Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir

Description

The JKO Reservoir covers 106 acres (43 ha) and holds over 1,000,000,000 US gallons (3,800,000 m³) of water. Though no longer used to distribute New York City's water supply, it provides water for the Pool and the Harlem Meer. It is a popular place of interest; arguably Central Park's main attraction. There is a 1.58-mile (2.54 km) jogging track around it and it is also encircled by the park's bridle trail. Bill Clinton, Madonna, and Mrs. Onassis have all run the track. It is often visited by tourists, especially when its double pink "Yoshino" cherries (Prunus x yedoensis), followed by Prunus serrulata 'Kanzan' cherries, are blooming. The rhododendrons along the "Rhusododendron Mile" were a gift to the city from Mrs Russell Sage, in 1909. It is one of the main ecological sanctuaries in the park, housing more than 20 species of waterbirds: aside from the familiar mallards and Canada geese, there may also be seen coots, mergansers, northern shovelers, ruddy ducks, buffleheads, loons, cormorants, wood ducks, American black ducks, gadwall, grebes, herons and egrets, along with various species of gulls, making it a popular venue for birdwatchers.

Design and Construction

The Reservoir was built between 1858 and 1862, to the design for Central Park of Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, who designed its two pumphouses of Manhattan schist with granite facings. It was never a collecting reservoir; it replaced the smaller, nearby Receiving Reservoir. It received water from the Croton Aqueduct and distributed it to Manhattan. It was decommissioned in 1993, after it was deemed obsolete because of a new main under 79th Street that connected with the Third Water Tunnel and because of growing concerns that it could become contaminated. Though deemed obsolete it remained a part of the NYC water supply and it was intended to be used to supplement the city's upstate water supply in drought emergencies. Papers were signed to allow for the transfer of the reservoir in 1999 from the Department of Environmental Protection to the Department of Parks and Recreation. The year 1999 was chosen because it is the projected completion date for a filtration plant at the Jerome Reservoir in the Bronx, which is part of the city's Croton water-supply system. The Jerome Water Filtration Plant was activated in 2015. Concern about the reservoir's future grew in spring 1992, and many people worried that the city would put turf over it as was done in the 1920s, when the adjacent Lower Reservoir was deemed obsolete. Today the Great Lawn rests on that reservoir's former site. An 1875 map of Central Park clearly shows the two reservoirs.

Renaming

It was renamed in honor of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in 1994 to commemorate her contributions to the city, (which included saving Grand Central Station from demolition and then renovating it to be an architectural landmark, protesting against the building of structures which would hinder Central Park’s beauty, and serving as a board member of the Municipal Art Society) and because she enjoyed jogging in the area, which lay beneath the windows of her 1040 Fifth Avenue apartment located on the Upper East Side.

In popular culture

The reservoir has featured in multiple works of art, entertainment, and media, such as:

In films

In television

In music