Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir

The Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir was created long before Central Park itself was fully realized. In the mid nineteenth century, city planners and engineers recognized that the growing metropolis required a massive, reliable source of clean water. They integrated a giant receiving basin into their early designs for the landscape, choosing this specific site to hold over one billion gallons of water brought in by the Croton Aqueduct system. By the time it was completed in 1862, it functioned as the city's primary water hub, a critical piece of infrastructure hidden within what would become the most famous public park in the world.