User:ARothmaler/sandbox

created 11/5/2021

2nd edit 4/10/23-4/11/23 Slight text editing

This is mostly not cited as of yet, but is based on info I recall while looking this up a few times in the past.

The Sunrise Aqueduct formerly ran from Ridgewood, Brooklyn to Massapequa.

Reservoirs/Ponds to feed water to the City of Brooklyn were linked together by the Sunrise Aqueduct, which ran from Massapequa into Brooklyn. It was constructed between 1890 and 1890, and enlarged in 1900.

It stopped (started) at Massapequa, as there were difficulties getting permissions to continue the reach of the aqueduct on into Suffolk County, which was concerned about it's own water supply. (Don't remember where I read this.) (This was when Nassau County was still part of Queens County, before the western half of Queens became part of NYC.)

The Ridgewood Reservoir, in what is now Highland Park in Brooklyn, and now a small returned-to-nature pond, held the delivered water for the city. A pump house pushed the water uphill (over the 'Cypress Hills' glacial ridge) and into the reservoir. This uphill section ran along the appropriately named Force Tube Road. It ran to the pump house along land on what is now Conduit Boulevard and parallel to the LIRR right-of-way, and on land that became the Sunrise Hiighway, which was built in 1925. Brooklyn water owned a good deal of land along the path of the aqueduct and it's water sources.

Ponds and pumping stations existed or were created by damming local streams to feed the aquaduct along it's route. The most monumental of the constructions was probably the Brooklyn Waterworks Milburn Pumping Station in the village of Freeport, on the border with Baldwin, where one of the reservoir ponds was also located.

From the Dooley article on the Milburn Creek property, from flickr: (April 2009.)

"This 22-acre freshwater Brookside preserve provides a peaceful setting of woods and water, along with a series of brief trails, some of which are covered with boardwalks. The woods feature red maple, white oak and cherry trees, along with numerous bird species such as the wood thrush and tufted titmouse. The pretty Milburn Creek meanders through the preserve, offering clear water and a sand and pebble bed

The history of the property dates to the late 17th century, when John Pine received permission to operate a grist mill at Milburn and Merrick roads. At that time, the creek that runs through the preserve was dammed to form the body of water known today as Milburn Pond. In the 1880s, this property, along with several other Long Island streams, was purchased by the City of Brooklyn to supply water to its growing population.

To help the water along, a large pumping station was erected on the Freeport-Baldwin border. The Milburn Pumping Station in Freeport turned out to be one of the most extraordinary and beautiful industrial structures ever built on Long Island. Frank Freeman, a Brooklynite and a master of Romanesque revival architecture, was commissioned to design the 300-foot-long pumping structure.

Work began on the conduits and pumping station in 1890. By the end of the next year, the pumping station was almost completed and its equipment was tested. Unfortunately, there was still a gap in the pipes at Rockville Centre and the huge surge of water inundated workers. But a week later the pumping station was pushing water to Brooklyn around the clock. By 1907 the system was supplying about 85 percent of the 145 million gallons a day consumed in Brooklyn.

The creation of Greater New York City in 1898 put the New York City Board of Water Supply in control. By 1917, a new Catskill aqueduct started 12 years before was supplying most of the city's water.

In the 1920s the city began paying Nassau County $80,000 a year in taxes for the water system property. To cut their tab, city officials suggested building a highway above their pipeline. The state Legislature authorized the plan, and the result was Sunrise Highway. It was dedicated on June 8, 1929.

The city also dedicated 2,200 acres in Nassau to the Long Island State Park Commission in 1925. This land would be transformed into the Southern State, Meadowbrook, Wantagh and Bethpage Parkways and Valley Stream and Hempstead Lake State Parks. While the city retained the right to pump water, its dependence on the old system continually dropped until it was used only in emergencies, the last time in a 1965-66 drought.

In 1977, when the system was obsolete, Nassau gained ownership of the pumping station. The county obtained the property around the station and 1,750 additional acres of watershed land four years later. The remaining water system property was purchased by the county in 1986.

Nassau considered using the pumping station for its public works department or an aviation museum. In 1986 it was sold to developer Gary Melius, who had restored the Otto Kahn mansion in Cold Spring Hills. A 1985 fire that destroyed much of the building has stalled restoration plans, but Melius is still hoping that he can convert the building into a nursing facility"

In what is now Wantagh, at the edge of Bellmore, a pumping station collected water from a pipe running south from the aqueduct and fanning out into a few smaller feeder branches, in a wooded swampy area around what is now the Mill Pond/Wantagh Parkway area. (I have a map of this saved somewhere I will attach.)

As a side note, Wantagh, which was formerly named Jerusalem, had a name change to Ridgewood around 1880, but this was later changed again to Wantagh, as another Ridgewood - the one with the reservoir? - already existed. Might be confusing with Ridgewood at both ends of this aquaduct?

Notes and links.

HistoricMapworks.com is a great site, where I found a bunch of these old maps.

Citation [3] - Bellmore is down in the bottom right of this map. The pipes to the right of Mill road fed a pump-house feeding the aquaduct, also shown on this map.

https://www.historicmapworks.com/Map/US/2417/Cederhurst++Williston+East++Glen+Head++Bellmore/Nassau+County+1906+Long+Island/New+York/

Some quick searches show:

https://untappedcities.com/2014/06/27/a-bike-tour-of-brooklyns-abandoned-water-infrastructure-with-nyc-h2o/ Reservior remnants, plus...

https://www.liherald.com/stories/valley-stream-historical-society-the-brooklyn-waterworks,89650 Visible portion of aquaduct in Valley Stream

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conduit_Avenue

https://www.liherald.com/stories/sunrise-highway-aqueduct-deemed-viable-host,93453 repurposing for sewage

http://waterlogus.blogspot.com/2015/05/brooklyn-water-supply-part-1.html Wantagh to massapequa walking tour - pics of spillways and ponds.

https://lihj.cc.stonybrook.edu/2011/articles/brooklyns-thirst-long-islands-water-consolidation-local-control-and-the-aquifer/ Stonybrook article Lots of listed references to look at here...

It even has a racetrack named after it.