Water Tower, Building 45 (site) (New Rochelle, New York)

USA / New York / New Rochelle / New Rochelle, New York
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Building 45 was the last of several major improvements to the water-supply system at Davids Island. Until the early 1880s, those living on the island relied on several sources of water of doubtful reliability and quality. Among these were a freshwater pond on the eastern side of the island, a number of shallow wells, and rainwater captured in cisterns.

These diverse sources were largely abandoned with the development of a water-supply system designed by the post’s quartermaster, Capt. George Cook, in the early 1880s. A brick water tower on a rocky knoll on the southern edge of the present Battery Haskin-Overton (Buildings 125-127), the post’s late nineteenth-century coastal mortar battery, provided the system with essential storage capacity and the elevation for gravity-pressure. Erected in 1884, the brick tower had less than half the capacity (47,000 gallons) of the later steel Water Tower. In Cook’s design, the brick tower was supplied by water pumped from two deep wells located in the northern section of the Parade Ground, but these were in use for no more than a decade or so. Indeed, as early as 1890, the post was beginning to abandon the wells and had been connected to New Rochelle’s municipal system via a pipeline running under the channel between Davids Island and the mainland.

By around 1900, the quality and reliability of New Rochelle’s municipal water was apparently highly reliable, and it was the exclusive source of water for the post. Despite the general reliability of New Rochelle’s municipal water supply, there are occasional reports of disruptions to the pipeline that connected the post to the mainland. For instance, in 1940 the post had limited water service for some days after the pipeline was struck by a 1,000-pound buoy anchor inadvertently dropped on it by a government lighthouse tender. The submarine water main was last replaced in 1951.

Fort Slocum Architectural Documentation Volume 3, Part 1 of 2: davidsisland.westchesterarchives.com/index.php?option=c...
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Coordinates:   40°53'14"N   73°46'14"W

Comments

  • This structure was torn down September 9, 2008. It was the last remaining structure.
  • Photo #1 shows the tower as it appeared in November 1939. National Archives, College Park, MD photo.
This article was last modified 15 years ago