Until 1898, Brooklyn was a separate city from New York and tried to remain as independent as possible. That included where it got its water; while the City of New York had access to the excellent Croton Aqueduct, Brooklyn had to look elsewhere. The Bronx River was too hard to reach and streams on Long Island were insufficient, so instead the city turned inward, linking various Brooklyn streams and wells and sending the water to a newly built elevated reservoir located along the Brooklyn-Queens border. The reservoir was constructed between…
