"...for the hundreds of poor people in Georgetown..."

Always on display at the DC Public Library's Washingtoniana Division at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library is a bound volume of the National Intelligencer and The Evening Star newspapers from 200 and 100 years ago respectively.  They are opened to the front pages so patrons can read what was uppermost on the minds of Washingtonians exactly two centuries and one century ago.

With illustrations virtually non-existent in early 19th century newspapers (other than an occasional wood-cut), the turning of the pages of each day's Star is always guaranteed to result in something visual of interest.

Last week while turning the pages of the November 18, 1911 issue a photograph of the High Service Reservoir jumped out at me on page 9 of the newspaper's first section.  Constructed 1859-1865, the 120 ft wide by 50 ft. high reservoir was designed by Army Corps of Engineers Lt. Montgomery C. Meigs and provided water to Georgetowners until 1896 when a larger reservoir in Tenleytown opened.

By 1911 Georgetowners perhaps started to think of this hulking brick structure as an eyesore and started entertaining "adaptive resue" options.  Thus was this suggestion made by Col. Spencer Cosby, U.S.A., Superintendent of Public Buildings and Grounds, to the Georgetown Citizens' Association (today's Citizens Association of Georgetown).

"I would suggest that your association ask the water department to turn the site of the old high-pressure reservoir at Wisconsin avenue and R street over to the park superintendent.  I have no doubt it would do it gladly.  My idea then would be to place a substantial roof over the old reservoir and let it be used alternately as a bandstand and as a place for the hundreds of poor people in Georgetown to enjoy summertime breezes.  It would be a unique, unusual park reservation, and highly useful and attractive one at that." 

Obviously Col. Cosby's suggestion was not carried out for the reservoir sat unused for the next 21 years.  An interior photograph of the reservoir housed in the Peabody Room shows the inside walls covered with grafitti from the likes of Henry Coppertthite (March 17, 1926) and James Hughes (1932).

Shortly after James displayed his moniker demolition on the reservoir began for construction of the Georgetown branch of the DC Public Library, opened in 1935.  All that remains of the reservoir is the original 1859 stone retaining wall and 1871 iron fence along Wisconsin Avenue.