL@RIDGEWOODTIMES.COM
@RIDGEWOODTIMES
Last week, we looked at how our
neighborhood’s earliest settlers
found the water they needed to
live. This week, we take a look at the
Ridgewood Reservoir, the heart of
Brooklyn’s fi rst reliable water system,
which also lent its name to the community
that grew nearby.
The Ridgewood Reservoir was developed
on 105 acres of farmland purchased
from Isaac Snedeker located
near Cypress Hills Cemetery, about a
quarter-mile west of Fresh Pond Road
(now Cypress Hills Street) and south
of Cypress Avenue.
About 48 acres of the Snedeker
Farm formed a natural basin and rose
about 150 feet above sea level. In fact,
the reservoir’s location is at one of the
highest points on geographic Long
Island, atop a moraine formed by Ice
Age glaciers eons ago.
Location of the reservoir was
important, as the gravity-fed system
allowed water to fl ow naturally from
the high reservoir down through the
distribution system running below
Brooklyn streets. At its peak, the reservoir
would hold 150 million gallons
of water, providing enough water to
Brooklyn residents to last them at least
10 days.
A smaller, secondary reservoir
holding about 20 million gallons was
built in Flatbush Hills, about 175 feet
above sea level.
The plan include constructing an
iron pipeline 36 inches in diameter
and fi ve miles long connecting the
Ridgewood Reservoir to the distribution
system; the pipe generally ran
along Cypress Avenue to Vermont
Avenue, then proceeded further into
Brooklyn.
A strip of land leading south from
the main reservoir to Elderts Lane was
acquired to install a 36-inch diameter,
3,400-foot-long iron-clad force tube
pumping water into the reservoir
from a long, covered aqueduct (or
File photo/RIDGEWOOD TIMES
conduit) running along what eventually
became Rockaway Boulevard.
Looking on a map of Brooklyn and
Queens today, we see constant reminders
of the Ridgewood Reservoir system,
including Force Tube Avenue in Cypress
Hills, Conduit Avenue through
Brooklyn and Queens and Aqueduct
Racetrack.
The covered aqueduct/conduit
ran through south Queens and was
connected to pumping stations developed
near the spring-fed Baisley Pond,
about six miles east of the reservoir.
The aqueduct continued along what
would later become Sunrise Highway
into present-day Nassau County and
connect to another water source for
the reservoir: the Hempstead Lakes
at present-day Hempstead Lake
State Park.
The four ponds at Baisley and
Hempstead were capable of producing
25 million gallons of water a day. The
conduit would later terminate at a
water source near the Suff olk County
town of Wyandanch, which was then
called “Ridgewood.”
Within two years of the project’s
start, developer H.S. Wells and
The late-afternoon sun over the Ridgewood Reservoir in this photo taken back in January 2008.
File photo/RIDGEWOOD TIMES
Local elected offi cials held a ribbon cutting in October 2013 marking the
completion of renovations to the exterior of the Ridgewood Reservoir
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